We should not be surprised by resilience of the church (Contribution)

The church is much more robust than many commentators would have us believe.

IN THE midst of significant failures of leadership in our civic, political, fiscal and religious institutions, people have become cynical and disillusioned.

The dominant view abroad is that this disillusionment is most acute within the Catholic Church.

The supposition is that the “we” members of the church have lost confidence and trust in the “they” who are the leadership.

Commentators who are expert on “we” declare the church to be in terminal decline, a slump that is irredeemable. Such a view does not reflect how things actually are on the ground and the health of the church is much more robust than many commentators would have us believe.

The church has always numbered saints and sinners among its members. Sin has the unerring capacity to damage the Body of Christ and its virulent repercussions throughout the church cannot be ignored. But sin does not have the last say. Christ has conquered sin by His death and resurrection. Through the gift of His Spirit, the church continues to renew and reform; at grassroots level it is very much alive and planning for its future.

On June 8th last, in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Armagh, Cardinal Seán Brady and Bishop Gerard Clifford commissioned some 300 lay women and men who had undergone training to take up new leadership roles within the newly created pastoral areas throughout the archdiocese.

Cardinal Brady announced the new “diocesan aim” and promulgated the diocesan pastoral council constitution that will guide the unfolding of the pastoral plan. The membership of this council reflects all the states of life within the church but the vast majority are lay people.

The new pastoral areas will have clerical and lay leadership acting in unison as co-responsible for the pastoral life of their areas.

This is as it should be.

Other developments show how vibrant the church is in the cross-Border archdiocese of Armagh. More than 100 people completed a year’s study of theology at centres in Drogheda and in Armagh. Stringent child safeguarding reforms have been applied across the diocese with a host of volunteer laity acting in child-protection roles.

We should not be at all surprised by the resilience of the church. The life of the church is the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit and there is a divine guarantee she will not be left orphaned. However, church structures exist to serve and to protect the life of the church. They are not cast in stone and are subject to the laws of change and decay as is any human institution. Venerable structures that have been central to how the Irish church operated are no longer viable because these were heavily dependent on priests and religious whose numbers are in steep decline.

Just as new school trusts, largely under lay stewardship, have emerged to care for Catholic education, similar new realities will emerge to strengthen the life of faith in our dioceses and parishes. The creation of new pastoral areas is one such new structure.

The Swiss theologian Hans Urs Balthasar characterised the laity as a “sleeping giant” who needed to awaken and take up its rightful role within the life of the church.

We are on the threshold of that awakening.

Pope Benedict XVI, speaking in Rome in May 2009, reminded his clergy that laity must no longer be viewed as “collaborators” of the clergy but truly recognised as “co-responsible” for the life of the church.

We see the working out of that truth in the developments taking place in Armagh.

It augurs well for the future of the church in Armagh and in Ireland.

SIC: IT