After the sex-abuse scandal: What lies ahead? John C. Cavadini.

What are my hopes for the church in the aftermath of the sexual-abuse crisis? That question is easy to answer because the answer has already been given. I think Vatican II's vision of the church as the body of Christ in which all members, each in his or her own way, are called to the fullness of Christian life and to the perfection of charity, is our best hope. There is a fundamental equality in the universal call to holiness proclaimed by the council: "All share a true equality with regard to the dignity and activity common to all the faithful for the building up of the body of Christ."

With regard to the laity, the council held out a vision where those who work "in the world" are understood to be a kind of leaven for the sanctification of the world. This "secular" role, however, was not opposed to the "ecclesial" character of the laity. Rather, the language of "being in the world" parallels exactly language used about the church as a whole and of the Incarnation itself, Christ having entered this world to give witness to the truth. The laity is the church visible, the church par excellence in its function of witness, as bearer of the "Light of Nations." The laity are Christ in the world when they exercise Christ's priesthood by sacrificing the blandishments that every power structure tenders those who would sin against human dignity, and when, by exercising that role, they exercise as well Christ's prophetic office, permitting others to see through the hegemonic claims of those structures of oppression.

With regard to the hierarchy, specifically as ordained pastors, their role is turned inward, toward the service of the common priesthood of all believers, and for that reason is said to differ from the common priesthood "in essence." Acting in the "person of Christ the Head," priestly ministry mediates and makes present the priesthood of Christ so as to constitute the assembly as precisely themselves, the people of God and the body of Christ, and not the people of anyone else. The hierarchy's gift of "ruling" is part of its essentially mediatorial function, and thus in their obedience to the hierarchy the laity ideally are not working against their fundamental equality in dignity, but affirming it. I would hope for renewal in the church that achieves a balance, where the obedience of the laity is less likely to be experienced as self-erasure, and the "rule" of the hierarchy becomes more and more visibly the mediation to the community of the willingness of the Good Shepherd to "lay down his life" for the sheep.

What do I fear? Failure to implement this vision. The present scandal in the church has its origin partly in such a failure, in the fostering of aberrant clerical structures founded less on service and more on distance between high church authority and those obliged to submit to it. What is clericalism? It is the classic erasure of the laity's true equality in dignity as well as the erasure of the special dignity of the ministerial priesthood, by reducing the latter to the externals of a ruling clique oriented more toward building up its own privilege and prestige than toward serving the church as a whole. As we have seen, those structures can distance and muffle even the pleas of parents who are concerned about grave danger to their children. No one can hear--that is the essence of the scandal. Without the implementation of the vision of Vatican II, that deafness, if you will, can only grow, widening the gap between the laity and the lower clergy on the one hand, and the hierarchy on the other. In the old days this led to revolution or Reformation; now it is more likely to lead to a seeming debility of the whole church as the disillusioned simply drift away.

The best solutions, in my view, will emerge at the local level, from the sort of "dialogue" that Vatican II encourages "between the laity and their spiritual leaders." By explicitly enjoining dialogue in spiritual as well as temporal matters, the council affirmed the essentially ecclesial character of the laity, who are sometimes even "obliged" to express their opinion on any matter pertaining to the good of the church, while bishops are explicitly enjoined "not to refuse to listen." Successful local solutions can affect the whole church by example and inspiration. In dioceses where gross abuses have occurred and where the bishop has nurtured a culture of distance so great that the laity were treated with contempt, I can understand resorting temporarily to desperate measures such as the withholding of funds. But as a long-term strategy, and especially as a concerted and sustained action to force change, I fear such action becoming potentially schismatic and extortionist.

A better solution: Combat clericalism in the seminary. This does not mean downplaying the difference in essence between the ordained and the common priesthood (thus reducing both to something less than either individually). Training must make available to seminarians the true ideals of serving the people of God in the person of Christ the Head in order to inspire them beyond the sterile identity which is clericalism. This includes formation that roots out smugness toward the laity, fostering collaboration and the routine expectation that, among the layfolk, some may be more learned, more wise, more holy than priests themselves.

Another suggestion: Employ the gifts of the laity in all situations not essentially pertinent to the functions of the presbyterate or episcopacy. Why couldn't the president of a pontifical council, say of justice and peace, be a layman or laywoman? What about the staff of these councils? They are often ordained personnel who could be released for more suitable pastoral work. Even only a few such highly visible appointments of laypeople can be immensely symbolic, something not to be underestimated in a sacramental church. Note that the issue is not simply lay involvement in the church, but upward visibility and access. Layfolk have no official, customary venues of access to the Holy Father.

Finally, closer to home, Hispanic Catholics (and others!) are flooding Pentecostal churches, where low-church conceptions of ministry make it easy for any talented preacher to exercise leadership. It is time to be creative, without violating any provision of canon law, about how to foster the preaching of laypeople who could bear dramatic witness. Is it clericalism that has restricted our imaginations so much that we have utterly failed to respond to this crisis?

Ultimately, no purely organizational strategy is enough for renewal, for the church is rejuvenated only by the holiness to which it is universally called. I have been trying to think about how major reform has come about in the past. It wasn't through "political action" in the sense of a pressure group. That seems more often to cause schism. It is through people like Saints Francis or Catherine of Siena or Teresa of Avila, who did not mince words but who did not threaten to break away. They invested themselves in something new without trying to vest themselves with or replace central authority, but they affected it and the whole church radically. They built up the whole body by exercising their common priesthood in a witness of holiness so powerful and loving that the hierarchy was forced to "catch up" to it.

What would be an analogue in the contemporary scene? I suspect it would arise locally, probably be unexpected, and perhaps be even widely distasteful at first. Not only the hierarchy, but the laity had to "catch up" to Saint Francis as well. Most in Assisi were inclined to stone him in derision. Only later did they weep at hearing him preach. When everyone had caught up to him a little, the distance between laity and clergy perhaps seemed less. Certainly much of what goes on in the church is politics and more politics. People like Francis and Teresa were politically canny too, but for reformers to reply only or even mostly in political kind to the hierarchy may generate change but not necessarily renewal.

I would suggest that the primary place to seek and stimulate renewal is in prayer, the medium of renewal and conversion in the church. We should pray for renewal explicitly, as individuals, small Christian communities, parishes, and dioceses. This move to pray together for renewal is already a beginning of renewal. Specifically, turning to prayerful reflection on the mystery of the church will increase appreciation of this mystery, at the origin of which is not a juridical decree but an act of "total self-giving," symbolized and effected not by concepts or thoughts but by someone's blood. It is not considered in good taste nowadays to reflect on the blood of Christ. Respectable modern empires certainly prefer the invisibility of the blood they exact from those they oppress and persecute, preferably several countries away. But it may be that, beginning with the blood of the poor and of the martyrs, in whom we especially meet Christ, prayerful reflection on the mystical constitution of the church in the self-giving of Christ will renew our love for the church as already, despite its historical flaws, something more than we could ever hope for. In this love, we can surely devise solutions for the future that will build up, rather than tear down, the Mystical Body. Departing from this love, the solutions we devise will be more worthy of fear than of hope.

John C. Cavadini is chair of the Department of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.