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by Marcel Vincent OP
from les réseaux des PARVIS, no 18, Juin
2003, pp. 24-25; translated from the French by Soline Vatinel.
Note: This article was written in response to the ordination of
seven Catholic women in Passau in June 2003.
While being totally in agreement on the principle, I nevertheless do
wonder about the effectiveness of this provocation concerning the church. What
is really at stake?
On one side, knowing full well what they were doing and the likely
risks, one or two bishops, seven women and some two hundred participants in
this ordination have acted on their own authority and by-passed the Roman Code
of Canon Law. On the other side, Rome coldly excommunicates the unrepentent
offenders. On both sides there is an a priori recognition of the Roman legal
apparatus. Running straight ahead into a wall which one knows to be strong
enough to resist without a crack, cannot be a really effective action.
The unavoidable failure of the manoeuvre consists in having ordained
priests, that is to have reproduced illegally the institutional system of the
sacrament of Orders conferred to persons who become ministers ordained as
priests, integrated into the hierarchical order of priests, as such members of
the clergy and endowed with a sacred (sacerdotal) power which is exercised
sacramentally, and in an exclusive manner, in the Mass and in the forgiveness
of sins. The Code of Canon Law, the several Congregations of the Roman Curia
and the church tribunals constitute the juridical apparatus that the Church has
given itself throughout the centuries to safeguard the inside of its fortress:
the fundamental principles (the deposit of faith), and the means to apply them.
But there exists another protection, an ideological one and no longer a
juridical one, which covers both the hard core and the doubtful growths,
malignant even, of the gilded surface of the sacralization, to which one cannot
touch without committing a sacrilege. One must undertake the removal of the
growths and the cleaning down of the hard core.
Can we effect, while remaining fully catholic, a desacralisation as
radical as that of the Reformers of the XVIth century? This would be only to
pursue the reforms decided by a majority of the Fathers of the Vatican II
Council. The Lefebvriste schism which resulted shows a contrario that
these reforms not only touch on the liturgical forms but also on the hard core
of doctrine. ...
It is true that the desacralisation is not only a matter of the outer
layer and does not limit itself to the Mass rites. With the abolition of the
tonsure, of the minor orders and the sub-diaconate which, to the faithful,
sacralised the future priests in stages and prepared the sacrificer who would
stand at the altar of his first Mass, it is a complete social image of the
priest which has disappeared, at the same time as the cassock. Desacralisation
brings about secularisation and declericalisation. Some have felt they lost
their identity. However, the Council texts themselves (Lumen Gentium no 23-24)
show that it is difficult to desacralise also the vocabulary that carries the
mindsets (priesthood, priestly).
To continue in line with this trend, the Church is helped (or rather
pushed) by social changes, changes which she does not control: ordination no
longer being a social step up, the clergy has lost its privileges of power and
knowledge, and has no longer, in our countries, the strength of numbers. The
dislike for going to confession denies to priests the exorbitant power which
they exercised over consciences and because of that the Church has lost some of
its moral influence, despite disciplinary hardenings. At the same time, more
and more lay people become familiar with the ecclesiatical sciences and carry
out, in parishes and in dioceses, tasks which were hitherto reserved to the
ordained ministries. One is close to the limit of communities without priests,
hence this desire - no more this need - of priests of a new type, women or men,
married or celibate...
The 1981 study by Schillebeeck in Ministry in The Church (ed.du
Cerf) is still relevant. For a serious theologian it is not a question of
dumping anything, but on the contrary, of deepening the study of the tradition,
the theological reflection and the pastoral practice, in order to open up new
horizons for the future (ch.VI,p159ss) but without settling down for a wait and
see attitude. As a matter of fact, in a preceding chapter (ch.IV,p.121ss) the
author encourages all the constructive kinds of challenges, by justifying
"illegality" . (The inverted commas are his). It is enough to quote just a few
lines.
"However good the law seems to be, in some cases it finds itself
rejected by a large majority and therefore is proved de facto
inadequate. From the point of view of the history of the Church, there exists
also a way whereby the Christians at grassroots level can develop a church
practice which is temporarily in conflict with official church practice. This
conflicting praxis, in its Christian opposition and its 'illegality' can
nevertheless become in the end the dominant practice of the Church, and end up
being recognised by the official Church (and the same process to go on again
and again, as time never stands still!) . It has always been
thus!"
The priestly ordination of women is one of those illegal conflicting
practices. Can it fit in a perspective of the future? I doubt its
ecclesiastical effectiveness, but one can imagine alternatives. Such an
alternative perhaps already exists which seeks neither provocation nor
publicity in the media.
Let us imagine a community which is regularly under the ADP regime
(Assemblies Awaiting a Priest) , therefore deprived of the Eucharist,
which would choose from among its members a woman or a man , to whom would be
conferred, without any other form of ordination, the presidency of its
assembly, understood unanimously as a ministry of "priest" to celebrate the
Eucharist according to the ritual of the official Church. The local Ordinary
could only declare this Eucharist as being invalid, which would probably not
trouble much those Christians on the ground.
The PARVIS networks should not be lacking in means to effect illegal
conflicting practices. Here is a recent example drawn from the book by Jean
Kamp , Ce Grand Silence Des Pretres ( The Priests' Great
Silence)(ed. Mols). On pages 277 and 278 I read:
"For the rest, the issue will be settled, even if indirectly, when it
will be the community itself which will choose its priests. It will choose them
as it wishes, in the way it will welcome the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These
times are probably no longer far off.
Recently a group of young people involved in the hospitality of
immigrants in Brussels met on a regular basis to share, to support each other
and to celebrate the Eucharist. A priest friend was a member of the group. Of
course it was he who presided at the Eucharist. Because of a new posting he had
to leave the group. The local dean, who knew the situation and who took a real
interest in all the initiatives in his parishes, offered in a kindly manner to
replace the priest friend at the Eucharistic celebrations of the group. The
group had a consultation, and then let it be known to him, in an equally kindly
way, that they thanked him very much, but that from now on for pastoral reasons
the group would look after itself and therefore function without a priest, and
that this would apply also to their Eucharistic celebrations..."
MARCEL VINCENT
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