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Moments in
Time Lively lay activism
By GARY MACY
At was the turn of the millennium,
and the church was in the midst of a scandal. Programs for reform were rife,
but church leaders were far too heavily invested in the status quo. Many were
appalled by what seemed to be ever-growing sexual scandals among the
priesthood, and a complete overhaul of the ministry seemed to many to be the
only solution. Sound like a description of the start of the second millennium
of Christianity? Its not, although it might be. This is what Christianity
looked like to many people at the start of the first millennium.
The episcopacy was almost completely under the control of European
nobility who blithely appointed whomever they wished as bishop, abbot, abbess
or priest. Most priests were married, a state that some found unacceptable as
marriage more deeply mired the clergy in the feudal system. From the vantage of
a thousand years, many now may feel differently, but in the 1170s celibacy
looked like a way to free the church from lay control. Then as now, the pope
addressed the issues of the day. The way in which Pope Gregory VII spoke to the
laity of his millennium was radically different, however, from that of the
present pontiff. Listen to Gregorys advice:
Those who have been advanced to any grade of holy orders
or to any office through simony, that is, by the payment of money, shall
hereafter have no right to officiate in the holy church. Those also who have
secured churches by giving money shall certainly be deprived of them.
It
shall be illegal for anyone to buy or to sell [any ecclesiastical office,
position, etc.]. Nor shall clergymen who are married say Mass or serve the
altar in any way. We decree also that if they refuse to obey our orders, or
rather those of the holy fathers, the people shall refuse to receive their
ministrations, in order that those who disregard the love of God and the
dignity of their office may be brought to their senses through feeling the
shame of the world and the reproof of the people.
In the words of the historian Joseph Lynch, in an
11th-century context this was a very radical idea: that the ordinary laity
should judge the worthiness of the clergy. If the people decided their
priests or bishops are not living a proper Christian life, the pope insisted,
they should boycott them until they come to their senses.
By the way, it worked. Lynch summarized the astonishing efficacy
of lay action, Not since late antiquity, more than 700 hundred years
earlier, had so many Christians debated publicly about such significant
religious issues. The lively debates of the reform period unleashed ideas that
influenced religious life for centuries. Even the lower classes, who could not
follow the learned arguments based on scriptural, canonical or patristic texts,
were stirred by the new ideas. A new lay activism in religion emerged.
Perhaps it is time the laity heeded the words of this pope of the new
millennium and took responsibility for their own church once again.
Gary Macy is a theology professor at the University of San
Diego. He may be reached at macy@pwa.acusd.edu
National Catholic Reporter, April 19,
2002
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