Pope Francis recently decreed the women can be formally instituted as lectors (readers) and acolytes (altar servers) with an apostolic letter, issued “motu proprio” (by his own initiative) called Spiritus Domini.
Guillaume Goubert, editor-in-chief of La Croix made this significant point in reference to the new legislation:
Although he does not suggest it, Francis does not exclude the possibility of women being ordained deacons, or lay people (including women) being allowed to preach at Mass.
If we leave aside the larger issue of women and the diaconate, one very immediate issue is whether it is now time to look at the question of preaching in the Eucharistic assembly.
The current position is set out Canon Law no. 767. It is quite explicit that the most important kind of preaching is the liturgical homily and it “is reserved to a bishop/priest or a deacon” (et sacerdoti aut diacono reservatur).
So, not only women are excluded from giving the homily. All lay persons are.
This whole position is urgently in need of being re-examined, re-imagined and reformed.
A change is needed for both theological and practical reasons.
The underpinning ecclesiology of the present canon law
The image of preaching used in Canon Law is not that of a baptized people bearing witness – in a variety of ways – to the Good News. Rather, it is one of an organizational pyramid for the diffusion of an officially sanctioned communique.
This neat, cut-and-dried world begins, naturally, at the top.
The office of preaching to the whole Church has been committed principally to the Roman Pontiff and to the College of Bishop (cf. Canon 756§1).
Then, in the mind of the creator of the code, the bishops individually are charged with preaching in their dioceses, while priests are charged with preaching in their parishes and elsewhere. (756§2).
Lastly, “the laity may be allowed to preach” “if necessary” and “if advantageous in particular circumstances” and “if the local bishops’ conference” allows it.
Then it adds a “but” – and it is a crucial but – not at the Eucharist.
This “but not at the Eucharist” effectively rules out lay preaching because it is only at the Eucharist that the vast majority of Catholics ever hear preaching.
This vision of who can preach (basically: clergy preach, laity listen) is based on the pre-Vatican II notion of the Church as the society of two parts.
The higher and the lower; those who give the teaching and those who receive it; those who have revelation and those who do not. This was given formal shape in the notion of the ecclesia docens(the teaching Church) and the ecclesia discens (the learning Church).
This Church of two un-equal parts is that of clergy and laity, and it does not harmonize with the notion of one People of God, the community of the baptized, where everyone should minister to one another, by using their distinctive gifts.
Moreover, it does not take account of the fact that the Holy Spirit speaks in every heart and calls on each of the baptized to give an account of the hope that is within.
The image of preachers in one place in the Church and listeners in another may be very neat – an ecology of knowledge that is really little more than a clerical dream – and can seem plausible in the way that all neat arrangements appear attractive.
But it ignores the reality of the Spirit in the heart of the Church, which is the community of the People of God.
The Code of Canon Law may have appeared nearly two decades after the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), but its ecclesiology in this point dates from the early part of the twentieth century.
It needs to be looked at with critical eyes in the light of the conciliar texts Dei VerbumandLumen Gentium.
The practicalities of preaching
Strangely, the Code does recognize that lay people have something to offer, except in special circumstances — but never at the Eucharist. So, in effect, it is a good idea, but no use in practice.
But why is it a good idea that there should be several people, apart from the presbyter, who could be appointed to preach?
The most important reason is that no one person can give witness to the presence of God in the hearts of the assembly. I may be able to “tune in” to some, you to others, and someone else to yet others.
I preach authentically – as distinct from just giving classes – when I bear witness to the Christ in my understanding. But that means that it needs a mosaic of voices / witnesses / experiences to begin to bear witness to the whole Christ which we as a community are.
If someone imagines that preaching is just “reciting the catechism” or “giving basic introductions to the scriptures”, then that person is not engaged in the celebration of the liturgy, but is imagining our worship as a classroom.
A particular skillset
The second reason is that while many people know the presence of God in their lives, only a few have the reflective ability, indeed the grace, to actually speak about this.
Moreover, if one can speak, then one needs the communication skills so that this is a living part of the liturgy – and not (as so often happens) the boring bit where one tries to pass the time.
Many presbyters are simply unaware they do not actually possess this communications’ skillset!
There is a simple way to see how poor most of our preaching is. Just slip up to the gallery or balcony at the back of a church with pews. Try not to be observed, and then count how many people are texting on their smartphones during the homily.
A presbyter needs many skills and has to deploy them as he presides on a Sunday. But communicating requires energy – and if this can be shared, so much the better for all.
A community rich in the gifts of the Spirit
The third reason is that preaching involves a sharing on my Christian life on the assumption that it finds an echo in the lives of the other celebrants – and everyone in the assembly is a celebrant.
This assumes a sympathy humanly, culturally, and spiritually within the homily community. If any group has a few people with that sympathy – and it is just arrogance to assume that the presbyter has it automatically or more eminently than others – then that is a community rich in the gifts of the Spirit.
When the laity are more skilled than the clerics
Lastly, there was a time when only the presbyter was learned person in the parish. He was the one who could do everything “clerical”, such as write letters.
Then, as education spread, and the demands for learning within homilies became more widespread, the cleric was the only one with any theological education. That too has changed!
Indeed, with fewer candidates for the priesthood and, de facto, falling standards in seminaries, it is now quite possible that there will be one or more lay people in the community with more technical skill in theology than the presbyter.
Not to use such skilled people in the service of their sisters and brothers is to fall into the trap of the lazy and wicked servant in the Parable of the Talents (Mt 25:14-30). He buried his talent, he would not even make minimal use of it, and so it was taken from him and he was cast into outer darkness.
Women and men
Right now, there is a focus on permitting women to exercise a ministry of giving the homily.
This is an urgent need: we need to hear all the Christian voices that can enrich the assembly.
But the challenge is first to de-clericalize, then to value the gives of speaking in the assembly of every Christian with that gift – whether that person is a woman or a man.
And gifts alone are not enough. Gifts have to be developed into skills. This means investment and training.
We have a long, challenging path before us. And we should be realistic. No group that has set itself up as unique and special has ever given up easily that which it sees as making it special, its prerogatives or its privileges. All too often clerics defend clericalism as “the will of God”.
This is silly, and possibly blasphemous. But it’s an effective tactic to impede the work of the Second Vatican Council.
Oops!
When I see and hear a tired presbyter (not in sympathy with his sisters and brothers as they assemble at the Lord’s Table) and watch the eyes wandering in boredom and the hear the feet shuffling with impatience, I often wonder how many people, both sisters and brothers, in this assembly have been empowered by the Spirit to bear witness to the truth (cf. Jn 18:37).
But then I recall: Oops! The answer must be zero – otherwise the Code of Canon Law would need changing.
In all these areas of ministry – and Spiritus Domini invites to think about this again – we cannot too often re-read Paul’s advice on ministries to the assembly in Corinth (1 Cor 12:4-13):
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord;
and there are varieties of working, but it is the same God who inspires them all in every person.
To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom,
and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
to another faith by the same Spirit,
to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
to another the working of miracles,
to another prophecy,
to another the ability to distinguish between spirits,
to another various kinds of tongues,
to another the interpretation of tongues.
All these are inspired by one and the same Spirit,
who apportions to each one individually as he wills.
For just as the body is one and has many members,
and all the members of the body, though many, are one body,
so it is with Christ.
For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body (Jews or Greeks, slaves or free) and all were made to drink of one Spirit.
- Thomas O’Loughlin is a priest of the Catholic Diocese of Arundel and Brighton, emeritus professor of historical theology at the University of Nottingham (UK) and director of the Centre of Applied Theology, UK. His latest award-winning book is Eating Together, Becoming One: Taking Up Pope Francis’s Call to Theologians (Liturgical Press, 2019).
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