Synodality is Pope Francis’ vision to reform the Catholic Church to ensure human equality and a rightful place for everyone in the Church, a spirit that embodies the essence of the Second Vatican Council held about 60 years ago.
Vatican II affirmed that every Christian shared Christ’s role as priest, king, and prophet by virtue of baptism and dismissed the erroneous notion that the clergy is one step above the laity in terms of power, rank, and decision-making.
The spirit of the Council did not fully materialise, so the clericalist culture continued to sway churches across the world, such as in Bangladesh, where Catholics number just 400,000 among a 170 million predominantly Muslim population.
Clericalism, which Pope Francis despises as “a cancer” is a major obstacle in the Church’s progress to synodality in Bangladesh, as it is across Asia.
While Catholics are enthusiastic about becoming part of a synodal Church, eager to occupy their rightful place in the Church’s mission, most clerics find no urgency to mend their old ways that assert clerical superiority.
Bangladesh’s eight dioceses held synodal consultations at parish, diocese, and national levels.
Apparently, representatives from different sections and diverse groups of people participated and presented a host of proposals and observations. However, the final national document sent to the Vatican has not been made public.
The Church leadership circulated the Asian Continental and Vatican Synod documents across dioceses, but not their own document. Catholic bishops’ responses to the Vatican Synthesis Report has been the only accessible document.
The response praises the local Church’s growth, good clergy and religious vocations, efforts in evangelisation, social welfare and inculturation, and calls for “shared responsibility” for all to ensure a synodal Church.
Interestingly, it mentions nothing about a clericalist culture that is still predominant.
Secrecy
A sense of secrecy shrouded synodal consultations and findings in Bangladesh.
This secrecy is the best example of continuing clericalism, which forces the hierarchy to believe ordinary Catholics have no right to know the decisions the hierarchy makes for the Church.
So, there is no clue to determine whether the participants spoke against clericalism in Bangladesh and sought ways to get rid of it.
In most probabilities, the answer is no. Because tolerating the “cancer of clericalism” is deeply rooted in the psyche of most Catholics in Bangladesh.
Most Catholics do not find any problem with priests making final decisions on administrative matters at parish, diocesan, and national levels.
Lay people consider it their honorable duty to agree with a priest’s decisions. On the contrary, any disagreement will almost always be frowned upon as anti-Church.
For a major part, the laity should be blamed for clericalism in Bangladesh.
Most would assert that “all good Catholics” should obey their priests always and everywhere. Such a highly clericalized laity allow clericalism to flourish in the Church.
Primacy of the priest
The “primacy of the priest” in the psyche of Bangladesh’s Catholics is not just something leftover from the Church’s centuries-old link with the Roman Empire but also a legacy of European colonialism in Asia.
At a time when the hierarchy’s leaders were kingmakers and anointers who bestowed divine authority on kings, the masses saw priests not only as dispensers of spiritual power but also as those close to secular power.
During the colonial era, the public looked at missionaries as collaborators of the colonial powers and a majority of Christians — mostly from socially and economically poor social sections — took them as benefactors who doled out material assistance for their welfare.
In the benefactor-beneficiary relationship, lay Catholics willingly became subservient, and clerics appropriated powers to control the lives of parishioners.
Although colonialism ended more than seven decades ago, the new generations of priests in Bangladesh and South Asia have continued cultivating the benefactor-beneficiary system.
With many Christians coming from poor, low-income groups, the clergy has continued to dominate decisions as they have played vital roles in dispensing the Church’s social welfare benefits.
In Bangladesh and most of South Asia, most priests are now natives, and only a very few Europeans are active in missions.
Yet, the native clergy do not see the laity in their communities as equals, even in the Church, and even if the laity are more educated and skilled. What a tragic irony!
Social inequality and discrimination
Added to this is the continuing social inequality and discrimination within the Church.
The rich and powerful receive better treatment from the clergy, and the poor and powerless are ignored or looked down upon.
The clergy also continue attempts to be connected to the secular power and love to hobnob with the elites and politically connected.
At least half of Bangladesh’s Christians are tribal people who struggle for social equality and to assert their rights as humans.
Tribal Catholics dominate in five of the eight dioceses, and they happily accept a priest’s dominance in all their affairs rather than fight clericalism. A synodal Church will not be their priority until priests make it so for them.
Another issue is a lack of proper adult catechism. Catholics in Bangladesh have not yet internalised the notion of the Second Vatican Council, that the Church is the People of God.
They would love to see the hierarchy as the Church. In this part of the world, considering the hierarchy as the government of the Church and communities of Catholics as the Church’s core is a thought frowned upon.
The dominating hierarchy smothers any criticism, however legitimate it may be, against its members and their policies. Critics are branded as anti-clerics and, therefore, anti-Church.
This fear of vilification stops many good Catholics from speaking the truth and defending the rights of the poor in the Church. It allows the Church to become unchristian.
Reform needed
The Church in Bangladesh needs major reform and a shake-up to remain relevant in these times, which demand equality, justice, and fairness.
The old-fashioned priesthood and elitist clericalism must be dismantled with calibrated action to build a truly synodal Church.
If the issue of clericalism is not addressed, the two-year-long process of the Synod on Synodality will end up being a waste of time, energy and money.
- First published in UCA News
- Rock Ronald Rozario is a journalist for UCA News. Based in Bangladesh capital Dhaka, he covers social, religious, political, and human rights issues in Bangladesh and Asia.
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