Washington D.C., Apr 25, 2019 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The role of the laity is crucial to the Church’s efforts to combat clerical sex abuse, Archbishop of Allen Vigneron said Thursday morning.
Speaking at The Catholic University of America on April 25, the Detroit archbishop explained that in his own ministry he had seen how lay collaboration is essential in Church governance, and has a natural place with the Church’s hierarchy.
“In order to act well, I recognize that I am in need of what I might call ‘co-agents’–others who help me by thinking and acting along with me,” said Vigneron.
These “co-agents” take the form of both members of the clergy and laity, he explained, and could even include non-Catholics.
Vigneron was speaking at an event titled “The Way Forward: Principles for Effective Lay Action,” part of a series organized by The Catholic Project, Catholic University’s progam dedicated to helping shape the Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis.
The archbishop identified three particular areas in which co-agents were crucial to his own ministry, including the review board and finance council, and the archdiocesan synod which was convened in 2016.
Recalling that when he arrived in Detroit in 2013 the archdiocese faced a financial crisis, Vigneron said it was his lay advisors who were crucial in rescuing the situation.
“Without the wise advice of the [finance] council, I would not have been able to endorse the course that enabled us to avoid financial disaster,” said Vigneron, adding that the experience gave him confidence that lay co-agents had an equally important role to play in solving the present sexual abuse crisis.
Vigneron also identified “victim-survivors” of clerical abuse as indispensable guide to helping him understand the trauma of abuse.
Meeting abuse survivors had, he said, “provided a unique and painful perspective of the enormity of the sins perpetrated against these innocents.”
“I hear incredible anger and disappointment, especially from those victim-survivors who have been driven away from the sacraments for the rest of their lives,” he said, while expressing gratitude and admiration for the many who had told him they remained committed to the Church.
One of the key points of discussion in the ongoing debate about enhanced lay participation in Church accountability is the strain it could place on the hierarchical nature of the Church. The office of bishops to lead and govern the Church is divinely instituted, and many – including in Rome – are reluctant to pursue reforms which could be seen to undermine episcopal authority.
Vigneron rejected the idea that effective lay involvement would necessarily supercede or undermine his role as a bishop.
“It is the final firm determination of the bishop that secures the stable basis for consistent acting,” he said. “And no healthy approach to lay-clergy collaboration can contradict this aspect of Christ’s constitution of his Church.”
Collaboration would be most fruitful and effective, explained the archbishop, when “any actions taken to respond to the challenges of the current crisis are parts of a greater whole” which is in harmony with the Church’s essential nature. The “greater whole,” he said, is the entire work of the Church for the salvation of souls, final responsibility for which rests with the bishop.
“It is the particular competence of the diocesean bishop to be the trustee of this common good and to ensure that all particular ecclesial acts contribute to this end.”
Speaking after the event, Vigneron told CNA that he was preparing for the release of a report into clerical sexual abuse by the Michigan attorney general and that “there will be a great involvement of the lay faithful helping us as this unfolds.”
While the laity could play unique and expert roles in many areas according to their skills and experience, Vigneron said that it is vitally important that all the faithful maintain their prayer lives and work to hold people accountable for inaction.
The archbishop told CNA that healing the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church was a spiritual as well as structural labor.
“All the laity can continue to be engaged at the spiritual level, to realize that if there’s going to be change in the Church, part of it has to be that we all pray for that to happen,” he said.
“The other thing is to continue to hold the pastors accountable, to urge us to do what we need to do to advance the purification of the Church and to support us as we’re engaged in those challenges.”
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Well, that’s a big fat lie.
Thankfully he addresses one subject at a time! One cause of divisive results! Typically journalists love to water down the affected subjects by drawing attention to other events!
Snort. Consider the source.
A source of scandal??? The Latin Mass? REALLY?? Can this guy exaggerate even more?? The opinions from the nest of vipers which is Germany hold no water for many in any case. .
Okay, Boomer.
Can you explain your cryptic comment? To whom is it addressed?
As I understand it, the phrase is a way to avoid substantial discussion by dismissing the opinions of any persons born from 1946 to 1964 (so, some 71 million people in the United States) as valueless because of when they were born.
Kasper has dedicated his life to fostering division by undermining and contradicting Church teaching on the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, the Real Presence etc. and by deliberately undermining Pope’s St John Paul Ii and Benedict XVI as a member of the Sankt Gallen mafia. Pot, meet kettle.
From Cardinal Kasper: “As far as I know, none of the bishops wants any schismatic act and there is a slowly growing number in the bishops’ conference who are resistant.”
About the German Synodal Way(ward) we have only “worries” and wishful thinking from Kasper. Perhaps the possibly shifting results of Kasper’s nose count of German bishops can be made as public as could be the also undocumented results of the Vatican survey regarding the Latin Mass?
The “slowly growing number” of resistant bishops rests on an originally small handful. I recall a reported 13 out of 69 bishops against the directions taken early by the synodal way. The schismatic and invalid blessing of homosexual unions is already a well-known “schismatic act”. From Rome, case-specific corrections would be most welcome, as such an approach could have been made against only those alleged traditionalist enclaves who reportedly reject the Second Vatican Council. Unlike the theology of Aquinas, for example, a similar precision in policy making is too-often vastly undervalued (but how to do this without being duped into creating photo-op martyrs and seemingly triggering the full-blown schism?)
As for the German Catholic laity: “The Catholic weekly newspaper Die Tagespost reported Sept. 17 [2020] that 53 percent of German Catholics said they were not interested in the Synodal Path” (https://cruxnow.com/church-in-europe/2020/09/cologne-cardinal-warns-german-churchs-synodal-path-could-cause-schism/).
On the other hand, also in 2020, “conservative clerics were repeatedly outvoted by 80% to 90% when they tried to change the [unstructured membership] rules governing the [eventually “binding” synodal] talks” (https://www.ncronline.org/news/world/reformers-ideas-gain-momentum-german-synodal-way).
Apart from any future results, is the synodal-path process itself, in Germania, already schismatic?
This is the clerical equivalent of “You are a racist because you don’t agree with me.” EVERY single person who attends a Latin Mass rejcts Vatican II??? What world are these people living in? And he is a cardinal? So much for mercy and dialogue.