laity

The Last Temptation of the Lay Apologist

Lay apologists today, because of the media environment and other circumstances in society, face temptations that their predecessors did not; primary among them is the clickbait temptation.

The Age of the Laity…or the Latte?

So what will it be? A grande Latte… or Western Civilization? A scone with that… or the meat of doctrine? An extra shot of espresso… or the survival of families? A Moccachino… or the Mystical Body of Christ? Today, the price is the same.  Tomorrow the terms change.  Tomorrow there may be silence, apart from the … Read more

The Coming Age of the Laity

To win the culture war, the Church is going to have to break a lot of bad habits. And old habits die hard. A new generation of bishops now recognize the perils of allying with the American government that Pope Leo XIII warned against a century ago.

Priests: “Resolve” to Love the Laity

The Church was also in need of change, but only to the extent that she needed to look again at how she could most effectively change the world. We have allowed a missionary council to be domesticated. The greatest failure of the post-Vatican II Church is the failure to call forth and to form a … Read more

The Lay Reform of Church and World

Two volumes recently published by Encounter Books address key issues in the New Evangelization. The first, Marcello Pera’s Why We Must Call Ourselves Christians, is another effort by a distinguished public intellectual to call our civilization back to its foundational senses. Pera, a philosopher of science, is also an Italian legislator who served for several … Read more

Scourge Us

Lest there be any confusion, let me begin by admitting I am no liturgical expert. I have gone to some length to avoid becoming one, trying to shut controversies over the wording of the Mass out of my head while at prayer. As a convert from Anglicanism — and very High Anglicanism at that, with … Read more

From the Heart of the Church…

As the year for priests draws to a close, hindsight shows that Pope Benedict’s decision to devote this year to prayer for priests was prescient. On the dark side, it has been a year in which the scandal of abuse has dominated media headlines. But what hasn’t gotten media attention is the way the year … Read more

Open Windows: Why Vatican II Was Necessary

On the third day of the conclave — October 28, 1958 — the white smoke signaled to the crowd in St. Peter’s Square the election of a new pope, Angelo Cardinal Roncalli, patriarch of Venice, who took the name of John XXIII. The Roman crowd was momentarily silenced; it could not put a face to … Read more

Roadblocks to Reform

What’s the biggest obstacle to positive reform in the Church? Reactionaries in the Roman Curia? Conservatives in the conference of bishops? The Code of Canon Law?   The correct answer is none of the above. The biggest obstacle to reform is the roadblock thrown in its way by self-styled reform groups themselves. By advocating changes … Read more

A Language They’ll Understand

By now it should be apparent to anyone who follows Washington politics that the new administration is ideologically the most anti-life administration in the history of our nation. During the recent presidential race, President Obama’s campaign was able to divide Catholics and forge a majority (54 percent) who voted against the teachings of the Church. … Read more

Why Vatican II?

One of the many peculiarities of contemporary Catholicism resides in the fact that so many people on the extreme left and extreme right of the Church are in basic agreement about the Second Vatican Council. In fundamental ways, they insist, Vatican II was a sharp break with the Catholic past. People on the left generally … Read more

Getting Past Clericalism

  At the altar, the priest presides. In the world, the laity preside. This is the basic principle that ought to govern all our thinking about the roles of the ordained and the laity in the mission of the Church.   Unfortunately, a huge number of Catholics don’t think this way, because clericalism continues to … Read more

On Reverse Clericalism

  A few days ago, Russell Shaw offered a thoughtful look at some of the causes, manifestations, and effects of what has been known as “clericalism“: a spiritual and ecclesiastical “caste system” in which the few elite clergy are presumed to enjoy a native superiority — in authority and due respect, in level of and … Read more

Clericalism

A few years back, Russell Shaw wrote a terrific book called To Hunt, To Shoot, To Entertain: Clericalism and the Catholic Laity. It took its title from an amazing remark by a 19th-century English monsignor who loftily declared, “What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain. These matters they understand, … Read more

Item added to cart.
0 items - $0.00

Orthodox. Faithful. Free.

Signup to receive new Crisis articles daily

Email subscribe stack
Share to...