Latin Gerondism?

Withdrawing From the World to Save It by Thomas Griffin

What is useful in the rule for the laity is whatever immediately reflects life in Christ; there is an analogue between living in a monastic community and political community, but political community must be explained on its own terms. And hence the Rule of St. Benedict by itself is insufficient to provide that sort of guidance for lay people.

"Till It"?

An appropriate translation of וְכִבְשֻׁ֑הָ? Or a prejudice of a civilization based upon tillage agriculture? Heaven forbid that such a translation would be used as an argument against the truthfulness of Revelation...

Just as conservatives insist on a rightly ordered sexual ethic, so should we insist on a rightly ordered “land ethic.”https://t.co/a1wswZicqg

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) February 20, 2021

Franciscan Simplicity

Just the other day he posted this:

This is the great meaning of #Christmas: God becomes man so that we can become children of God.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) January 10, 2021

It is striking that the Lord spent most of his time on Earth living an ordinary life, without standing out. It is a beautiful message that reveals the greatness of daily life, the importance in God's eyes of every gesture and moment of life, even the most simple.

— Pope Francis (@Pontifex) January 11, 2021

The "hidden life" or the daily life of Christ before His public ministry was nonetheless a manifestation of the glory of the Son of God. Daily life by itself is not "important to God"; what is important is that Christ redeemed it through His incarnation. It is not what we offer, but what God offers to us.

A Common Vocation

Clearly, the "Tridentine" church hd nothing to say about the vocation of all Christians to holiness ... [text from 1681 - not de Sales!] #Earlymodern #theology pic.twitter.com/0fdA49zwbL

— Ulrich L. Lehner (@ulrichlehner) July 22, 2020

More on Co-Responsibility

Join us Wed., July 8, 3:30–4:45pm EDT for this seminar focused on "Co-Responsibility for Care of the Vulnerable." @jessfkeating is hosting; @JohnCavadini, @CCamosy, & Margie Pfeil are speaking.

This seminar is FREE but registration is required: https://t.co/mk96Xb56gg https://t.co/PTCZfunO7X

— Leonard J. DeLorenzo, Ph.D. (@leodelo2) July 8, 2020

Metropolitan Ephymios (Stilios) on Gerondism

OrthoChristian: The Phenomenon of “Gerondism”
Part 1: The components of “gerondism”
Part 2: Theological critique of the phenomenon. The ethics of the spiritual father and his child

Are the problems similar to the cult of personality that surrounds founders of young religious orders and communities in the West?

Pope, Councils, Bishops, and Synods: Insights from the Order of Preachers for Church Governance

John Cavidini on Co-Responsibility

Church Life Journal: Co-Responsibility: An Antidote to Clericalizing the Laity? by John Cavadini

An attempt at a solution to clericalism.

One of the fruits of the Diocese of Rome’s heightened attention to the pastoral work of the parishes, he says, was that it:

Helped to develop in the parishes, religious communities, associations and movements a consciousness of belonging to the one People of God which, as the Apostle Peter said, God made his own: “that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him”(1 Pt 2: 9).

To cite this verse is to invoke the People of God as a royal priesthood, with each member sharing, on the basis of his or her baptism, in the priesthood of Christ: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” The theology of co-responsibility begins by invoking Vatican II’s rediscovery of the priesthood of the baptized, the mystery of the People of God as a royal priesthood, with each member ordered towards the prophetic, royal and priestly vocation to “declare the wonderful deeds of him who called [us] out of darkness into his marvelous light,” that is, to mission, to evangelization. [emphasis mine]

1 Peter 2:4-5 RSV CE

⁴ Come to him, to that living stone, rejected by men but in God’s sight chosen and precious; ⁵ and like living stones be yourselves built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. 

1 Peter 2:9 RSV CE

⁹ But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people,^[a] that you may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

The Greek:
Πρὸς ὃν προσερχόμενοι , λίθον ζῶντα, ὑπὸ ἀνθρώπων μὲν ἀποδεδοκιμασμένον, παρὰ δὲ Θεῷ ἐκλεκτὸν ἔντιμον, καὶ αὐτοὶ ὡς λίθοι ζῶντες,  οἰκοδομεῖσθε οἶκος πνευματικὸς εἰς ἱεράτευμα ἅγιον, ἀνενέγκαι πνευματικὰς θυσίας εὐπροσδέκτους [τῷ] Θεῷ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.

Ὑμεῖς δὲ γένος ἐκλεκτόν, βασίλειον ἱεράτευμα, ἔθνος ἅγιον,  λαὸς εἰς περιποίησιν, ὅπως τὰς ἀρετὰς ἐξαγγείλητε τοῦ ἐκ σκότους ὑμᾶς καλέσαντος, εἰς τὸ θαυμαστὸν αὐτοῦ φῶς....



The definition of priesthood, it would seem, is tied to sacrifice. Thus the popular might be that the baptized faithful offer spiritual sacrifices while the ordained priests/bishops offer Christ in the Eucharist (in which the baptized faithful also participate). Lumen Gentium §10, cited in this article, can be read as an elaboration of this basic distinction. But how is sacrifice to be understood? What if sacrifice instead is tied to declaring "the wonderful deeds of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light" as a part of the thanksgiving integral to sacrifice, so that this is not to be considered "evangelization" as Benedict XVI and Cavidini are interpreting the words of St. Peter, but rather an elaboration of what it is to be a a priest, remembering the saving works of God and giving thanks to God whether in the assembly of the ekklesia or in private prayers to God?

If this objection holds, does it affect Cavidini's conclusions? Not necessarily. The conclusions may be dependent upon a distinction between the roles (or functions) of the episcopate/presbyterate and that of the Christian laity (as Latins have traditionally used the term), but they may hold even if we have to tweak the distinction only slightly.

In other words, the ordained ministry is not ordered towards itself, but rather it is the priestly people towards which the ordained priesthood is ordered, and that priesthood retains its fundamental character as the share in Christ’s priesthood, which constitutes the Church. On the other hand, when the baptized exercise their royal priesthood in evangelization, it is not just to spread knowledge of the Word of God dislocated from its ecclesial home, for then it is not really a priesthood, since the communion of the Church is communion in Christ’s sacrifice. Evangelization is intended to bring people to the encounter with the Risen Lord which is incorporation into the Eucharistic body through configuration to Christ’s sacrifice.

The priesthood of the baptized, as a priesthood, flows from the one sacrifice of Christ and its exercise is thus intrinsically ordered towards it. That means it cannot be exercised fully apart from the ministry of the ordained, nor is it truly exercised if it tends toward the rupture of communion instead of towards building communion. This would include evangelizing activity that rejected the authoritative teaching of the magisterium, or undertaken in defiance of legitimate hierarchical authority. At the same time, it does not mean permission is necessary: “there is no need of a supplementary mandate from the hierarchy” to exercise the duty to proclaim Christ which comes “by virtue of the grace of baptism” (Torrell, 130). The two priesthoods are mutually inter-related, and thus we have co-responsibility for the being and acting of the Church.

However, I do think it is a mistake to link evangelization to the royal priesthood of the Christian faithful, as if it were the main function of that priesthood, rather than thanksgiving. Cavidini writes later:

The royal priesthood remains primary as the end towards which the ministerial priesthood is ordered: “The Christian minister is not defined uniquely in relation to the Eucharistic body, but also, by this very fact, to its mystical Body, of which he is put in charge at his own level of responsibility” (ibid.). On the other hand, the exercise of the baptismal priesthood is always to promote the spiritual sacrifice to which all people are called, and thus is ordered towards the communion of the Church, effected only through the sacramental ministry of priests. Torrell points out that “The Eucharist is presented not only as the center of the whole sacramental organism, but also as ‘the source and apex of all the work of preaching the gospel,’” as we have seen. “What this means,” he comments later, “is that evangelization is not only ‘launched’ from the celebration of Eucharistic worship, whence it has its fecundity, but that it ‘lands’ there, because it is only by the Eucharist that the full insertion of believers into the Body of Christ is achieved” (ibid. 181).

 As this stands, if there is no further elaboration about what spiritual sacrifice means, it is mostly unobjectionable.

This is another way of saying that a priest whose priestly ministry is obviously and visibly ordered toward the building up of the leadership of the laity in the mission and acting of the Church, and not necessarily towards running it, administering it, organizing it, and supervising it and subordinating it to its own ministry. It also means recognizing it (cf. Nichols, 154).

Such an ordained ministry implies its co-responsible complement, too. The true exercise of the baptismal priesthood is not free lancing independent of the ecclesial community or its communion in the Eucharist for which it is dependent on the ordained minister. Nor is it exercised independent of the authoritative teaching of those in apostolic succession. There is no true exercise of the baptismal priesthood independent of leadership proper to Holy Orders. The two kinds of leadership are co-responsibly related. We can see models of this in some of the heroic leaders leading up to the Council. Dorothy Day, for instance, led a whole new movement in evangelization, completely on her own initiative. Her partnerships with various priests, and Fr. Pacifique Roy, were studies in co-responsibility for the mission and being of the Church,[5] for she centered her movement’s life around the Eucharist and thus the ordained priesthood, and, though she did not ask Cardinal Spellman for permission to operate, she never defied him on matters pertaining to his teaching and pastoral authority, and fostered, rather than broke, communion.

A Church in which the center of gravity has, as it were, shifted, in which the co-responsible leadership of those exercising the priesthood of the baptized was the norm, would be a Church we seem not to have really imagined yet. We have since Vatican II operated with a mindset that has not absorbed its major insights in ecclesiology because, I think, we have decided to analyze the call for lay participation as a call for increased "power" of the laity but in a structure that is essentially intact, one that is excessively clericalized and thus ironically secularized, reduced thereby to a power structure conceived independently of its ordering towards a “mystery of communion.”

It is probably uncontroversial say that Dorothy Day was thea leader of the Catholic Worker movement in the United States, if not the leader. (Fr. Peter Maurin could be considered the other, until his death.) It is also probably uncontroversial to say that she was some sort of feminist, even if she wasn't a suffragette and did not call herself a feminist. An appropriate example of "lay leadership" or co-responsibility, or a politically correct one?

Lay people do have their own sphere of action, the political arrangement where they are to be found. There some may be leaders of others. (Hence "traditional" notions of leadership are incompatible with feminism, though most American academics support it or at least outwardly do so.) But it should also be stated that with respect to the life of the local Church (whether one think of the local Church as the grouping of parishes, or the parish as a manifestation of the local Church), the Christian laity also have a leadership role. While the presbyterate/episcopate have authority as teachers and oversight over certain activities touching upon "faith and morals," there are likely limits to the authority they have with respect to the latter. Oversight may entail only the power of approval or sanctioning an activity, and not necessarily leadership.The limits to the authority of the presbyterate/episcopate with respect to the life of the Church need to be explored further.

An Exaggeration?

The Byzantine emphasis on monasteries is historical. But is it warranted? Prayer is important for all Christians, that is true at least.

I have seen critiques of "gerondism" here and there but I don't know if the critiques are correct.

Don’t Look for New Ideals. The Monastic Life Has Always Been an Example for the Laity

Related:
“Let’s be Christians Twenty-Four Hours a Day”: A Conversation with an Athonite Ascetic by Hieroschemamonk Ștefan Nuțescu

Fr. Z on Weinandy's Article on Schism

Fr. Z: PODCAzT 178: Fr. Weinandy and the possible “Internal Papal Schism” - mp3

Newman and the Laity

The People of God

It goes on to recognize an ecclesiology that sees the sacrament of Baptism as the foundation of the vocation and ministry of every Christian, clergy and laity alike. Thus all the People of God together constitute a single community.

And what of chrismation? No one wants to touch that question - why not? Byzantines and others could easily become polemical with respect to Latin pastoral practice regrading confirmation.

the document

Theology of Vocations

A Latin traditionalist pov?

1Peter 5: On Discerning Vocations: How to Think about “States of Life” by Peter Kwasniewski

How Catholics Can Realize the Royal Priesthood of the Laity and Rebuild a Church in Crisis

The Catholic Church in Crisis

What Are Legitimate Responses to Transgressions of the Limits of Authority?

Or if there is no legitimate authority to begin with? This essay does not address those questions.

Church Life: Why Is Christian Citizenship a Paradox? by Émilie Tardivel-Schick

The Scharfenberger Proposal

CWR: The Current Crisis and the Order of the Laity by Dr. Adam A. J. DeVille

Bishop Scharfenberger’s call for “an independent commission led by well-respected, faithful lay leaders” is far superior to Cardinal Wuerl’s proposal and reflects a much better understanding of the laity and the nature of the Church.

Calcutta, United States

“Find your own Calcutta”: On Betsy DeVos’ address at Ave Maria University by James V. Schall, S.J.

Service has the connotation of some event or deed happening mainly from a spirit of generosity, not from pay or coercion. At the heart of the world we find gift, not only necessity.

Priest Stephen Freeman: Becoming Human in a Secular World

New Men

website

What if...
the exaltation of the monastic life led to the imposition of a quasi-monastic rule on lay people (for example, fasting regulations)? And the denigration of lay vocation? And it had an adverse psychological or emotional impact, with lay people believing that they were too "normal," not good enough to be holy? And thus they identified asceticism too much with certain external practices regarding goods of the body, and not enough with the mortification of the will with the divine agape?

What is the problem?

Sandro Magister: Orthodox Churches in Decline, Except in Ethiopia. A Survey

Too much clericalism, along with not enough Christians understanding the "universal call to holiness"? Instead, they believe erroneously that the pursuit of holiness belongs to the religious elites, the monks? Despite having what may be an aesthetically pleasing liturgy, has an authentic liturgical spirituality been lost? And has asceticism been identified too much with keeping the fast and external observances, rather than the correction of disordered self-love? And then there is the broader crisis of the laity, which is not limited to the crisis of men, but this last issue nonetheless must be addressed posthaste for any possibility of a long-lasting "solution."

It is the 21st century after the birth of our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ, and His Church, primarily the Apostolic churches, does not seem to be faring well, thanks to external enemies but also internal weaknesses.

What will address this problem? Not a modern pan-Orthodox synod that just releases documents, in imitation of Latin councils. Not a liturgical reform that aims to make liturgy relevant and relatable to modern sensibilities (as some like Nicholas Denysenko would suggest). But a renewal at all levels, with real leadership being exercised by bishops and their brother priests, and this renewal requires that the clergy repudiate all modern errors including liberalism and egalitarianism. (And the clergy also need to realize the limits of their authority.)

The Holy Mysteries provide us with the divine life, but to assimilate it through proper living we need the true doctrine of Christ. The bishops have been entrusted with teaching the primary precepts, but what is at stake and needs to be continually defended are the secondary precepts which have not been explicitly revealed but only known through reflection on the natural law and the life in and of the Church.