I believe that we can have a kind and fraternal discussion on the subject without pitting laity and religious. Let’s look at this point in smaller pieces and we should be able to learn something, with great gentleness.
I’ll begin with a disclaimer here. I’m coming at this from my Franciscan perspective, which has often been called impractical. I’m not the person who has been called impractical, Francis and his sons and daughters have been called impractical. But from my “impractical” Franciscan perspective I see several things that have come true throughout history.
When God wants something, he provides for it. It is always through the laity, because the laity has the resources and the laity is the resource. Vocations come from the laity, not only money. Religious are born as laymen. Even though this means financial hardship and hard work, something more important is playing itself out when the laity and the religious have to work together to make these things work. There is a transcendent reality playing itself out. That reality, is the oneness of the Church as we profess in the Creed. We believe in one Church or in the oneness of the Church. As St. Paul says, one part of the body helps the other part of the body. In this case, the laity helps the religious, using its temporal resources and its knowhow in financial matters. The religious sanctifies the laity by his presence in the world. The very act of professing the evangelical councils is an event of great grace for the individual, the religious institute and the entire Church. For this reason, the Church believes and teaches that religious life is essential to her life and that everyone must support its continued existence.
This last point leads to our role in the Church. Each of us, religious, cleric or lay, has a moral duty to promote what is essential to the Church. Religious life is one of those gifts that we must promote. Not to promote it or support it, to use Paul’s metaphor, is like the arm ignoring the heart. I deliberately use the heart, because in several of her decrees the Church has always placed the consecrated life at the heart of the Church. Whether I’m a Franciscan, diocesan priest, or secular layman, I’m called to promote the consecrated life.
In promoting the consecrated life, it is not up to me to define or outline parameters for that life. That’s up to the Holy Spirit and it is up to the proper canonical authority to recognize the actions of the Holy Spirit. In this case, that falls on the shoulders of the local bishop. It is up to him to determine that this community is the work of God and that God wants it to go forward. Once he has done so, Christ has spoken. When it comes to religious life and Holy Orders, Christ speaks only through the hierarchy, not the rest of us. Therefore, we must always assume that whatever crosses our minds on these matters comes from us, not from Christ, unless that which crosses our minds is consistent with what the hierarchy has said.
If the bishop has already determined that this particular community has been called into existence by God and that this plan is God’s will and he gives it his blessing, there is nothing else that I or anyone else can add to this. Christ has spoken and I certainly cannot take Christ to task because he does or does not have a financial plan.
Finally, the we have seen great movements begin with great plans and no visible means of executing them. Yet, God has always provided. It has always been through the laity. That’s the role of the laity. The laity, uses its secularity to move and manipulate (in the good sense) the resources in the world for the good of the Kingdom of God. There are four religious families that come to my mind that began with great plans, no resources and no financial plan, but their faith in God and their fraternal relationship with the laity brought about the work that God wanted. In chronological order, these are the Franciscan family, the Vincentian family, the Missionaries of Charity family and recently the Missionaries of the Poor. They did not have a penny. Nor did they have a plan for raising money. They had plans for saving souls and serving the Church. God provided the rest, through the laity. I know that the Franciscans, Vincentians and Missionaries of Charity have always said that we have no idea how much money we have. No one keeps track of it. It just comes. No one reports to the laity how it’s used, either. Each group just does what it was called to do, minute by minute . . . with great faith that God has plenty of money. The financial concerns belong to the local or regional superior, not the laity or the individual religious either. Religious never have a clue whether they have money or not. However, we have great faith in God and man, so we proceed with our plans to do his work.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
