Polish National Church As Possible Model For Reform?

[dochawk]

Jesuit priests, like all religious order priests, are almost always disciplined only by superior within that religious order, not by bishop or any other community.

The Jesuits are a special case: they are one of only a couple of “exempt orders.”

They are exempt from local episcopal authority, answering to their Father General, who answers directly to the pope.

In general, a bishop has authority over the orders within his see.

hawk

 

[Deditus_Domina]

In my diocese the chancellor, archivist, director of the tribunal, liturgy coordinator, religious life director, director of HR, and superintendent of schools are all or until recently have been women. Lay women serve on the seminarian review board and the priest placement board.

I really don’t know how we lay women could be more involved. I would guess that 70% of our diocesan staff is women. That seems pretty typical of our parishes too. Women definitely dominate in the ministries.

I don’t know if things would improve under a democracy or if we would just have more rumor mongoring, gossip or slander. I think it would only be a matter of time before people would be voting to be able to vote on moral issues. At which point all would be lost

 

[abucs]

My 2c is that it is a fine balancing act.

Most bishops are quality pastors and administrators who are in communion with other quality bishops.

As the historical abuse cases and falling away from the church has shown, there does need to be a meaningful role played by the laity.

The problem I see with laity voting is that such an idea lends itself to ‘branch stacking’ by political pundits whose politics is above the mission of the church.

In affect the church becomes a take over target on a regional basis and such aggression and defense weakens the beneficial role of the church bringing the message of Jesus in both word and action.

Perhaps in schismatic traditional churches this is not so much a problem as those who would use the church for political motivations are unlikely to pursue political activism in those place due to the small nationalistic and traditional characteristics of such a church.

 

[GUYMAN]

Yesterdays Vatican slap in the face to the US Bishops is just another example of what I have been talking about. Many people (like me) are calling for more laity involvement - but how? What actual power structure in the Church has any laity involvement? Are the clerics really going to reform themselves?