The priest and the lay apostolate

At our Legion meeting this week, I gave an allocutio about the relationship between priests and the lay faithful in the mission of the Church. This seemed a useful thing to do in the Year for Priests.

I chose the following passage from Vatican II's Decree on the Life and Ministy of Priests as the spiritual reading.

The Lord Jesus, "whom the Father has sent into the world" (Jn 10:36) has made his whole Mystical Body a sharer in the anointing of the Spirit with which he himself is anointed. In him all the faithful are made a holy and royal priesthood; they offer spiritual sacrifices to God through Jesus Christ, and they proclaim the perfections of him who has called them out of darkness into his marvellous light. Therefore, there is no member who does not have a part in the mission of the whole Body; but each one ought to hallow Jesus in his heart, and in the spirit of prophecy bear witness to Jesus.

The same Lord, however, has established ministers among his faithful to unite them together in one body in which, "not all the members have the same function" (Rom 12:4). These ministers in the society of the faithful are able by the sacred power of orders to offer sacrifice and to forgive sins, and they perform their priestly office publicly for men in the name of Christ. Therefore, having sent the apostles just as he himself been sent by the Father, Christ, through the apostles themselves, made their successors, the bishops, sharers in his consecration and mission. The office of their ministry has been handed down, in a lesser degree indeed, to the priests. It is established in the order of the priesthood so that they can be co-workers of the episcopal order for the proper fulfillment of the apostolic mission entrusted to priests by Christ.

The office of priests, since it is connected with the episcopal order, also, in its own degree, shares the authority by which Christ builds up, sanctifies and rules his Body. Wherefore the priesthood, while indeed it presupposes the sacraments of Christian initiation, is conferred by that special sacrament; through it priests, by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, are signed with a special character and are conformed to Christ the Priest in such a way that they can act in the person of Christ the Head.

This is the text for the allocutio. It is perhaps important to appreciate the particular historical context of the Legion of Mary at the time in which Frank Duff spoke, a context which gives some understanding of his emphasis on the dependence of the Legion apostolate on the priest.

In this allocutio, I want to contrast - and then draw together - two different statements about the activity of lay people in the mission of the Church. The first is from Vatican II’s Constitution on the Church and the second from a talk by Frank Duff.

The apostolate of the laity is a sharing in the salvific mission of the Church. Through Baptism and Confirmation all are appointed to this apostolate by the Lord himself …. The laity, however, are given this special vocation: to make the Church present and fruitful in those places and circumstances where it is only through them that she can become the salt of the earth. Thus, every lay person, through those gifts given to him, is at once the witness and the living instrument of the mission of the Church itself “according to the measure of Christ’s bestowal”.[1]

If the lay person is appointed to the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, then that apostolate is theirs by a right that is their own - and not by delegation or appointment from the Bishop or Priest. So the Code of Canon Law allows that the lay faithful have the right, whether as individuals or by way of membership, establishing and direction of associations, to take action that serves the mission of the Church; and the right to promote and support apostolic action by their own initiative[2].

Frank Duff, on the other hand, writes of the Legion of Mary that it is an “extension of the priest”:

The priest is intended to be Christ in the world in His fullness: Christ the sacrificer, Christ the organiser of the Church, Christ the source of religious knowledge and the main teacher, Christ the converter of nations and the inspirer of men. But Christ’s method of thus fulfilling Himself was to add on to Himself members and through them discharge His functions. Had he not done so, His religion would have died with Him on the Cross….”Members” must have a significance above that of employees or adherents or convenient adjuncts. “Members” must imply a connection and a kinship of function, and of course helpfulness and activity. A true member must be an extension of the priest, attuned to his outlook, throbbing in sympathy. The member must share in the priestly work to the fullest possible extent, that is to the point where the lay function stops, but only there. If the laity is hedged off from the genuine participation in the ordinary pastoral office of the priest, the expression “members” is inappropriate.[3]

The first point to be made in synthesising these two contrasting expressions is that the mission of the priest and the mission of the lay person have a common origin. This is expressed in the first paragraph of our spiritual reading, which applies to both the lay faithful and the ordained priesthood: “there is no member who does not have a part in the mission of the whole Body”.[4] Through ordination, the priest gains a specification or focussing of that participation in the mission of the Church that the lay person does not. The mission involved, though, is fundamentally the same mission of achieving the holiness of those who are already members of the Church and of evangelising those who are not members of the Church: “each one ought to hallow Jesus in his heart, and in the spirit of prophecy bear witness to Jesus”.

Once this is recognised, one can look “from the outside towards the centre” - and see first the autonomy of the lay mission from that of the priestly mission, and then recognise the fundamental identity of the mission. Or, as does Frank Duff, one can look “from the centre towards the outside” - when the fundamental identity of the mission of the lay person and that of the priest allows one to see the lay mission as extending that of the priest.

The second point to be made in synthesising these two expressions is the obligation for ecclesial communion, or, to express it in its more practical way, that of ecclesial obedience. This does not mean that the lay person only does what he or she is told by the priest; it does not deny to lay people their own rightful initiative. On the other hand, it does mean that the activity undertaken by lay people will always be undertaken in communion with their priests and bishop. So, for example, the Legion of Mary will not work in a diocese without the permission of the bishop and will not establish a praesidium in a parish without the permission of the parish priest. [5] This obedience is a tangible, and visible manifestation of, the fundamental unity of the mission of the Church, be that the mission undertaken by the lay faithful or the mission undertaken by the priest.

[1] Vatican II Dogmatic Constitution Lumen Gentium n.33; cf Vatican II Decree Apostolicam Actuositatem n.3; cf Catechism of the Catholic Church nn.898-900; cf Code of Canon Law (1983) c.225
[2] Code of Canon Law (1983) c. 225, cf cc.215-216.
[3] Frank Duff The Priest must have Members. cf Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary p.61. There are two historical contexts to this article of Frank Duff’s. One is the difficulty experienced by the Legion in gaining formal recognition from the Archdiocese of Dublin, a difficulty which in part arose from a suspicion of the Legion by priests in the Diocese (cf Leon O Broin Frank Duff: A Biography pp.31 ff). The second context was a restrictive view of what was termed at the time “Catholic Action”. This expected a lay organisation to engage in a more social or political type of apostolate, and led to the Legion with its explicitly evangelising apostolate being excluded from ecclesiastical approval in some countries. This issue was resolved at the Congress of the Lay Apostolate in Rome in 1957, by an intervention of the Pope taken by many to be directed in favour of the Legion of Mary, to which Frank Duff refers in The Priest must have Members.
[4] It is also reflected in the structuring of the treatment of the same topic in the Code of Canon Law (1983). “The obligations and rights of all Christ’s faithful” (cc.208-223) is followed by “The obligations and rights of the lay members of Christ’s faithful” (cc.224-231). cf also John Paul II Christifideles Laici n.2.
[5] cf Official Handbook of the Legion of Mary p.84. This provision is reflected in the constitutions and manner of operation of many of the lay movements in the Church.