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November
21, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 20Oakland,
CA
New guidelines define roles of lay ecclesial ministers
WASHINGTON—
The nation’s Catholic bishops have approved new guidelines for lay
ecclesial ministers, a group of more than 30,000 men and women who hold
significant leadership positions in 66 percent of all U.S. parishes.
These lay ecclesial ministers are frequently women on the front lines
of Catholic life, educating children, preparing couples for marriage,
welcoming new Catholics, and coordinating the songs and music that are
central to Catholic worship.
In short, they’re doing the jobs that priests don’t have the
time, or the manpower, to do anymore.
“Even though we have a shortage of priests, we don’t have
a shortage of ministers,” said Father Eugene Lauer, director of
the New York-based National Pastoral Life Center.
The new guidelines address the theological understandings of lay ecclesial
ministry and the minister’s relationship to the bishop, priest,
deacon and other parishioners. They also deal with criteria for education
and formation and how such ministers can be integrated into the Church’s
workforce.
The dwindling number of clergy has meant most priests concentrate on the
things only ordained ministers can do, such as celebrating Mass and hearing
confessions, with the laity filling many of the pastoral and administrative
gaps in parish life.
The number of ecclesial lay ministers continues to grow.
More than 18,000 Catholics are enrolled in lay ministry training programs—a
figure that is six times larger than the number of men studying to be
priests, and one that has nearly doubled in the past 20 years.
Another striking change is the dramatic drop in the proportion of nuns
(who are counted as lay people) in ministerial positions, down from 41
percent to just 16 percent today.
Yet, about 75 percent of ecclesial lay ministers are women, Lauer said,
and it’s easiest to think of them as filling the roles traditionally
held by associate pastors. “Everything but the sacraments,”
he said.
But a surprisingly large number — about 800 or so, by Lauer’s
count — of lay ministers are “parish life directors”
who basically run the parish in cooperation with a priest who presides
at liturgy and provides other sacramental services.
In the Oakland Diocese, there is one parish life director – Stephen
Mullin at All Saints Parish in Hayward.
Across the country, most lay ministers are part time; many receive some
kind of payment. The largest group (42 percent) are involved in parish
education programs, according to Lauer’s study, making them important
transmitters of the faith to the next generation of Catholics. They are
also pastoral ministers, youth ministers, music ministers and liturgists.
Full-time Catholic school teachers, who are 95 percent laity, are usually
counted separately and not considered “lay ministers.”
Those categories also do not include the countless Catholics who serve
as lectors, Eucharistic ministers, and volunteers, or the estimated 2,000
Catholics who work as chaplains in prisons, airports, hospitals and colleges.
James Davidson,
a sociologist at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., said lay ministers
tend to be women in their 40s and 50s, overwhelmingly white, well-educated,
married with children and alumni of Catholic schools. More than 60 percent
had been active in the Church for a decade or more.
“The majority of them look at their work with the Church as a ministry
or a calling, not simply a job,” said Davidson, co-author of a 2003
book, “Lay Ministers and Their Spiritual Practices.”
While lay ministers provide stable leadership at many parishes, the new
guidelines from the bishops are clear that they do not replace ordained
priests, do not operate as free agents and must work “in cooperation
with the hierarchy and under its direction.”
