October 2, 1987
The Message -- for Catholics of Southwestern Indiana
I
Lay Catholic movement to be major issue
By GREG ERLANDSON
NC News Service
VATICAN CITY (NC) -- The
relationship of "new" lay
Catholic movements with local
churches, bishops and tradi-
tional Catholic associations is
one of the major issues facing
delegates to the 1987 synod on
the laity•
Several of the movements'
founders, officers and critics
will be among the delegates,
observers and "experts" at the
synod•
The so-called "new
movements" have been par-
ticularly active and controver-
sial in Europe. They have pro-
#ided spiritual formation for
'their members and enthusiatic
workers for local parish pro-
jects.
.Exact membership figures are
hard to pin down, but hundreds
of thousands of Catholics are
said to be affiliated with the
movements worldwide.
Because of their international
character, extensive lay leader-"
ship and dedication to specific
!
charisms or ideals of their
founders, some movements
have clashed with local church
authority•
The synod's general
secretary, Archbishop Jan
Schotte, said there are two con-
cerns about the movements
likely to attract the attention of
the synod fathers: the "new
models of Catholic apostolic
associations" vs. the "tradi-
tional Catholic Action model";
and the relationship between
lay associations and organiza-
tions and their pastors.
Groups identified as "new
movements" include
charismatic renewal, Focolare,
Cursillo, neo-catechumenate,
Schonstatt and Communion
and Liberation. They have
emerged in the past few
decades with international
followings.
Traditional lay associations
such as Catholic Action,
sodalities and confraternities
have official status and
longstanding institutional ties
with the church.
THE NEW MOVEMENTS
often have looser organization,
less clerical supervision and
more lay leadership than tradi-
tional groups•
While many bishops
welcome the movements in
their dioceses, there have also
been clashes between local
church authorities and the
groups in several countries.
The friction has been over
issues ranging from episcopal
authority to church teachings.
The laity synod's working
document, the "instrumentum
laboris," acknowledged these
difficulties when it declared
bishops must discern the
soundness of such movements
and enforce the "communio"
of the church while "neither
stifling nor forcing the charisms
involved."
In other words, said a church
official familiar with the pro-
blem, the "underlying ques-
tion" for the church is: What
sort of unity does it demand of
the new movements, and what
sort of diversity does it allow?
- Traditional European-
founded lay associations such
as Italian Catholic Action began
in the 19th or early 20th cen-
turies, often in response to anti-
clerical or anti-Catholic social
environments. They became in-
volved in politics or social
issues to defend the rights of
Catholics and to practice the
church's social teachings.
Because of the strong papal
support it received, perhaps the
best known was Italian Catholic
Action, which was viewed as
the lay arm of the bishops in
social and political issues. The
"Catholic Action Pope," Plus
XI, defined the association in
1922 as "the participation of
the laity in the apostolate of the
church's hierarchy."
Bishop Paul Cordes, vice
president of the Pontifical
Council for the Laity and author
of several essays on the
significance of the "new
spiritual movements," said
Focolare, Communion and
Liberation, the neo-
catechumenate and charismatic
renewal, among others, em-
phasize "personal conver-
Why don't you
right-to-lifers go
away, and leave us
alone?
It isn't that we want to bother you. But, we must. If we d,m't speak
out for unborn children, who will?
Before 1973, there wasn't such a thing as a right-to-life movement
because there was a right to life. Americans, and our government,
helieved in the right to life for all human beings. Young people, old
people, middle aged people, babies in the womb. People.
Then, things changed. On Jam|ary 22, 1973, the Supreme Court
shocked the country, ruling that abortions were legal, leaving
unborn children unprotected for the first time.
Today, an enormous abortion industry has taken hold (look in the
Yellow Pages). Doctors have switched from doing deliveries to
doing abortions full-time because the profit's better, and the
liabilities are fewer.
Gibson County
Right to Life
119 West Street
Haubltsdt. Indiana 47639
(812l 768-6768
In China, they're a step ahead. Abortions are forced on women
discovered pregnant with a second child. And, because Chinese
couples prefer baby boys, baby girls born as first children are
sometimes killed hy suffocation upon delivery.
If you wonder what the world is coming to, so do we. That's why
right-to-lifers will not just go away, any more than your conscience
can just go away. So, don't ask us to go away. In fact, why don't
you go our way? We can change things.
Posey County
Right to Life
P.O. Box 26
Mr. Vernon, Indiana 47620
1812) 985-3843
• . • , L' ¸
Right to Life
of Vanderburgh County
65S Tenni s lane
Evsn|ville. Indiana 4771S
18121 473-8033.
• .-,': .! .., . ,
••i
: i: :''!.i :
pL
si0n."
While social issues may be of
major importance to them, the
new movements "discovered
the spiritual dimension of
human existence as primary,"
he added.
This "very personal, very
spiritual" perspective of the
movements received a major
boost from the Second Vatican
Council, which spoke of the
universal call to holiness, the
common priesthood of the bap-
tized and the necessity of
evangelization.
The council fathers also
spoke of the laity's right to form
associations -- a right subse-
quently written into the new
Code of Canon Law. They no
longer saw lay associations as
an arm of the hierarchy.
FOLLOWING THE council,
many traditional organizations
such as Catholic Action lost
members and energy, while the
new movements, in the words
of the synod's working docu-
ment, spread "with particular
vigor."
At times .this growth has
sparked conflict.
For instance, the Communion
and Liberation movement,
based in Milan, Italy, has had
an edgy relationship with Car-
dinal Carlo Martini of Milan.
Recently church officials
criticized some of the move-
ment's members for calling for
new leadership in the Christian
Democratic Party. The move-
ment also has a highly
publicized rivalry with Ita:ian
Catholic Action. i
Communion and Liberation,
a renewal movement which
began on Italian high school
and university campuses in the
1950s, is based on small groups
called "schools of communi-
ty." Its members also publish
magazines and books, run
worker and student
cooperatives, and have a strong
political movement loosely af-
filiated with the church-allied
Christian Democratic Party.
Local church authorities and
movements have also clashed
when movements assert their
ties to the pope are closer than
their ties to the local church.
While acknowledging there
are problems, Bishop Cordes
said tensions between the local
churches and the movem6nts
can be "necessary and very
fruitful."
The movements help in-
vigorate the local churc h, he
said. At the same time 91 local
church forces the movenient to
make its charisms evident in
concrete situations.
_ ----- _
HUNTINGBURG
i
Buehlers I.G.A.
"The ThriftyHousewife's
Source of Savings"
QUALITY FOODS, MEATS
! HUNTINGBURG i
Compliments' ' I i
N ass & Son In€; -
I
FONERAL
Huntlngburg, Ind.
