I think you’ve made an error in choice of title. Your article seems less about clericalism and more about cults of personality. I’d like to comment on both in context of the points you raise.

Clericalism, the term, the concept, grew out of the Protestant Revolt. Bellow follows some definitions of “clericalism” from online dictionaries. It’s interesting to note that Googling “etymology of clericalism” turned up no etymology of the word but rather many anti-clericalism finds. Such is the nature of the word. Regardless, here are some common definitions:

* A policy of supporting the power and influence of the clergy in political or secular matters.
* Political influence or power of the clergy, or a policy or principles favoring this: generally a derogatory term
* An undue influence of the hierarchy and clergy in public affairs and government.
* The principles and interests of the clergy.
* And from CatholicReference.net: The advocacy of exaggerated claims on the part of the clergy, especially in matters that belong to the jurisdiction of the state. More commonly it is used as a term of reproach by secularists and unfriendly critics of the Catholic Church who aim to banish all religious influence from public life.

I assert that clericalism is not the error or the source of the problem you see. What you see, but attribute to clericalism, is the cult of personality that has crept into the priesthood, and the laity.

True and proper “clericalism” is I think a part of God’s plan. Not man’s version of clericalism, God’s version. If it were otherwise He never would have made His Church an Evangelical Church. Nor would He have laid the seeds for what is now commonly called the Theology of the Body. Nor of course would He have created the priesthood.

In fact it is through proper and true clericalism that the leadership of Caesar now uses arguments such as “the dignity of man” in their discourse against evils. As much as I’m tempted to talk more about the errors and needs regarding clericalism. But, your article was really filled with points and examples about the cult of personality problems that exist in the Church, and I’ll add laity.

Regarding the issues surrounding the cult of personality influences you, rightly, point out. I’m of the firm conviction these errors are rooted in the Marxist style errors of interpretation regarding Vatican II. Errors that are simply optimisms toward human nature that are really blind to human nature. When the priest serving Mass turned away from Our Lord Crucified and toward the sheep, it set the priest and the people on a new path. A path filled with human faces, but one that human nature renders terribly slippery. Life is such when one’s eye turns from looking toward Christ in all things.

If you doubt the importance of this assertion, ask yourself why so many churches have took Our Lord Crucified down from His Place above His Altar and put him “away”, have placed him beside the priest {processional crucifixes}, or have placed him in the back of the church {I’ve seen this with my own eyes}, or have shrunk Our Lord Crucified down to a small Crucifix less than a foot tall and placed him on the altar table. Though many errors were introduced through misinterpretations of Vatican II, I believe greatest of these, after doing away with patens and out stretching our hand to “take” Our Lord, was the turning of the priest toward His sheep during the Mass.

There were many reasons why from the very beginning of the Church the presider and the people faced the way they did; East and in the same direction. Reasons founded on traditions, beliefs and hopes. I also happen to think His Grace played a big role in it too, to protect all of us from the frailties of our human nature.

Granted there have always been cults of personality in the church. But never to this extent IN the Church. In the early Church such things were mostly situations of those claiming to be of the Church but were really outside the Church. Today it’s different than the past. The growth of the Church has made her an unmistakably clear and present part of man’s world. One would think with today’s communications capabilities that there would be less confusion, but like the cacophony of chatter in a crowded room it has made hearing Her true voice very difficult.

These two things are the root of the cults of personality problem. The first being the effects upon the priesthood when men become the central focus of the eye in the Mass. The second the din of babble in the world through which Mother Church struggles to be heard.

That is how a face searching in the crowd for the voice they hear within becomes so confused and ends up gazing through the eyes of hope upon a personality. And not upon the Crucifix.

As for a finer point in your article. You say: “At the altar the priest presides. In the world, the laity presides. This is the basic principle that ought to govern all our thinking about the roles of the ordained and the laity in the mission of the Church.” To this I can only say, no. Yes we must render unto Caesar that which is Caesar. But the early Christians were marked by their living their Faith fully and correctly by NOT living their life unto the world. Yes the lived IN the world, but theirs was NOT a life of the world. Hence the large numbers of desert hermits, evangelists that traveled the world, and Christians by unfathomable numbers being persecuted in the most unspeakable ways for simply not by speech rendering unto Caesar that he was a God.

Lastly your reference to Ephesians 4:11-12. In commenting you demonstrate one of the really serious errors pervading the Church, one of the Protestantization of Scripture. I am not pointing as much to your interpretation but rather of the translation that set in motion and lay underneath your comments.

Here is the Ephesians 4:11-13 from a Douay-Rheims translation; translation that was used for centuries and widely considered most precise translation form the Vulgate Latin: “11 And he gave some apostles, and some prophets, and other some evangelists, and other some pastors and doctors, 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: 13 Until we all meet into the unity of faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ; ”

Ephesians 4:11-12, when taken in correct context, to verse 13 immediately following, it does not at all support “getting past clericalism”. In fact it supports true, proper and ordained Clericalism. Verse 13 shows that the purposes of what’s laid out in the prior verses are to reach unity of faith and of knowledge of Christ. NOT a divided world of “altar” and the “world”, but of one world. Not a world made up of church things run by priests and “world” things run by the laity. The laity I’ll remind you are simply non-ordained priests, limited priests if you will. But the laity are still called to the same goals as the ordained priesthood; to save souls, their own and all others.

Many errors in the priesthood are very manifest and plain, some horrible to see. But they exist in the numbers they do now largely because of the incorrect interpretations of Vatican II. Interpretations never intended by the Church. As for the subject of clericalism, clericalism in the sense of “a policy of supporting the power and influence of the clergy in political or secular matters.” is needed today more than ever. It is the job of Benedict XVI to bring his Bishops and priests back from their foray into the world of interpreting man through man’s eyes and return them to their true job of teaching the Truths revealed to His Church.

AMDG
HCSKnight

Just to be Excruciatingly correct.