Toward a More Egalitarian Church

Thesis Statement: Toward a More Egalitarian Church

One of the most important questions that any religion must ask of itself is how it will appeal to each new generation, for a religion that cannot enlist the children of its members to follow on in its teachings will become a dead religion, no matter how true its doctrine may be. Some faiths � such as the Shakers � have staked their institutional lives on being able to recruit entirely new generations simply by the power of their doctrine and liturgy and have failed to do so in part because their vows of celibacy forbade them access to the most natural body of followers that most generations have � the children of the members.

So how may the Catholic Church find a way to involve young people more closely in the formal practices of the church? What is the role of young people to be in the church of the third millennium? In some ways, their role will be what it always was, for one of the greatest strengths of the church has always been its ability to provide theological and liturgical continuity and has always been able to introduce children successfully to its teachings, rituals and beliefs. And yet the role of young people in the church must also change to reflect broad changes in society that have been and shall continue to be reflected in the church itself.

The most important way that the role of young people will change in the future is that they must be help the church become more egalitarian. They must also participate

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plans to involve youth in the Catholic Church must be plans to involve youth in a Catholic Church that depends upon the service and dedication of the laity in ways undreamed of a century ago. While the Vatican has been slow to accept the increasing role of the laity in ministerial functions, an increase in the importance of the laity is certainly not necessarily a bad thing for a church concerned about maintaining its youthful membership. Indeed, a less hierarchical church may well appeal far more to younger members than one in which a rigid line is drawn between the vowed religious and the rest of the congregrants. The changing relationship of the clergy and the laity is a topic too large to be covered in its entirety here and remains in flux with no possibility of absolutely true statement being made about it. It is impossible to know how much power the laity may assume over the next generation or whether changes in society or church policy (such as the allowance of the ordination of women or the dropping of the vows of chastity currently but not always required of the clergy) may not make the clergy more appealing and so shift power away from the laity again. But it does seem clear that any church in which the laity have a st

Category: Philosophy - T