Sir, – It is encouraging to read Patsy McGarry’s report (Home News, July 6th) that a lay Catholic group is being established to promote reform in the church. That is what Archbishop Martin has been encouraging and it is what the recent Eucharistic Congress is seen as inaugurating.
The news is doubly encouraging in that the new group’s agenda is likely to be based on the Second Vatican Council. It is almost half a century since the council ended. On its final day, December 8th, 1965, Pope Paul VI formally “approved and established” the council’s decisions.
On April 23rd, 1966, in an obvious reproof to the Curia about its slownesss in implementing them, he stated forcibly: “Whatever were our opinions about the council’s various doctrines before its conclusions were promulgated, today our adherence to the decisions of the council must be whole hearted and without reserve; it must be willing and prepared to give them the service of our thought, action and conduct. The council was something very new: doctrine must be seen as belonging to the magisterium of the church and, indeed, be attributed to the breath of the Holy Spirit.”
Among the decisions approved by the vast majority of the world’s bishops and now, according to the Pope, part of the church’s magisterium, or ultimate teaching authority, is that in the council’s decree on the apostolate of the laity. In chapter 1.2, is a sentence stating that “the laity share in the priestly, prophetic, and royal office of Christ and therefore have their own share in the mission of the whole people of God in the church and in the world”.
The Vatican has shown no great urgency in recognising the significance of this and many other council pronouncements. Instead post-council popes and curia cardinals have adopted a policy of ignoring, obstructing or misinterpreting them.
The establishment, in Ireland and hopefully in other countries, of a new lay movement, preferably in collaboration with the existing Association of Catholic Priests, may provide the impetus that is needed to start the long delayed implementation of Vatican II. – Yours, etc,