Clericalism is a disease. A virus. And a very infectious one. In fact, it’s a type of “corona” (or “crown”) virus, if you will. It affects the Body of Christ by attacking its re-Spirit-ory system: it’s capacity to breath the Breath of God, to live the Spirit of Jesus, to clearly and authentically proclaim the Gospel of Jesus, to work, and even to pray, properly.
Clericalism is the pernicious (Pope Francis says “heretical”) idea that the ordained “clergy” are more important than the people, the “lay” and “consecrated” persons who make up the rest of the church. It is a mindset and a way of behaving that concentrates power, especially of decision-making and leadership, in the hands of the clergy as a de facto ruling class in a semi-feudal political structure; a kind of “sacred rule polity” (which is one interpretation of the word “hierarchy”), of a “priestly aristocracy” serving an “episcopal monarchy”; a polity which is often (and falsely!) dubbed a “theocracy” (which literally means “God-rule”).
“To say ‘no’ to abuse is to say an emphatic ‘no’ to all forms of clericalism.” Pope Francis 20 August 2018
Clericalism is, in practical terms, what we all participate in when we treat “ministers” (the word means “servants”!) as though they were masters.
When we allow ourselves to be treated like “underlings” by those who call themselves (and whom we call) “ministers”/servants, then it is almost as much our fault as it is theirs when we let them get away with it. Bishops, priests and deacons are “ordained” — ordered! — to serve us, not to "order us around" as though we were the servants and they the masters.
Ministers, not Masters!
We contribute and collude in our own clerical abuse when we treat — nay, mistreat! — ministers as though they were lords and masters with some kind of “divine right to rule”. If we are serious about overcoming the clerical pandemic, it’s time we started to treat our servants like servants. In other words, it is time to treat our ministers with the respect that they deserve.
Hmm. Had I begun with that line, I wonder how you would have heard it, what you would have thought I meant by it, and what your visceral reaction would have been. Even now your reaction can be a pretty reliable “rapid antigen test” for clerical-collar “corona” virus, and whether you have it or believe yourself immunized by (a largely useless and potentially deadly) anti-clericalist vaccine.
Because a secularist anticlericalism is not the answer to ecclesiastical clericalism: it’s just a manufactured mirror image of the same damn thing! It’s resentment disguised as a cure; a poisonous drug pretending to be a medicinal drug; a lie hidden in a half-truth … a three-quarter-truth … even a 99%-truth. But a lie, all the same; and all the more effective for the amount of truth it uses to hide the lie that it is (as every successful Machiavellian serpent of a psychotic narcissist knows since Eden’s loss!).
So where’s the salve? What’s the solution? What can save us?
Not “what” but who!
We need a healer who knows us through and through and loves us just as we are: broken, sick, sinful and stupid.
And we have Him.
All we need to do is turn our gaze away from the brazen serpents we’ve set up and turn instead to Christ, who is lifted up by God; look for Him in one another; treat each other with respect, as we would want to be treated ourselves; lead by serving, and serve by example in being led out of “self” and towards one another in self-gift. In short: do what Jesus said and did. Does! Because He is here, now, with us and among us and within us whenever we are together in His name, in His very being and person, in who and what He is: one-with-God from all eternity and one-with-us for all eternity, “fully divine” and “fully human” at one and the same time, in one and the same place, as one and the same reality.
The solution to all spiritual illnesses — all our lies, all our sins and heresies — is Christ: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. That is what it means that He is “saviour”, salvator, literally healer; and His saving salve is His Holy Spirit, His life-saving Breath breathing new life and vitality into us, into our clericalist corona-clogged and collapsing lungs, dispirited souls, and even our spiritually dead and decomposing corpses.
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