Jurisdiction and the Laity - Again

As our regular readers know, we don’t usually follow ecclesial politics here at ID. But last Thursday, Rocco Palma of Whispers in the Loggia fame, noted a development in the curia that could have long term significance for lay women and men.

“ . . .last Saturday Benedict elevated Servants of the Poor Fr Vincenzo Bertolone to the episcopacy, sending him to head the Italian diocese of Cassano all'Jonio.

Since 2004, Bertonlone, 60, has served as undersecretary at the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, the Vatican office that supervises religious communities. Also a longtime staffer there, he was named undersecretary six weeks following the precedent-shattering appointment of Salesian Sr Enrica Rosanna as the sole holder of CICLSAL's #3 position after arguments won the day that a woman religious -- devoid of holy orders, of course -- lacked the grace of office to supervise priests. (emphasis mine)

Yet again, Sr Enrica -- the highest-ranking woman in the history of the Vatican bureaucracy -- is the congregation's lone sottosegretario. If that holds, it'd be the surest sign yet that Benedict is intent to keep making good on his much burnished record of giving women the most collaborative place possible at the table of ecclesiastical administration.”

The issue at stake is that of jurisdiction and governance by the non-ordained. The question raised by Sr. Enrica’s position: Is there a basis for jurisdiction within the Church other than ordination?

There are many Vatican organizations and positions that simply cry out for substantial secular (that is, lay) expertise and leadership (Pontifical Councils for the Laity; the Family, Health Care, Migrants and Immigrants, Justice and Peace, Social Communications, for example) but all are headed (and seconded) by Cardinals and Bishops. Although 38% of Vatican staff are not clerics, lay people seldom serve in positions of real decision-making authority.

If Sr. Enrica is permitted to exercise her office alone, an office which has always been understood to include ecclesial jurisdiction, it forces the theological issue. Both John Paul II, who first hired Sr. Enrica, and Benedict seem to mean to challenge the assumption that jurisdiction within the Church can only flow from Holy Orders, and to jump start the necessary theological and practical conversation.

And, of course, the result of that conversation has big implications for all the baptized who are not ordained; religious and lay, male and female.