Father Reese SJ wants More Lay Involvement in Church

Editor:  Better be careful Father Reese.  You guys engage in a lot of special pleading here.  We thought Jesuits were supposed to be logical.  These radicals are all about "lay leadership" until the laity starts asking for more authoritative statements against homosexuals in the priesthood and the occasional Latin Mass to be said.  One thing you can say about NCR and Jesuits in general is that they are respecters of persons, even if they have no respect for the truth. Father Reese should join the Episcopagans, we understand that they have lots of openings.  It is indeed comical how leftist clergy becomes the caricature of the shrill old-school Msgr when the laity acts like Catholics.

Panelists at a recent Woodstock forum in Philadelphia urged lay Catholics to grab the reins and set the course for the church’s future.

“We are becoming a do-it-yourself church” for the laity, said Jesuit Fr. Thomas J. Reese, one of three senior fellows of the Woodstock Theological Center in Washington who spoke at “The Future of the Church: A Woodstock Forum on Sources of Hope,” held at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia Dec. 5.

The U.S. Catholic hierarchy today is fearful and defensive, a far cry from the collaborative, pastorally transformed hierarchy that emerged during and after the Second Vatican Council, said Dolores R. Leckey, former longtime head of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat for Laity, Family, Women and Youth, and a noted writer on spirituality.

Read further at NCR...