Time to implement Vatican II’s teaching on the laity

Jul 14, 2017

By Gerard O’Connell
“This is a moment in the life of the church where we can really try to implement what the Second Vatican Council already spoke about, which is the role of the laity in the Church,” Cardinal Kevin Farrell (pic) said in an exclusive interview with America in his office in Rome.

The implementation “has been slowed down, at times, for various reasons,” the prefect of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family and Life said. “There was some misunderstanding and confusion around this. In the past, we have spent so much time fighting among ourselves. I think we have lost an awful lot of ground and an awful lot of time by infighting, but I think now is the right time.” As head of this Vatican department since Aug 17, 2016, Cardinal Farrell is now in a position to bring lay people into positions of leadership in the Church.

“The laity have a vocation to fulfill in the Church, and I am a firm believer that the future of the Church depends on them. I have always felt the need to promote laity within the Church and within its organisation,” he said.

The former bishop of Dallas said we are in a “kairos” moment for the laity in the Church — and Pope Francis agrees.

Pope Francis phoned him in Dallas in May 2016 to ask if he would take the job. “The first time he phoned, we talked in Spanish; somehow, he knew I spoke Spanish, and it was very pleasant,” the cardinal recalled. “It was 9 o’clock in the morning, and I will never forget it. He told me what he was thinking, and I told him that I thought he was making a mistake — I was too old and couldn’t find myself working in Rome. But, he said, ‘Look, I want you to think about this, I want you to discern about this, and I’ll call you back in a few days.’ He called back three days later, and I had my list of five reasons why I shouldn’t come to Rome. Then he said to me, ‘Well, maybe we can sit down and talk.’ So, I came to Rome, and I met with him at Santa Marta. We talked for an hour-and-a-half. So, here I am!”

The Irish-born American cardinal has no regrets over accepting the Pope’s nomination. “I find it different,” he said of his new role. “My whole life, I have worked in a different environment, with a different way of doing things. It is much more stressful back home in many ways, and things have to happen so quickly in the United States. A news story has a lifespan of about three minutes. Here it goes on and on and on. I find that (a) change of culture, (a) change of ways of doing things. Obviously, there’s a change, but I changed from Washington, D.C., to Dallas, Tex., and that was a huge cultural change.”

Cardinal Farrell has had several private meetings with Francis since coming to Rome. “Every time I meet him at ceremonies or events, he always comes over and asks me how things are going,” he said. “He is very interested in knowing how things are going.”

The dicastery’s new statute calls for qualified laypeople to hold most of the key posts. The prefect is to be a cardinal, but the secretary (the number two role) could be a lay person. But, the cardinal said, “The person who runs the laity office has to understand all about movements within the Church and canon law.”

One section of the dicastery deals with the family, and the cardinal said he “would like to have a man or woman who is married and has a family to head that office because they would have more credibility and, moreover, you have to have a person in charge who understands life and the family, morality and everything else. But you need qualified people; you cannot just put somebody in there and tell them: ‘This is your job. You have to learn now.’”

On May 2, the Pope appointed Marta Rodriguez from Spain, a consecrated woman from Regnum Christi (the lay group of the Legionaries of Christ) and the director of the Institute for Higher Women’s Studies at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University in Rome, as director of the office for women’s issues.

“It has been a struggle to find competent lay people to fill those positions,” Cardinal Farrell said, and this is particularly true since he wants to internationalise the dicastery. But he has now identified suitable persons and hopes to fill the key positions by mid-September.

This is especially important since there are two major international events on the horizon that require substantial input from his dicastery: the World Meeting of Families in Dublin, Aug. 22-26, 2018, and World Youth Day in Panama, Jan. 22-27, 2019.

The department now led by Cardinal Farrell was created from the merger of three different councils (the Laity, the Family and Life). “(They) have done wonderful work over many years,” he said.

A new culture is emerging

“There has to be a change of mentality and ability to adapt to the reality of the pastoral life of the Church today. Things move much faster in the world today than they did in the past, and I think we need to catch up a little on that. A change of culture is necessary, regarding what we do and how we do it.”

Explaining the change of culture that is required, the cardinal said: “We need to be, as Pope Francis says, a Church that goes out, a missionary Church. We need to listen to what’s going on, to assimilate what the bishops tell us and not have ready answers. Sometimes, in the past, we (Vatican officials) were too willing to respond and to tell the bishops what to do in a given situation. Having been on the other side, I used to resent in a certain way that when I came over (to Rome) and somebody would give us a speech and tell us what to do — even if they have never been down on the border in south Texas.

“Pope Francis wants us to listen to the people and to enter into dialogue,” Cardinal Farrell said. He has explained this to the staff in his department in preparation for the ad limina visits with bishops from around the world and said that “while there may be issues that we get from the reports that we may wish to comment on,” it is not the task of Vatican officials “to tell people what to do in given situations.” The ad limina “is an encounter with the bishops, a discussion with them and seeking to encourage them in their work to be a listening Church.”--America Magazine