Legrand, Hervé
The Systemic Dimensions of the Crisis of Abuse in the Catholic Church and the Reform of Current Ecclesiology
- 2021.
31
In the scarcely evangelical management of sexual offenses committed by clerics, current Catholic ecclesiology has shown systemic weaknesses, which are particularly illustrated by the dichotomy of the “priesthood and laity” in the form favored by Tridentinism. In this framework ordination was understood less as access to the pastorship of a church than as a personal endowment of sacramental powers, lacking any necessary connection to a local church. This model now meets its end in the West, in spite of its recent exaltation, associated with that of the new religious movements. Such a renewal would involve the conferral of greater responsibility upon dioceses and their bishops, and would go hand in hand with an effective synodality, a renewed status of renewal of the clergy, and of a theology of vocation to the ordained ministries, in the sense called for by Saint Pius X.