Christ’s idea of authority in Church

By Virginia Saldanha

Mumbai, Oct 20, 2023: The Synod on Synodality, taking place in Rome through October has captured the attention of reform groups from all over the world. The 3-year process that began in October 2021 will conclude in 2024.

Sadly, in Asia only a sprinkling of groups speak of reform and the bishops are content to keep it that way. Hence the majority of laity have remained oblivious to the process that built up to this big event taking place in the Catholic Church.

The educated youth are slowly haemorrhaging out of the Church oblivious to its leaders. To youth and to all the adult laity I would strongly recommend the book written by John Wijngaards titled, “Christ’s Idea of Authority in the Church.”

The book is a reflective and learning tool for all believers in the Catholic Church to help them come to the realization that Reform is badly needed for the Church to thrive in the 21st century. All voices need to be heard and so the youth need to speak up not walk out.

Each chapter takes up a different topic and ends with questions for reflection.

The aim of the book is to illustrate to the People of God the need for reform. The exercise of authority by the leaders of the Church is central to reforms beginning with the Pope, to the Bishops Conferences, Bishops and priests. Wijngaards stresses the importance of recognizing the ‘Sense of the Faithful’ as well as their voice of prophesy in this process.

He asserts “The educated Laity manifest their own strong opinions on what is right and what is wrong in Church practice. Church leaders should give full weight to this as it may reveal the ‘sense of faith’, the ultimate source of the Church’s inerrancy.”

He advocates for the recognition of women’s right to equality in Church leadership and hence the need for admission of women to the sacrament of ordination, beginning at least with the diaconate.

He also advocates for the rights of ordinary members of the community to exercise certain liturgical functions in the absence of a priest and in emergencies, pointing to our latent spiritual authority acquired through baptism.

He uses simple language and a lot of real-life stories and insightful illustrations from his long years of service as a Mill-Hill Missionary across different continents from Asia, Africa, Latin America to Europe and North America, to convey his message and authenticates it with quotes from the New Testament.

Pointing to the power Jesus gave to the leaders of the Church, Wijngaards asserts that Jesus gave power to teach love, not power to instil fear, power to heal not to inflict wounds, power to liberate not to enslave, power to serve not to dominate.

I am particularly struck by Wijngaards descriptions of the Sensus Fidei or “the Sense of the Faithful, to drive the message in that we are all ‘Church’, and the important role we are to play in the Church. Jesus’ Spirit speaks through “the sense of faith” in the heart of every believer today. It helps us grow in our faith by adapting and facing questions that need answering. The awareness of the People of God needs to be an ever-renewed awareness.

The book has received endorsements from prominent theologians like Mary McAleese, Thomas O’Loughlin, Jane Anderson, Todd Salzman and Paul Lakeland acknowledging the Christocentric model of authority proposed in the book.

Feminist theologians would disagree with him that Jesus did not explicitly take up the emancipation of women. Feminist theologians point to several instances in the Gospels when Jesus freed women from the oppressive attitudes during his time. One example being, the woman with the flow of blood touching him and being healed instantly.

According to Jewish law a woman with the flow of blood could not touch anyone or anything which would render the thing or person ritually unclean. But Jesus ignored this law because the human person was more important than the law. Instead, he praised her faith. Sadly, this message was not passed on to women. This was the main reason given to keep women from serving at the altar as well as from ordination.

Yet, Wijngaards does raise a prophetic voice to call out what needs to change in the Church – for equality of all human persons.

Is Christ’s idea of Authority recognizable in the Church today?

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Note 1: The book is available on Amazon. Wijngaards is making every effort to get an Indian edition printed to make the book more accessible to people in India.

Note 2: Johannes (John) Nicolaas Maria Wijngaards is a Catholic scripture scholar and a laicized priest.

Wijngaards, as a Mill Hill missionary, taught Sacred Scripture at St John’s Major Seminary in Hyderabad, India (1963–1976). During that time, he was instrumental in founding Amruthavani communication centre, Jeevan Jyoti theological institute for religious women and Jyotirmai, the statewide planning body for the Catholic dioceses of Andhra Pradesh.

He served as part-time lecturer at the National Biblical Catechetical and Liturgical Centre in Bangalore and was, for a number of years, a member of the National Advisory Council of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India. He also produced a number of books on Sacred Scripture including his well-known Background to the Gospels. Research on the ministries convinced him that the exclusion of women must be attributed to cultural obstacles, not to Scripture or Tradition. He urged the Indian hierarchy to start a process of exploring the full ordination of women.

Rome reiterated its inability to confer ordination on women, culminating in Ordinatio sacerdotalis in 1995, and subsequent documents curtailed theologians from discussing the subject. In protest, Wijngaards resigned from his priestly ministry on September 17, 1998. Rome on February 21, 2000, accepted his request for laicization.

(Virginia Saldanha is a leading woman theologian who once headed the women’s department of both the Catholic bishops’ conferences in India and Asia.)