In the last month, I have had numerous encounters with people saying some variation of this same thought: Clericalism can be just as much an issue among laypeople as it is among clergy.
It came up in a class I was teaching on synodality. It came up in several papers I was grading. And it came up when I gathered with fifteen lay leaders from across the country to explore the creation of a national center on synodality.
What is worth noting—besides the sheer frequency of these comments—is that this observation kept emerging specifically within discussions about synodality.
Certainly, the synodal approach Pope Francis envisioned when he launched the Synod on Synodality meant including laymen and laywomen in decision-making processes, both at the Synod itself and within the broader decision-making bodies of the Church. The Final Document from the Synod explicitly named clericalism as a major obstacle that the Church needs to address and confront.
Furthermore, the report from Study Group 5 of the Synod suggests that clericalism is rooted in a distorted understanding of sacred power, stating that clericalism “transfers automatically the authority and unique role that properly belong to the priest in the celebration of the Eucharist into all other areas of community life.”
As much as the focus has traditionally been on clericalism among the ordained, I found it fascinating that laypeople themselves were pointing out this same impulse in lay ministry—even if it manifests in a different form.
So where do we, as laypeople, assert power in a way that disempowers others?
I have seen this happen time and time again:
- The sacristan who refuses to let anyone else help because “this is my ministry”—treating the role as a personal possession rather than a service shared with the community.
- The Director of Faith Formation who refuses to update the parish’s formation model because “we’ve always done it this way,” even when it is painfully obvious that the model no longer works today.
- The veteran volunteer who refuses to train younger volunteers out of fear of losing their status or role in the parish.
- The parish or finance council member who has occupied a seat for decades without making space for new voices.
This is clericalism in a lay context (and perhaps it needs its own name), but the underlying characteristics are identical. No matter what form clericalism takes, it is a cultural issue that must be addressed at every level of Church life.
To address it honestly, we have to ask ourselves:
- In what ways do clergy encourage or enable this behavior from laypeople, whether consciously or unconsciously?
- What organizational structures exist in our parishes that allow this behavior to persist unchecked?
- How do our Catholic Christian values sometimes manifest as a false harmony that leads us to avoid conflict?
All of us who are baptized—whether lay or ordained—are the People of God, as both the Synod and the Second Vatican Council repeatedly emphasize. As the People of God, we are co-responsible collaborators in the priestly, prophetic, and kingly mission of the Church.
Because of this shared mission, we cannot allow territorialism and power dynamics to undermine our building of the Kingdom of God on earth. Unchecked power and territorial authority are the absolute antithesis of synodality.
So I ask again: Where do we, as laypeople, assert power in a way that disempowers other laypeople?
