The Christian way to make decisions in the Church

We’re always asking for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to discern the will of the Holy Spirit. And God is always with us, even in those hard-to-resolve pastoral difficulties in our local parishes, whether it’s over money or whatever else, God has a will.”

Bishop W. Shawn McKnight

CLICK HERE to read Bishop McKnight’s “Making Connections” column on co-responsibility.

CLICK HERE to read profiles of several diocesan councils and commissions.

In teams of five, members of the diocese’s Youth Advisory Council gently guided a plastic Hula Hoop off the floor, using only their index fingers.

Their task sounded easy enough, but both teams had to try several times before successfully lifting the ring above their heads.

“You needed coordination. You needed to be aware of what you are doing and what the members of your team are doing,” Maureen Quinn, diocesan director of religious education and youth/young adult ministry, explained when they were finished.

“Sometimes, it’s easier to look outward at what other people are doing than to look inward,” she noted. “In our role on this council, we need to be doing both.”

The members were on their annual retreat, laying the foundation for future deliberations that will allow them to advise and collaborate with members of the clergy in guiding and governing the Church.

“A lot of young people see Mass as something they’re not interested in,” said Sophia Fennewald, a member of the council. “But I hope that through this council, we can make it known that the Church is a great thing and that God works through the Church to get to us, and going to Mass and participating in being Catholic is a great thing.”

“I think bringing people together to serve in the Church doesn’t just help make our community better, but it helps grow our Catholic Church, which helps to make the world a better place,” said council memember Luke Wolf.

Most on the council were getting their first taste of one of the pillars of the diocesan pastoral plan: co-responsibility.

Co-responsibility is an invitation to share in the mission of the Church. It builds hope and confidence, empowers us to use our gifts and allows us to embrace our responsibilities together.

“When we work as one community of faith, we grow stronger and more united in our witness to Christ,” said Bishop W. Shawn McKnight.

He said co-responsibility is rooted in Sacred Scripture and the teaching of the Second Vatican Council that laypeople are called to active participation in the Church’s mission, which is a part of their call to holiness.

“We receive that call at Baptism and Confirmation,” he noted. “And it’s renewed sacramentally at every celebration of the Eucharist, where the Liturgy of the Mass manifests the diversity of the charisms of the Church.”

Namely, communal worship at Mass calls for different people performing different roles within the Liturgy itself.

“No one person is doing everything,” Bishop McKnight noted. “That’s a sacramental representation of the nature of the Church outside the Sacred Liturgy.”

The Catholic approach is for every baptized person to exercise a role in the mission in the Church — “even though we don’t all have the same roles, positions, functions,” said the bishop.

“So, co-responsibility by definition is that mutual respect for each other and the different roles we play in the Church,” he said.

Gary Wilbers, chairman of the Diocesan Finance Council, said co-responsibility gives everyone a voice.

“If we look at what Jesus did when he and his disciples were roaming the earth, they didn’t always say the smartest things, but he listened to them,” he stated.

And through their conversations, Jesus’s followers learned, trusted and believed in him.

The First Councils

In the New Testament, the Apostles, primarily St. Peter, exercise their authority by bringing forth questions that are then prayed over and decided upon by all present.

In one example, in the sixth chapter of Acts of the Apostles, the Apostles make the Church aware of the need for bilingual intermediaries to help minister to Greek-speaking converts.

Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and in union with the faithful, the Apostles appoint the first deacons and summon the Holy Spirit upon them.

Later on, in Acts 15, the Apostles convened the Council of Jerusalem, which dealt with how Gentiles were to become members of the Church.

The co-responsibility being practiced in our diocese today is a modern realization of this form of communion.

Therefore, one of the greatest things a pastor can do is to “elicit and convoke the charisms of the laity into the mission of the Church more effectively,” said Bishop McKnight.

Toward that end, parishes have laypeople serving in advisory roles on such deliberative bodies as parish pastoral councils, school councils, finance councils and stewardship councils.

These councils and commissions also provide an avenue for making good use of the expertise lay individuals bring to the Church, especially when it comes to making important decisions at the parish level.

Similar structures allow laypeople to advise the bishop on important matters pertaining to the governing of the diocese.

“There’s a huge benefit to that collaboration between clergy and laity,” said Anne Hackman, chair of the Diocesan Stewardship Council. “When we participate as parishioners, and we all collaborate and share our gifts, it gives us a shared identity. We’re all in this together, and we’re all part of this Church, and that helps us become disciples.”

She added that being asked by the pastor or the bishop for help, ideas and expertise “sets you up for a God moment.

“That’s a time when someone says in their heart, ‘I’m listening, God, and I now know you have something for me to do,’” she stated.

Connie Hesse, chair of the diocesan School Advisory Council, said the council members stay focused on the big picture — helping ensure our Catholic education is thriving in our diocese.

“We’re not there to make decisions about personnel or the number of students in the classroom,” she said. “We’re an umbrella group that provides information to the bishop and the school superintendent to help them make good decisions.”

Decisions via discernment

Bishop McKnight is the president of most of these councils and commissions and presides over their meetings.

He noted that the most impactful decisions pertaining to the Church are often the result of good discernment and the counsel of others.

Discernment is a deliberate process of praying and listening and trying to understand what the Holy Spirit desires for the people at a particular time, under the current circumstances.

“It’s not about the assertion of one’s will. It’s about discerning the will of the Holy Spirit,” he said.

Individuals with particular gifts, talents, abilities and education pertaining to the issue being discerned are given greater responsibility in the process.

Colleen Abbott, chair of the Diocesan Pastoral Council, said prayerfully deliberating with a focus on listening tends not to come naturally to people in modern society.

“I think we’d rather say, ‘Here’s the data, we’ll make a decision, move forward and do better,’” she stated. “But, this thing of slowing down and being very prayerful and getting a collection of voices and really listening to them — those are things we really need.

“We have to always be willing to enter into conversations where we’re not always comfortable,” she stated.

All of this takes place within a constant framework of prayerful openness and respect for the communion of the Church and all that is sacred.

“We’re always asking for the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and to discern the will of the Holy Spirit,” said Bishop McKnight. “And God is always with us, even in those hard-to-resolve pastoral difficulties, in our local parishes, whether it’s over money or whatever else, God has a will.”

That will can be discerned through deliberately humble and prayerful openness.

“I think when we approach council meetings with a mentality that it’s a meeting just like any other meetings we’re tempted to let our own opinions and agendas take over,” said Mary Madelyn Mertes, one of the young adult chairs of the diocesan Youth Advisory Council.

“But we’re primarily there to listen for the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the way he wants to lead the diocese as a whole,” she said. “So, it’s critical that all these moments or conclusions are rooted in our personal relationships with the Lord, so that we’re listening for his voice and looking where he wants to look and in listening to our council members and where the Spirit is leading them.”

For more information about diocesan councils and commissions, visit:

diojeffcity.org/councils