The Pillar views it from another angle:
In media, it’s natural that the machinations of powerful and
influential people tend to receive the most coverage. Their decision are likely
to impact the greatest number of people, and, in general, people want to know
about and understand their leaders. That’s natural, and understandable. And
covering leaders is important, because journalism provides a mechanism of
public accountability in the Church.
But there is a danger, when the work of Catholic media is
often to cover Catholics in leadership, of beginning to develop a flawed
ecclesiology — one that sees the influential or the powerful as somehow more
central to the Church’s identity, or even more expressive of it.
It’s not especially profound or original to say that isn’t
true. But it is important. It’s important because the life of the Church is a
communion ordered to holiness — and holiness is not the same as power,
authority, or worldly success.
In fact, the authority given to ecclesiastical leaders
exists only for the sake of fostering and enabling holiness — good Church
leaders help ordinary people become holy, bad Church leaders don’t.
Still, any of us can fall prey to a mentality which equates
“success” with holiness. And it can be especially easy for Catholics — clerical
or lay — who occupy leadership positions to make that same mistake. When that
happens, it becomes easy to fall into traps of self-congratulations, or
self-assurance, or a sense of being somehow set apart, and unlikely to lose the
Lord’s favor by pride or complacency.
But holiness is derived from closeness to Christ, and thus,
closeness to the cross. And in my own observation, the Catholics closest to the
cross don’t occupy splashy positions of influence. They’re diocesan and parish
staffers working long hours with little support, or priests driving hours each
week between the parishes they cover, or men and women who have held and taught
the faith for decades, only to be written off as “Susan from the parish
council” by wags with more schooling than wisdom, more inclination to spout off
than to listen.
Often, the men and women closest to the cross also include
those who can’t make self-congratulations for worldly success, because they
don’t have much of it. The ones who are forced by circumstances to recognize
their poverty and insufficiency, their dependence on God’s Providence, the
fragile precariousness of life itself.
In reality, all of us are dependent entirely on Providence,
and none of us can merit salvation without Christ. But some of us are better
positioned for self-delusion.
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