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(More customer reviews)This book exposes Bishop Clark's advocacy for LEMs (Lay Ecclesial Ministers), and all but one of the LEM "testimonies" he includes are by women, seeming like an end run around the very church teaching he should be visibly supporting. Instead of making the unlikely case for LEMs, the book, perhaps inadvertently, exposes the inherent issues, problems and failures of the model, and reveals the problematic legacy Bishop Clark will leave to his successor in 2012. The vision remains obscure; it does not address how LEMs, unable under Catholic Church law to confect the Eucharist or to forgive sins, can possibly provide for the spiritual needs of the future flock. The LEMs come across as either second-class clergy or elite-laity. In either case, servanthood is almost completely missing, outweighed by LEM's own tired, feminist complaints about their pay rates and their own lack of priestly prestige. The Bishop's commiseration is part of the problem, not the solution, and stokes dissatisfaction rather than exhorting to true servanthood.
The book lacks in many areas. The author gives no criteria for discerning suitability to be an LEM, but one might expect at least obedience to Church teaching! It turns into a gender agenda, sadly divisive, without evidencing any LEM vocational call. And it is strangely contradictory in places. For example, Clark writes: "...many lay ecclesial ministers naturally feel their ministry is distinctive, more clearly defined, and more professional than that of their peers in the pews." Three sentences later he writes: "But I do not sense among the vast majority of these ministers with whom I have conversed any overt sense of entitlement or privilege or feeling of being set apart." No wonder there is confusion about LEMs' roles, among priests as well as laity. Even Bishop Clark seems confused.
Analysis is also lacking on the LEMs' impact on priestly vocations. Why is the startling rise in LEMs nationwide (to over 30,000) not related to the decline in priests from 59,000 (1975) to 40,580 (2008)? Which is the cause? Which is the effect? Clark approvingly quotes one LEM: "My belief is that I have received a call by virtue of my own charisms and giftedness, rather than, `I'm doing this for Father.'" Even the simplest business model would see such remarks as glaringly divisive. And the divisiveness is focused on silly issues such as the LEM getting to march down the aisle with the priest or not, rather than on saving souls.
The book is also silent on the real relationship of LEMs to other laity, with no report of any lay reactions, or the effect on parishioners' spiritual lives and parish volunteer participation. Further data and analysis are needed before using this book in lay ministry, and before saying "AMEN" to any more LEMs.
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Currently in the U.S., there are over 30,000 lay ecclesial ministers serving the Catholic Church, and another 16,000 studying in ministry formation programs--nearly five times the number of men preparing for ordination to the priesthood. A long-time advocate of lay ecclesial ministry, Bishop Matthew Clark offers his vast theological knowledge and engaging stories from years of ministry to make this an informative and accessible read for anyone called to leadership in today's Catholic Church. Forward in Hopeexamines the ever-growing significance of lay ecclesial ministry and the way it is changing the face of the Church.
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