Pope Francis on May 11 promulgated
Antiquum Ministerium, creating a formal, installed (instituted) ministry of catechist. The document was released with considerable Vatican fanfare, but many could be forgiven for viewing it with some skepticism as little more than a modest institutional concession within a larger ecclesiological framework that remains thoroughly clericalist and hierarchical.
After all, ordinary baptized Christians have always been the principal figures in the ministry of catechesis, and generally have had to undertake that ministry within a thoroughly clericalist paradigm that treated them as little more than priest-helpers. Does the pope s letter, issued
motu proprio (on his own initiative), change this in any substantial way? The document does present some difficulties, as we will see, but I will argue that it also moves the ball forward toward a more adequate ecclesiological framework for church ministry.