Greater laypeople’s involvement in governance alone will not suffice; the most significant challenge lies elsewhere.
During Pope Francis’s visit, young people gathered at the Kosice stadium.
What we require most in the church: Greater lay involvement in governance will not be enough; the greatest challenge is something else.
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We live on the threshold of something new. This is not merely the start of a new calendar year.
Today, January 6, the Pope closes the Holy Door of St. Peter’s Basilica, bringing the Jubilee Year of 2025 to an end. It was the year of two popes, but only now is a transitional period between pontificates finally coming to an end. Leo XIV has worn the episcopal coat of arms embroidered on the sash of his white cassock since Christmas Eve, as did Benedict XVI, but Francis has not.
The year 2026 will belong entirely to the new pope; it will be a clean slate in this sense.
At the same time, Francis’ legacy continues as the church enters the final phase of the synod on sodality, the Argentine pope’s most significant project.
The so-called implementation phase of the synod will last the next two years.
However, I fear that most ordinary believers will barely notice this process. Yes, a team has been created at the KBS to encourage bishops to implement the conclusions of the synodal documents adopted at the level of the Holy See and at the two October 2023 and 2024 sessions.
But for most people, these are incomprehensible matters and structures – and above all, their introduction into the life of the church depends on the decision of individual bishops and individual parish administrators.
It will therefore be essential to follow how Leo XIV thinks about sodality and how he understands it. In connection with sodality, he emphasizes not so many structural changes as the establishment of a new mentality: a community that listens to one another, and this mentality should dominate the institutional-hierarchical dimension of the church.
So far, this is the mindset of Francis’ successor.
The view of the Vaticanism Leo XIV: Something ends, and something begins
We indeed need to have functional economic and pastoral councils at the parish and diocesan levels. It is undoubtedly correct and desirable for laypeople to help where they can, relieving the burden on priests so they can focus on spiritual matters as a priority.
I believe that this issue will, so to speak, resolve itself, as in just a few years we will feel that many. Clerics will find themselves at retirement age.
However, it is already wise for laypeople to help where needed. For example, while the priest can focus on preparing for evening catechesis for adults, the priest can instead focus on the bureaucratically demanding burden of managing the parish registry.
There are, of course, several challenges in the church in Slovakia. We discussed the clergy’s aging, which we must prepare for from many angles. Then there is the issue of financial independence. Some dioceses are already starting to think about this and, following the example of our Evangelical brothers, are considering the future and relying less on the state, which may not always be willing to finance.
Greater lay involvement in the life of the church and in decision-making processes may currently seem like the central challenge we should all be running from.
But is this really so? Aren’t we at risk of overlooking, despite our good intentions, something that could potentially exceed this goal?
I dare to say that the greatest challenge for the church in Slovakia lies elsewhere. Two ideas, or rather observations, originating from entirely different environments, guide me to this conclusion. One observation comes from the USA, while the other originates from our “Easterners.”
