Questions, Comments & Continuing Conversations: • What were households meant to be? • Different degrees of authority • Thank you • Little hope for change

What were households meant to be?

I am writing in response to an article by Kathleen van Schaijik last semester in which she criticized the present situations of households on campus. She wrote about an "official interference with the workings of individual households," and she questioned the purpose and meaning of the household covenants. As an FUS student interested in joining a household or possibly starting my own, I wonder what she thinks the purpose of households originally was, if indeed that purpose has changed over the course of time. What was it that made households then different and better for Kathleen van Schaijik?

The author, who is a sophomore, prefers to remain anonymous.

Kathleen van Schaijik replies:

I am very happy to hear that students are raising questions like these. It is just the sort of thing I hoped for when I wrote my article. It is so temptingly easy to just go with the flow and do what we're told--accepting the system uncritically, ignoring evidence that things may be off kilter, and avoiding the responsibility to discern carefully for ourselves what is right and good and what may not be.

We should not forget that the household system, though obviously inspired by God, is nevertheless a human institution--subject to error, requiring correction and open to improvement. We do a serious disservice to that institution, to the University as whole, and to the students in particular, if fail to acknowledge this in practice--for instance, by treating honest and responsible criticism as if were an "attack" on households.(1)

As to the purpose of households, I think, at its most basic level, it is now what it always has been: to provide a means of conversion and personal growth for the FUS student body.

The difficulty, as I see it, is not with the purpose itself, but with the way that purpose is practically carried out by Student Life. In my view, too many at FUS (consciously or not) tend to interpret student evangelization too much in terms of pastoring. those who make this mistake put too much emphasis on "programs" and "teachings;" they treat households as if they were mainly a way of organizing students into accessible groups, open to a sort of trickle-down formation process going from Student Life to the RDs to the coordinators to the members; they look askance at student groups who resist their initiatives and prefer to go their own route; they think they strengthen and improve household life when they redouble the pastoring--more teachings, more central programming, more "access" to individual students through mandatory meetings. Whereas, in my opinion, as I said in my earlier article, the greatness of household life(2) lies its being precisely not a pastoring thing, but rather a way for peers to help and support each other in their life of faith.(3)

I think that this bad tendency has always been present to a certain degree, just as it was present in the covenant communities which inspired the household system. But, by the nature of these things, if the tendency isn't deliberately checked, it gets worse over time. When I was a student, at least for the first two years, there was far less of it.

Much more could and should be said. The discussion has barely begun. I hope others will send in their perspectives, including current students and staff members.

Besides the four years spent as a student at FUS, and the five semesters on the Gaming campus, Kathleen van Schaijik resided in Steubenville from 1994-1996, during which time she was frequently on campus and otherwise in close contact University students, staff and professors, as well as with household advisers. Her husband Jules taught philosophy at FUS during the 1995-1996 school year. Her parents live in Steubenville. Her father, Nicholas Healy, is a University Vice President .

2  While I'm on the subject, I'll seize the opportunity to answer an objection to my previous article, which I've heard second hand more than once, and which goes something like this: "Kathleen van Schaijik doesn't know what she's talking about when she says households are a grassroots thing. They were never grassroots; they were instituted by Father Michael when he became president, and they have been organized and run by the Student Life Office ever since." Here is my answer to this objection:
When I said that households were essentially a grassroots thing, I was not speaking of their historical facticity, but rather of their "genius," that is, of their distinctive greatness--of what it is about them that makes them such a powerful instrument for good at FUS. It is true, as a matter of historical fact, that households did not arise spontaneously from the student body, but were rather instituted (even imposed) by university officials. I think it is also safe to say that if they had not been officially instituted, they never would have happened. Nevertheless, I still say they are essentially grassroots--not because of how they began, but because of what they are, namely, a network of peer-support. University officials (thanks be to them and to God) got households off the ground, but once there, they took wing, so to speak, and began to live a life of their own--the kind of life that thrives best when its left mostly alone.

3  Not that I have anything against pastoring, in its place. What I'm against is the reduction of evangelization to pastoring, which tends to downplay or overlook the (often times more valuable) other ways the Holy Spirit is moving among students, such as through their friendships or through their studies.

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Different degrees of authority

A friend sent me the following remarks on last issue's editorial. I asked for and received his permission to publish them anonymously. KvS.

You wrote a nice piece in support of Ziegler's very interesting article, but I was a little puzzled by the way you led with infallibility. The document certainly doesn't come close to an exercise of infallibility. I would think in fact that a Catholic who complied with the guidelines on giving communion and who affirmed the dignity of the ordained minister and the tasks proper to the layman, would be within his rights to think the guidelines unfortunate and to work through the appropriate channels to have them reversed. I personally am glad of the directives of this document, but I can think of plenty of post-Conciliar curial legislation on the liturgy--for example, the Vatican suppression of the Mass of Pius V, or the approval of the barbarous ICEL translations--that I can't help regarding as unfortunate and where I console myself with the thought that the causa is not finita. In other words, much as we want to welcome this new document, we don't, I would think, want to welcome in such a way that our hands and consciences are tied when a less satisfactory document comes around.

the editor replies:

My thanks for the chance to correct a misleading editorial. I had not meant to imply that this new document is on a level with an ex-cathedra exercise of papal infallibility. My intention was to reflect not so much on infallibility proper as on the world--confounding happiness and freedom that flow from the authority of the Church exercised in all its dimensions. From this point of view, even a document that we may legitimately consider unfortunate and work to see reversed can be accepted with joy--perhaps as a discipline or a mortification; an opportunity to express our humble, filial obedience to an imperfect Mother, and to show our absolute confidence in God's ultimate protection of the Church, in spite of her fallen aspect. But, I expressed myself badly.

Now that the point has been clarified, however, I am wondering just what kind of authority this document does have. My impression from reading Mr. Ziegler's article was that it was something more than a routine curial instruction. It seemed to me to have an air of finality to it--as if the Church has been observing the efforts of the faithful and deliberating over the question for some time, and is now ready to pronounce definitively that certain practices (including some that have been normal at FUS) are not fully consistent with the mysteries at hand.

But I am certainly no expert on these things. Is there a theologian in the house who might be willing to help us out ?

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Thank you

Thank you for the wonderful apostolate work you are doing for the Lord and His people through the Concourse. We are enjoying the lively discourses on the varied theological and philosophical topics. We miss the University and the late-night intellectual pow-wows we used to have there. These sorts of discussions and dialogues rarely occur in typical parish life-at least not with the same depth and breadth. And so the Concourse is helping fill a need that was once filled attending graduate school in Steubenville.

Jim and Meg Beckman

Jim (class of '87) and Meg (Forsyth, MA class of '93) Beckman live in Colorado, where Jim is a youth minister, and Meg is coordinator of adult religious education programs for the diocese of Denver. Jim also continues to lead FUS youth conferences. They are expecting their second child in October.

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Little hope for change

In his article on the recent statement by the Holy See on the collaboration of the non-ordained faithful in the sacred ministry of priests and its impact upon the use of extraordinary ministers of the Eucharist, Jeff Ziegler quotes the popular aphorism, "Roma locuta est, causa finita est." This saying is based upon a passage from one of the sermons of Saint Augustine, "Causa finita est: utinam aliquando finiatur error" (The cause is finished; would that the error were as speedily finished).

Judging by the response to the Holy See's document by many American pastors and even bishops, I think it would be foolish to expect any widespread change in current practice. John L. Allen, Jr., writing in the January 9, 1998 issue of the National Catholic Reporter, said "regardless of what Rome may decree, lay ministry is here to stay."

Clarification of the Church's law (on this or any matter) is not effective when so many individuals in positions of responsibility within the Church are not receptive to the authentic teaching of the Holy See.

Noel S. McFerran, Information Services Librarian, John Paul II Library

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