“Lay Power & Influence in the Church: Historical Myths vs. Realities”: Bronwen McShea, Ph.D.

It is widely believed that the Second Vatican Council of the 1960s inaugurated an unprecedented age of the Catholic laity in which laymen and laywomen have much more power and influence within the Church than was possible in past times. At the same time, it is also commonly assumed that where powerful lay elites, such as the rulers of the Holy Roman Empire and France, did assert power in ecclesiastical affairs, that it was generally to the Church's detriment and that such behavior was consistently and appropriately condemned by popes over the centuries as lay interference in the clergy's traditional prerogative of ecclesial governance. Drawing from lesser-known episodes in the Church's rich history, Dr. McShea sifts out the myths from more complex realities. She will consider, too, what deeper, historic Catholic traditions of lay initiative, power, and influence can offer to our today's conversations about synodality, lay and clerical co-responsibility, the exclusion of women from clerical ministry, and the mission of the laity broadly in and for the Church.

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