In this clerical company town, a spot for
just plain Catholic
By JOHN L. ALLEN JR.
NCR Staff Rome
Like many young Catholic men who come to Rome to study at a
pontifical university, Chris Gustafson of Green Bay, Wis., believes the
experience has broadened his vision immensely, giving him a sense of the global
church and an up-close exposure to its leaders.
Unlike most young men in Rome, however, Gustafson -- at least for
the purpose of registration at the Angelicum, his university -- has a mother
superior. And he pays for most of his theological studies himself.
The difference between Gustafson and the flocks of seminarians who
fill lecture halls of Roman universities is that Gustafson is, and intends to
remain, a member of the Catholic laity. He is not a member of a religious
community, nor does a diocese sponsor him as a future priest. Just plain
Catholic is how he describes himself, as he aspires to an academic
career.
Gustafson is one of 16 students from 10 countries currently living
at the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas Institute, located in Romes monumental
Piazza Navona. Now in its 14th year, the center, which offers living space and
support for lay students in Rome, represents a lay toehold in what often
remains, in ways large and small, a clerical company town.
That the lay presence is still something of an anomaly here is
reflected in Gustafsons encounters with ecclesiastical bureaucracy. When
he registers each year at the Angelicum, for example, a form requires him to
list his seminary residence and his religious superior. In response to the
first question, he writes Lay Centre. In response to the second, he
identifies American Donna Orsuto, the laywoman who directs the center, as his
mother superior.
The forms are in Latin and theyre probably 100 years
old, Gustafson said. Its pretty funny, but it also
illustrates how the system is taking some time to catch up to
reality.
For centuries, education at a pontifical university in Rome, a
gateway for leadership in the church, was largely restricted to priests.
Officially, as part of the revolution that followed the Second Vatican Council
(1962-65), the system is now open to laypeople.
During a Nov. 25-30 Jubilee of the Lay Apostolate,
which brought tens of thousands of laypeople to Rome, Pope John Paul II
stressed the councils vision of an expanded role for laity.
Yet more than 35 years after Vatican II, a layperson hoping to
pursue a theological education in Rome still faces roadblocks. Rents are high;
financial aid is scarce. The transition to another language and culture can be
disorienting. Further, laity lack the support system that aspiring clergy or
members of a religious community are likely to find.
A diocesan seminarian from the United States, for example, can
count on room and board in a facility a five-minute walk from the Vatican, help
with admission to a pontifical university, and abundant advice on navigating
the system from older classmates. A layperson, by way of contrast, often has
little more to go on than the apartment listings in a Roman newspaper.
That is precisely the gap that the Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas
Institute was created to fill.
Orsuto first stayed in the building that would become the lay
center in 1978, when she was a junior at Wake Forest University. It was then
home to an ecumenical center called the Foyer Unitas, run by a
community of Dutch sisters called the Ladies of Bethany. Orsuto was on a
university-sponsored trip to Europe.
Smitten by Rome and by Foyer Unitas, Orsuto returned in 1979 to
begin studies at Gregorian University. She eventually attained a doctorate in
spirituality from the Gregorian, focusing on Catherine of Siena. She has taught
at Regina Mundi, the Angelicum, and, since 1994, at the Gregorian.
Though she is hesitant to put herself forward as a pioneer, Orsuto
acknowledges that being a laywoman at the Gregorian in the 1980s made her a bit
of a curiosity. When she finished her licentiate, the stage before a doctorate,
she was the only woman in a class of 50. (Today, she notes, women represent
some 20 percent of the Gregorians enrollment). Based on this experience,
those who know Orsuto say, she understands from the inside what its like
to be a laywoman in a clerical world.
In 1986, the Ladies of Bethany closed their operation. Orsuto and
Henrica Van Velzen, who had also lived at Foyer Unitas, proposed keeping the
facility open as a beachhead for lay students.
The dream was to create a sense of community, of
family, Orsuto said. I would hear horror stories about people
having to switch apartments right before exams or facing problems with no one
to take an interest in their lives. I wanted to start a center where people
would feel at home.
Since 1986, more than 100 students from 20 countries have lived at
the center, which can accommodate roughly 16 people at any given time. Though
45 percent come from the United States, the remainder represents a wide variety
of backgrounds. Two Muslims are living at the center now, and a Baptist
minister arrives in the spring.
Students pay approximately 60 percent of their costs, with the
remaining expenses covered by private donors, Orsuto told NCR. Often the
center helps students find financial aid.
Students stay varying lengths of time, some for a semester, some
for as many as eight years. The language of the house is English, though
Italian is also widely used. The center has guest rooms that, through July 1,
2001, can be rented on a short-term basis by visitors to Rome. A volunteer
helps organize pilgrimage itineraries.
The other part of the vision was to provide an experience for
laity similar to that afforded students at Roman seminaries, including regular
exposure to church leaders and professors. To that end, the lay center offers
gatherings where students are joined by guests from Rome and points beyond,
giving them a chance to meet some of the most distinguished figures in
contemporary Catholic life.
Last years visitors included Dominican Master General Fr.
Timothy Radcliffe and Jesuit Archbishop Guiseppe Pittau from the Congregation
for Education.
The center has attracted the support of influential figures in
Rome. English Bishop Michael Fitzgerald, the No. 2 official in the Pontifical
Council for Inter-religious Dialogue, is on the board of directors.
Through collaboration with the Vincent Pallotti Institute, the
Rome branch of a program for lay leaders based at Trinity College in
Washington, the center has access to an impressive lineup of lectures and other
events.
Fitzgerald noted that in a time when movements such as Focolari
and the Neocatechumenate often seem to dominate the churchs attention,
the lay center offers possibilities for people engaging in formation as
committed Catholics not necessarily engaged in a movement or an organized form
of Catholic action.
Its important to offer such laypeople the chance to
experience Rome with all its riches and frustrations, Fitzgerald
told NCR.
Some wags have suggested that a lay center in the heart of
ecclesiastical Rome fosters clericalism without the collar. But
Fitzgerald said it isnt so.
Laypeople dont have to come to Rome to study theology,
just as clergy dont, he said. But its useful to the
church that some have had this experience. There is an intellectual dimension,
as well as the sense of being part of the world church. Why should we deny
laypeople this opportunity?
Gustafson, now in his seventh year at the lay center, agrees.
Ive had the greatest intellectual experience of almost
any student in the world, Gustafson said at a holiday dinner sponsored by
the center. Ive seen the international dimensions of the church,
and not just from a clerical, Roman perspective.
Gustafson said that the multicultural dimension of living in a
city that is a global crossroads has changed the way he sees the world.
I got to know a student from Rwanda whose family was
decimated in the massacres, he said. That will never again be a
distant story for me, something that happens to people I dont
know.
Gustafson also said that during his years at the lay center,
through regular contact with Vatican officials, he has felt some
anti-Roman prejudices
fall away.
You get to see people who work in the curia for who they
really are, their greatness and also their humanity, he said.
Youre dealing with an honest view of the problems of the
churchs central government, rather than a media-imposed view.
Though Orsuto says the center has no aspiration of being a
huge operation, she also knows that life in Rome inevitably means
playing on a big stage, and sometimes to mixed reviews. Some of the
centers most natural supporters -- Catholic progressives committed to
expanded roles for laity -- have at times criticized it, and by extension
Orsuto, for not being more prophetic in pushing for church
reform.
Orsuto said this has been a deliberate choice.
Ive made the decision to work within the structures of
the church as it is, she said. We will be prophetic within the
context of those structures. Personally I think this is the most constructive
way to move forward.
Church politics aside, many observers stress the centers
community life as its most appealing aspect.
It comes close to providing something of what the religious
houses and seminaries provide, a community life in which to anchor the academic
study of theology, said Rick McCord, executive director of the U.S.
bishops office on family, laity, women and youth. It fosters an
awareness that theology has its roots in a community of faith.
That community, however, will soon be transplanted. The lay
centers lease runs out Aug. 31. Orsuto and Van Velzen are searching for
new quarters, no easy task in the heart of Rome. Further, Orsuto said the
center will soon be making an appeal for funds to support the move. Rome, she
said, can be a daunting place for lay-run groups to find backing.
We have to constantly explain theres no big
organization behind us. Were nothing more than baptized Christians trying
to offer a humble service to the church, she said.
Nothing more -- and, many of the centers supporters would
add -- nothing less.
The Lay Centre at Foyer Unitas Institute can be found on the
Internet at www.laycentre.org.
The e-mail address for John L. Allen Jr. is
jallen@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, December 22,
2000
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