The E-catechism: June 1999
	Suicide Archives	The ministers in the Church

		Each month the team working on this catechism presents you with two texts, and we hope that with your help and cooperation they will improve. Any suggestions you may have would be most welcome, as would ideas on subject matter. We look forward to hearing from you. SUICIDE   Who does not know a relative who attempted suicide or committed suicide? It is a shock. We cannot utter a word. We feel guilty: did we try to listen to him? to understand him? to assist him ? to guess how alone he was feeling? We feel anxious and upset that we were close to a drama without noticing it. This dearly relative who committed suicide has gone with his secret. No sign anymore. We cannot do anything anymore. We will never understand what was going on. This feeling of powerless is difficult to stand but it is necessary to admit that we will not know. Suicide is a message for us. We have to decode it by paying attention to all that can deprive the taste to live. Suicide is always prepared alone. Too many young's do not find a place in our society. Future is blocked. They suffer from broken families. They are like wounded birds, without love, without rules, without job with the feeling of failure and of not existing for anybody. They want to die to get rid of this life but also to exist. Their desire for death is also a desire to live differently. One commits suicide at any age. But attempted suicides of young's is increasing. At present in France there is more suicides than people dying in a car accident. In the world, the countries having the greatest number of suicides are Finland, Denmark, Austria and France. During a long time the Roman Catholic church has excluded those who committed suicide. Today the church sees it more as a sign of despair to get out of a unbearable situation. This brings more forgiveness than a sentence. Only God knows what has happened. He welcome them with mercy, in the fulfillment of His life.
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		THE MINISTERS IN THE CHURCH   Minister means service, as well in public affairs (Minister of Interior Affairs: service of Interior Affairs) as in its religious sense (the minister of priesthood). Unfortunately in the two cases, when one speaks of ministers, one has more focus on the power which is linked to the position than to the service it implies. If we see them like that it is because they show that image of themselves, the way they practice their function: power on the State affairs and on the citizens for public affairs, power on people's conscience in religious affairs. Such an understanding does not help to establish a good relationship between citizens and the government, between Christians and the Church hierarchy. It is specially serious for the case of the Church because unlike for State affairs there is no democratic control (the power of the priest is called sacred power) and more so the Church is unfaithful to the Gospel that it is supposed to transmit. The Gospel shows us Jesus, the Master, acting as a servant. Kneeling in front of His disciples, during He was washing off their feet, He raised his eyes towards them, inverting the relationship of dependence. His death on a cross is the summit of his humiliation. He recommended to his disciples to do the same to each others. Power is a relationship, if the ministers of the Church have been able to use that power, it is because the Christians were expecting it from their pastors. In the past it was a normal relationship between a clergymen and a layman, a dissymmetric type of relationship, between the teachers and their pupils, the governments and the people, those who celebrate the liturgy and those who attend to it. Today we see the coming of adult communities of Christians, composed of men and women well trained in public affairs as well in religious matters. They want to share a common responsibility in the choice of their ministers as well in the management of the community and the care for the mission. They mostly have a need for good organizers, mediators, experts in communication with full human and spiritual qualities than for sacred personality separated from the world and having authority on the persons and on the goods. We are seeing already the function of a minister being differentiated: besides bishops and priests we see the coming of married deacons and more so we are experiencing an explosion of new functions for the laymen: catechism, reception, funerals or liturgical responsibilities. These new ministers will lead to soften the present rules for becoming a priest which are unsuited for the cultural changes happening in our societies. One could envisage ministers which are more flexible, sensitive to adaptation, more limited, temporary, either specialized or more general, which can be re-directed, all this will lead to less attachment for power than a life time minister. A choice among every body, whatever its status, age or gender will generate more different and richer types of ministers and will make the law of celibacy less relevant. The sacred character of the ministers will be replaced by a relationship closer to the people. These new forms of minister, the growth of which is stimulated by the need, can only be disapproved by the institution in its present constitution. The reaction to this situation is to impose limits to such changes. But can the letters of the Law be against the necessities of life?
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		Archives E-catechism May 99, Meeting the agnostic and atheistic world, The mystery of evil E-catechism April 99, The initiation rites, But what is Faith? E-catechism March 99, The sacrament of marriage, Eternal life E-catechism February 99, Sacraments, Time of Lent E-catechism January 99, Eutahanasia, Citizenship E-catechism Dec. 98, Christmass, Racism E-catechism November 98 E-catechism October 98 E-catechism September 98 E-catechism August 98 E-catechism July 98 E-catechism June 98 E-catechism May 98 E-catechism April 98 E-catechism March 98 E-catechism February 98 E-catechism January 98
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