Lara Rusch ~ 15
pastor could divide the congregation. “In the Catholic Church, we could take on a pastor
and they can’t kick us out.”
The organizer explained that he has been in a few situations where the core team
wanted to do something but the pastor was ambivalent or opposed the political action,
and the team persevered. In one example the priest did not initially want his congregation
to join the organization. Lay people kept attending meetings and trainings, and pushed
the pastor to advertise events in the bulletin and announcements. Eventually the organizer
and lay people sat down with the priest, and he acquiesced. “So we had to organize his
church around him, first, for him to say yes.” Escareño suggests that this tendency
explains differences in clergy’s involvement in MOSES; the Catholic pastors take a more
laidback approach, and fewer are actively involved than Protestants. The priests “figure
they have [lay] leaders doing the work anyways.”
These descriptions of Catholic churches as “lay-driven” may seem to contradict
some political science scholarship on how hierarchy matters for civic and political
participation. But the organizer is not saying that Catholics are more engaged compared
to Protestants. Rather he suggests that when Catholics are engaged in an organizing
project, they have unique opportunities to take initiative and challenge internal authority.
The irony is that lay people can “take on” the priest exactly because everyone
understands they have almost no chance of removing him. As another organizer
explained, in any Catholic Church, the priest “is totally protected. There’s no way that a
lay person could organize a movement to get rid of him. It just can’t happen.”
10
The
clergy’s sense of security allows lay people a certain degree of internal latitude—should
they choose to use it.
10
Interview with Bill O’Brien.
Convention