High Church or Low Church?

Fr. Livio Tonello, director

We often hear about a High Church versus a Low Church, of orders from above, and the people of the Church just accepting them. All this expresses frustration, discontent and a strong contrast in the Gospel of Saint Mark we read: “But it shall not be so among you” (Mark 10,43).

If the High Church represents the hierarchy and the Low Church includes the common people we will never achieve this objective; on the contrary we will always have separation, discrimination and an undue concentration of power. As we all have the dignity of children of God we are all the disciples of the Master. Each one answers the Lord’s call in different ways, with different responsibilities. In this regard Saint Paul’s analogy of the union of mind and body shows that this diversity is necessary in the body, and that the members of the body are interdependent and interrelated.

Jesus’s body is the Church that is alive because of the different gifts of the Holy Spirit to each worshipper. This means that there is nobody at the top nor at the bottom, nobody has the power and no one just obeys... Pope Francis is giving a new impulse to synodal life, involving all the people of God in the decisions and choices, he is trying to reform the Roman Curia, he has named new cardinals from across the world. On one hand all this encourages collaboration and co-responsibility but on the other hand this reformation worries the conservative branch of the Church.

There are still some people who are in the habit of looking at others arrogantly and who feel superior because of their honours. I do not want to vent with these affirmations but these are observations collected in my pastoral life. There are different roles that are not opposed, all the different vocations can work together for the common good. As each one has received a special gift they have to employ it in serving one another for the common good. Of course someone will always have to assume authoritative tasks. The concept of “high and low” are metaphors that must not become barriers that divide.