Lay Catholic Seeks Judicial Review of Bishop’s Ordination of a Deacon

Ordination of a Deacon in the Roman Catholic Church, 1520 (See page for author, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

This is a piece of recent news with a strange twist.

It calls as witness HK Govt officials and could well be the thin end of the wedge leading to Govt controlling organised religion in HK.
Should be worth monitoring.

But for now the focus is on somewhere else.

That’s how HK churches usually pick their leaders, and in this case deacons, in the Catholic Church.
This piece will explore how far secularism has eaten into the core of churches to even drive out the work of the Holy Spirit, albeit most likely unintentionally.

The judicial review case concerns a physician ordained as a Catholic deacon.

The discussion here has got nothing to do with the merits of the complaints against him, nor if he’s indeed qualified as a deacon.
What’s being discussed could begin with a question:
Why do churches tend to choose professionals to fill their leadership roles?

There’s no denying the reality that deacons in HK now serve two masters: the spiritual that’s clearly spelt out in the Bible, and the secular dictated by deacon’s role under HK laws on churches and on companies which many churches operate as.

But still where’s the role of the Holy Spirit?

The New Testament unequivocally spells out that the first deacons were chosen from amongst Christians filled with the Spirit.
And the Old Testament also describes those commissioned to construct the tabernacle were gifted by the Spirit.

Yet HK churches keep electing and elevating lay people with the sieve mimicking corporations, government departments and academia.
It’s not difficult to find amongst deacon boards doctors, professors, bankers, accountants, government directors on and on.

Has the Holy Spirit stop gifting barbers, cab drivers, chefs and so on?

Or is it already a systemic outcome of a secularly biased meritocratic system, advantaging those of better economic status and stronger academic learning capabilities?

For sure, someone who has difficulties finishing high school is unlikely to hold jobs that offer more free time for him to attend church meetings.
Still, it would also be difficult for him to grasp the intellectual intricacies of church papers and policies in meetings, financial projections, and program rollouts.
Even articulating clearly in a meeting might be a challenge.

But granted that’s what the system been evolving, what obliges the Church to be enslaved to a selection philosophy that in practice unwittingly divorces from the direction of the Holy Spirit?

It’s not that churches set out to confer upon such a selection system the higher authority than the Holy Spirit.
Just that churches opt for a system that really leaves no seat to the Holy Spirit.

Consider a housewife.
She is sensitive to the Holy Spirt, has daily devotions, is generous, gracious, and enjoys a good repute.
Wouldn’t she have a major contribution in identifying projects of targets of hospitality and charitable outreach in her church?
Wouldn’t she be the key person, if not the top person, a church should turn to in order to find out how the Holy Spirit will direct the church to engage in?
Who else would be more attuned to the struggles especially under economically challenging times of average household?

But of course that housewife is unlikely to have a seat in the Board of Deacons!

Swap the housewife with a cab driver.
A barber.
A noodle shop owner.
A cafe barista, no, not a barrister!

Get the idea?

Why do churches allow professionals and the educated to crowd out those Holy Spirit in church history consistently endows?

Listen to the blessed amongst women:
“For he took notice of his lowly servant girl” (Luke 1:48 NLT).

There’s no silver bullet to right the years of wrongs.
No specific alternative system to propose.

Just pray that this comical and possibly damaging judicial review case become a clarion call to wake up HK churches to the One who has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble.