John Wiijngaards: Ten Commandments for Church Reform

For many years John Wiijngaards has been a passionate advocate of reform in the Catholic Church. In this memoir, he uses his life story to frame ten commandments for a renewed Church.

And what a life he has lived! As a child interned by the Japanese during the Second World War he experienced starvation, forced labour and brutality. He witnessed a Dutch woman beaten to death after she struck a Japanese officer. Later, when he was a seminarian his beloved elder brother and fellow seminarian died from an aggressive cancer.

Wijngaards has long wanted theology and spirituality to relate to ordinary people, their joys and struggles. This was the key to his own ministry as a Mill Hill Missionary in India where he taught in a seminary. He visited each of his 180 students in their family homes, the better to understand them and their culture. He also established a multi-media centre.

He commissioned a film about Christ. This led to a book published in 10 Asian languages.

Later, his Housetop centre in London created video courses that have reached across continents. He ought to offer master classes in international project management. For example his 'Walking on Water' catechetical series was funded from the Netherlands, Austria and Germany, and co-produced in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Finland, Poland, India, Indonesia and Canada.

His account of India is a reminder of the stamina and dedication required of a missionary priest. He travelled by local bus, motorbike or bullock cart, and struggled to learn the Telugu language with its 48 consonants and 16 vowels. Slight differences of pronunciation could change a meaning entirely. Attempting to introduce Mass with the traditional formula of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, he was told by laughing students that he had said, 'In the name of the Bird, the Son and the Holy Spirit.'

Part 3 of the book is about what he calls 'the anti-sex bug'. He recalls the ignorance about sex of many young people, arising out of limited Catholic formation. This leads in to a critique of official Catholic teaching on sex. But even for a book published in 2021, this harks back to a past almost unimaginable in today's eroticised global culture. At a time when trans rights is a popular mantra, is the battle today really about sexuality, or it is about retaining any concept of the family?

Part 5 describes his growing conviction that women can and should be priests. He writes that, 'The exclusion of women, which has no valid basis in Scripture or Tradition, amounts to an intolerable act of discrimination' (p. 210). In this and some other areas his priesthood existed in tension with the official position of the Church, and after a good deal of reflection he felt that he could no longer exercise his priesthood within the structures of the Church. After due dispensation he married his colleague in ministry, Jackie Clackson. Housetop is now a centre of research and advocacy for the ordination of women.

Reading the book I had niggles of doubt. He occasionally tends to caricature those he regards as retrogressive. More seriously, I wondered about the reception of women's ministry in those churches where it is well established. I have met many gifted women pastors. Yet the more liberal a church is, the faster it seems to decline. Given the undoubted ability of women clergy - let us be honest, often better than many men - churches with women clergy should thrive. But overall it is not like that. I expect that Wijngaards would reply that the ordination of women is a matter of justice not expediency. But perhaps there is something to be said for a Church that thinks in centuries and prefers change to be incremental.

Change requires listening, and for many years now John Wijngaards has been a prophetic voice, encouraging us to do what Pope Francis now asks of us in the synodal process: namely, to hear voices that have been silenced, discounted or ignored. It is striking how often in different countries the synodal process has recorded complaints about clericalism. Clericalism is rooted in not listening. I do not agree with everything Wijngaards says, but in this book he certainly challenges us to listen more carefully.

John Wijngaards Ten Commandments for Church Reform: Memoirs of a Catholic Priest - Acadian Publishing, 2021: $22.95 260 pp