"We stress the priesthood of the faithful. I make very few unilateral decisions," said Brennan, who considers his ministry an evangelical Catholic church. Some in his congregation say he is like a collegial CEO.
That pleases Linda Thomas, a neighborhood ministry leader within Holy Family. "He listens to people. So many other churches are hierarchical and kind of out of touch with the times," Thomas said. "I don't want to just follow how it was in the old days, when you didn't ask anything or question anything."
Necessity, more than desire, has dictated a similarly unconventional approach in St. Fidelis Parish in a downtrodden downtown Chicago neighborhood. For 10 years, the parish has been run without a priest by Sister Leonette Kaluzny, who is entitled to do everything a priest can do except administer the sacraments, which include hearing confessions.
"I hear confessions anyway," the Polish-born Kaluzny, 69, said with a smile. "You do a lot of counseling in this ministry."
St. Fidelis was once home to eight priests, but when she arrived, Kaluzny filled a vacuum now shared by more than 3,100 U.S. parishes. Each weekend, visiting priests take turns celebrating Mass in the basement of the former parish school -- rented by the diocese to the Chicago public school district to help pay the bills.
Appointed by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin as the first layperson to head a parish in the Chicago archdiocese, Kaluzny faced resistance at first. "This was something so new to our Catholic people," she said, "because a priest was next to God."
Yet after a decade of watching her in action, some of the same people wonder why she is not ordained. The Catholic Church does not permit women's ordination.
"At one time, I wanted to be ordained," Kaluzny explained. "But right now I feel freer. I feel I can do almost more than the priest does. Rome for me, it's so far away. I push the laity to take their rightful role in the church as baptized Christians."
"When I got here, it was, 'Father had to do this. Father had to do that. That's Father's job,' " Kaluzny recalled. Her response: "No, it's not! You do it."
Yvonne DeBruin, who oversees lay ministers in the Joliet, Ill., diocese, sees the church polarized between tradition and innovation, the past and the future. She, for one, believes the church should become more open, more flexible.
"We need to claim our church. It's not the priests' church. It's not the bishops' church. It's not the pope's church," said DeBruin, who was disappointed by the limits enforced by John Paul II on the laity. "It's not about women's ordination. It's about serving the needs of the people. By having a lack of priests, are we serving our people?"
Keiran O'Kelly, 54, has seen the Catholic Church change in her lifetime. She remembers knowing in grammar school that she would work with the church as an adult, "but nothing was available." She was a girl, after all. Later, when she told her pastor she intended to go to divinity school, "he looked at me as if I was from Mars."
Now O'Kelly directs the lay ecclesial ministry program for the Chicago archdiocese, working to train lay people for prominent positions across the city and beyond. She calls it a "grass-roots movement for the better that the bishops are now trying to get a handle on from above."
There are women virtually everywhere in church affairs, including sanctuaries, schools, hospitals and universities. Pastoral associates, who can lead worship and direct parish operations but cannot consecrate the Eucharist, are often women. In Chicago, 70 of 82 pastoral associates are women.
Still, the jobs at the very top are reserved for ordained men.
"It's like working in a family business and you're never going to be part of the family," O'Kelly said. "You have to go in knowing your place and being willing to take it."
Mary Foley is the first pastoral life associate in the Joliet diocese. Appointed by the bishop, she performs spiritual duties alongside a priest in a suburban parish of 800 families. Some people have told her that accepting a woman as their spiritual leader has been difficult.
Foley has found the job lonely and trying at times. But she is convinced that the future of the Catholic Church is at stake.
"Things are going to have to change," Foley said, "for the faith to be handed down."
