At the most recent MPCA meeting, we were discussing outreach, as well as our place as clergy in the Pagan community. One of the attendees mentioned that she posted to Facebook that she was coming to the meeting, and that it sparked a comment thread. Most of the people in that thread were at the very least suspicious, if not downright incredulous, at the very notion of a Pagan clergy, associating it with the prevailing power-over paradigms of clergy from monotheistic religions that dominate our culture.
These concerns are quite legitimate, it seems to me. Indeed, one of the main attractions to paganism is an escape from a religious paradigm in which one’s experience of the divine seems mediated by a clergy person or another hierarchy of sorts. Some of the commenters in the Facebook thread openly wondered if we were trying to impose such a hierarchy.
Of course, this is not our intention. The existence of the MPCA is purely pragmatic. The essence of clergy is service, in the sense that the clergy member is in service to his or her community, providing counseling, officiating at ceremonies such as weddings, etc. Many of these functions are legal in nature, with laws that govern them. A wedding is an obvious example of this.
However, some examples are more pressing, and potentially even tragic. For instance, imagine a scenario where a Pagan is sick or injured in a hospital, and requests his or her circle, grovemates, or covenmates to come and spend time with them, possibly for healing or even for an end-of-life ceremony. If there is no legal recognition of clergy status, it is within the hospital’s power to deny entrance to the grove or would-be clergy person to come, despite the patient’s wishes, if the person is not immediate family.
Situations like this are why MPCA exists in the first place, to provide a legal infrastructure for Pagans doing this sort of work in their communities (no matter how big or small their communities are) to be credentialized. And in addition to credentialization, our other main function is to be a support network for those of us acting in this role as clergy.
MPCA provides support — both legal support and fellowship — for those in service to their Pagan communities. Nothing more, nothing less.