The Other Health Crisis: Why Priests are Coping Poorly
November 24, 2007, 12:48 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
For those of you who aren’t watching football, shopping, eating, sleeping, or catching up on work, I thought I’d open a thread on this week’s cover article“The Other Health Crisis: Why Priests Are Coping Poorly.”
60 years ago, many priests lived in a rectory community and had shared duties. Loneliness, carrying the whole clerical weifght of the parish, and maybe little support from their bishop weigh heavily.
There seems to be little change on the horizon despite this – maintainin gwhat has been is more important.
I read the article and found myself in agreement, especially as regards younger priests, workload, lack of formation, etc. What I find strange, particularly as a permanent deacon, is that deacons never seem to factor into anybody’s solution to these problems.
I realize that not every diocese has a well-established diaconate, but with the new norms for formation, the quality of formation is improving. It is a case both of deacons stepping up, being empowered, and entrusted with serious pastoral responsibilities.
It’s a sobering article. I second Scott Dodge’s suggestion for greater roles for deacons in parish activities and management. Our parish got its first permanent deacon six months ago, and he’s been excellent. Our pastor, to his credit, has seemed to include the deacon in all facets of parish life. Equally important, IMO, is the need for the Church to find greater roles for women in both parish life and the management of the Church as a whole.
Priestly formation programs are too brief, and too limited in spiritual depth.
That is not to say that conversion cannot happen during priestly formation; it often does. Sometimes a man really has to leave some things behind to take up new life of the priesthood. But too often it doesn’t. Too often a man can go from foundering in corporate life to religious leader in a matter of 5 easy and unusually rich years, filled with special attention, free room, board, and education, and an unearned communal life. All followed by a special day and expensive gifts.
Then the story really begins, but is it founded well? Was spiritual direction as intensive as it should have been? Did he really learn how to pray?
Thank you for opening this thread. The author “Hit the Nail on its Head” in SO, SO many ways.
Kathy, I think your comments rely on the premise that prayer and spirituality can be taught. Much like the problem with modern universities, seminaries have become priest factories. Perhaps it was the deliberate intention of VII o return to an elder model for the priesthood when they deliberately used the greek presbyteros rather than the hieros/sacredos. Not that young men cannot be priests, but rather the title, ‘presbyteros’ implies a spiritual maturity more than theological knowledge.
Apart from deacons, I think the priesthood itself could be expanded to include married men with less formal formation but perhaps more spiritual depth. Pastors should remain local theological/doctrinal/legal experts while the sacramental workload could be shared by numerous priests and deacons, a larger clerical community leading the local community. I have no opposition to a married man whose children have left, a widower etc. going through a rigorous screaning process but less formal training and conducting Masses etc.
When we look at the “JP II priests” as the article deems them (recognizing that I myself was a seminarian and one of them prior to marrying) and the explosion of vocations in some orders, I am reminded of what Thomas Merton said, “when a novitiate is crammed with postulants year after year it is time for somebody to reflect about the quality of the vocations that are coming in.” (7SM)
Not that they are bad people or incompetent priests, but that they are being asked to be a jack of all trades because they are living and working in isolation (particularly in rural areas of which I am familiar as a rural Canadian).
Perhaps some of the more knowledgable contributers here could clarify my concept of an administrative hierarchy within the priesthood itself, excluding the episcopate and diaconate. I am not certain it is a doctrinal, legal or theological possibility but I was wondering if there exists any precedence? After all, the early church made no such distinction between bishop and priest and the division seems to have been for administrative reasons and perhaps an administrative adjustment would be part of a possible solution.
Adam
Just a few questions from someone mostly clueless about the Catholic diaconate:
What’s the difference between a “permanent” and (what? “impermanent”?) deacon?
One of the “rules” about becoming a deacon is that if you’re married and your wife dies, you can’t remarry, yes?
The deacons I know seem to run a pretty big gamut. On the whole, they seem sort of like rabbis–they’ve got day jobs, but assist at Mass, read the Gospel, marry and bury, and do family counseling, all as time permits, and which duties they perform abysmally or better than the priest, depending on individual circumstances.
In other words, the quality of the diaconate seems to be an awfully big crap shoot. Is that typical?
Oh, yah. They’re also all men.
About a half a century ago all deacons were on the way to the presbyterate. The onely permanent deacons were the ones who dropped out after reaching the diaconate. So, I guess, permananet dfeacons now are men ordained to the diaconate without any plan that they should advance to the presbyterate.
Jean,
Permanent is vs. “transitional”= deacons who are going to be priests next year.
Adam,
Actually it is not so much the JPII priests that I’m thinking of. The seminarians I’ve known of that stripe seem to be intent upon good relationships and spiritual friendships, as well as spiritual reading, retreats, their own sacramental lives, etc.
Imho, getting and keeping habits of fervor is step #1. That’s what I feel is hit or miss in seminary life.
I remember reading one of Robert Wicks’ (not my favorite author, but insightful in some ways) books, and he said that if he ever talked with a priest who wanted to chuck it all, he asked, “And how do you pray?” Or some such. Usually the answer was, “Well, I’m not really praying these days.” His advice was funny. If memory serves, what he did was he got them to commit to praying 5 minutes a day. That little commitment had a snowball effect and became a much greater commitment, and pretty soon they were back in the swing of things.
Adam
I suspect the the use of “presbyter” (lit. “elder”) primarily reflects a desire to be faithful to the terminology of the N.T.
In the N.T. “hiereus” (Greek for “priest”) is use of pagan priests, Jewish priests, Christ, and Christians generally.
What a refreshingly honest article! I have often wondered about how solid the “restoration” is, after reading some blogs where a new generation of John Paul II youth is touted as having “rediscovered” religious life and the priesthood (you can even see them on streaming You-Tube videos). The bloggers and their fellow commenters gloat openly about the “dying out” of the Vatican II generation of priests, or they make not so subtle allusions to their disappearance by simply writing “tick-tock, tick-tock.” I wonder, too, whether they have any idea of the added pressure they place on young priests and religious to live up to their expectations. It comes as no surprise that these priests should be facing the personal health crisis described in this article. All the preparation in the world for the demands placed on priests today cannot ready a person for what will happen to them on the day of their ordination. The moment the seminarian becomes a priest people’s attitudes and expectations change towards him. As they should, they now start treating him like a priest and ask him to be a priest 24/7 with all that that can entail. The experience is an eye-opener, and for those who have been hastily prepared because of a shortage of priests it can be quite bewildering. For this reason there is a great need for older experienced priests to mentor the younger generation. Of course if there is such a divide between the JP II priests and their VII predecessors that the article suggests the problem appears to be compounded.
I look back on my years of managerial experience and the time it took for me to really be capable of performing the functions thereof. That is why the military has “junior” and “senior” officers. You need time in the trenches in order to learn the skills, develop the maturity and demonstrate the capability of handling the true managerial functions and positions. Ditto for the corporate world. Most of us who survived and advanced in that milieu did it because we had some good mentors and the opportunities to learn how to be a manger.
A priest is not a manager, but a Pastor had better be! Once you wear the crown is when you start to bear the cross, so to speak. In this day and age priests are not assumed to be worthy of the deference that they were used to in the past once appointed pastors. They had better be capable of demonstrating that, what they lack in experience and maturity, they are willing to learn through collaboration, delegation and listening, listening, listening!
There is nothing worse for a priest than for him to always have the last word. The laity do him no big favor by constantly rolling over with a “Yes, Father” attitude. He suffers, then, because of a lack of understanding of the give and take of leadership, and the laity suffer with yet another arrogant, superficial and oft-time incompetent loser.
It seems to me that Fr. Stanosz (much like LT Johnson) is advocating a complacent attitude towards what appears to be intractable mediocrity.
Nothing like setting the bar low.
Hope is agonizing. The higher the hope, the more arduous the path. The further from here to there.
Also, I would think, the longer it has been, the more fruitless slogging that has taken place, the less one wants to put stock in a glorious future.
But why don’t we first take a look at what the slogging has consisted of, and how much of that is wasted energy. (Perhaps the first thing to go could be the idea that every priest, no matter how introverted, has to put on a personality show 3 times every Sunday morning.)
I would guess that the converse is true as well, and that there are probably energizing practices, habits and attitudes–perhaps some that were fashionable 40 years ago– that could be adapted to the current situation. It doesn’t have to be yet another (groan) parish program. That’s the way we’ve come to think of things, but that’s not the only way to think.
I don’t think there’s one silver bullet. But I’m guessing there are a hundred silver bullets that have fallen into disuse. This is normal, societal memory loss, but it can be overcome.
Aside from the more well-known, perennial spiritual practices, some of which are widely neglected these days, for specific ideas on small efforts that revitalize parishes–and hence priests–I would ask Rita Ferrone.
The priesthood has been in trouble for a long time. But it may not really be about the priesthood as it may be about a system of rule. Peter Drucker, the management expert, was an admirer of the management system of the RCC. Whereby each pastor was given a lot of leeway as long as the basic rules were followed. This system does not need brilliance in a pastor. Just a basic capacity to make sure masses are said, confessions are heard, weddings are ritualized, as is burial and baptism is administered. Add the parochial school and the system is pretty solid. And of course, collections are made, for the diocese as well. As great a strategic management person Jim Post of Votf was, he had no idea the power of the system he was trying to reform.
The longing nowadays to obviate Vatican II is understandable because VII sought to place the Spirit back into the church. Not that the Spirit was entirely absent in the pre Vat. II church. But Vat. II sought to give it preeminence rather than to the hierarchy.
So many things can be said about the priesthood. Many have been expressed here. Many are frustrated, burnt out, angry etc,. but not much substantially can be done unless the people are brought back to the church and there is a price for being Catholic rather than a business decision. Discipleship has to replace the church of dogma and the church of liturgy. Another way of saying that is that the Spirit must be let in and replace repetitious acts of words which are given supernatural meanings.
As far as we know there were no priests in the Pauline communities. Yet they seemed to do fine with the Lord’s Supper. Not that they did not have diffiulties which is incumbent on the human condition.
It seems Paul would have enormous problems with someone placed over several communities or parishers. Especially when so many sincere disciples are available to feed the body of Christ all over the place.
“Then the story really begins, but is it founded well? Was spiritual direction as intensive as it should have been? Did he really learn how to pray?”
Prayer is not a panacea for every problem. One might ask the question whether the structures and culture surrounding the Catholic priesthood today are really conducive to spiritual life, and whether a vibrant spiritual life is not rather likely to subvert those structures? The best priests I know receive little support from the structures and have had to construct their ministry by creating a space the structures cannot destroy.
If things are as bad as this article states, then the solution for each of us is obvious – befriend a priest and encourage others to do the same. Or you can continue to lead the dreary lives you say most priests live or have no spiritual life as you say few priests have.
A friend whose brother is a priest sent me a copy of the Commonweal article, and, based on the number of times and recipients who’ve sent and forwarded it, it seems to be hitting a nerve.
I’m in no position to offer the kind of hints for priests that have been offered above. Maybe magic bullets like “just five minutes a day and you’re back in the swing!” works for some people.
But having slogged through 25 years of the marital estate and reading seven years’ of articles in my award-winning diocesan magazine about how you can put zing! back in your marriage by sending the kids to grandma’s and having a date with dinner and candles, I’ll go out on a limb and say that these types of suggestions do not address real-world problems about one’s vocation.
I sense the problems priests experience are those of deep human isolation that have many causes. I’m sure I don’t know the half of it.
I’ve prayed every day for my friend’s brother. I think it’s time for prayer to inform action now. Even us bad Catholics can do what Robert Kribs suggests, befriend a priest.
With all due respect Jean and Robert Kribs, this kind of thinking may be more defeatism than it appears.
Our faith is a vibrant, joyful one. Paul insists that we rejoice always because Christ is risen. We have new life in the spirit as free children of God. We are an Alleuia, Easter people.
The centering of the faith on the clergy and hierarchy has been and is an enormous error. That is why there is this problem and depression.
Vatican II championed the People of God, of which the clergy are members. The gathering is the church. The faster we realize that the more joy and less depression there is.
I will go out on a limb and state that one reason why Robert’s suggestion is unlikely to work is that the problem facing priests has little to do with lack of would-be friends. It is the one sidedness of expectations that puts too much emphasis on the distinctiveness of priests, and that makes “true” friendships among lay people (or at least lay people who are part of the parish life) and priests difficult and even undesirable — because they can never be equals given the existing hierarchical structures. Most of the priests I know do not lack for dinner invitations, tickets to events, golfing dates, and so on.
Barbara,
Your are absolutely right. Friendship can only exist among equals.
Oh, OK. To hell with being friends with priests, the uppity egomaniacs.
Frankly, I think that this whole lay movement can only go so far. I can see where a Father Fuhrer could kill the spirit in a parish. But I also have first-hand experience of lay people trying to provide services previously handled by clergy and religious and making a terrible hash of it because of poor training or resistance to same.
But it’s accepted because that’s all there is.
A Jesuit advisor who was trying to help me figure out whether or not to join up told me that the priesthood was a genuinely higher calling than the life of a husband, father, and lay professor. Few claims are more responsible for my not joining up than that one.
Here is a question related to the article. The author writes, “We’ve made progress in overcoming our pretensions to being a triumphal, all-knowing, sinless church.” Does anyone know what he has in mind here? The way that I have always read any suggestion of fault in Catholicism is that it has always been in reference to “representatives” or “individuals” within the Church, and never the Church itself. I find this to be a distinction without a difference, but that is a different debate. What I am wondering is what changes in particular the author might have in mind in making such a claim.
Fr. O’Leary,
I’m pretty sure that you and I are on somewhat the same side on this one. The spiritual life is not a bandaid for a priest. The spiritual life is all there is.
There is such a thing as a natural desire to have a family. Family life, while I’m sure it is infinitely complex, and trying, beyond my understanding as an outsider, has its rewards. “The hearth,” they used to say. I’m not suggesting that it’s easy, so please don’t kick me in the head, but it has rewards. It makes some natural sense to be a wife or husband–not that the natural level exhausts the mystery.
I guess priesthood has rewards in terms of golf outings and what have you, but in natural terms, it simply doesn’t make sense. Whatever the original call consisted of, that is, whatever the mix of religious, social, psychological motivations were at the time (Power’s Morte d’Urban is hilarious on this point), eventually the props are removed and a man either has a life with God or he doesn’t.
If not, there is really no justification for his life as a priest; his priestly identity makes no sense. The priest facilitates God’s presence to people and peoples’ presence to God. That’s it. That’s who he is. Alter Christus.
Kathy: Not surprisingly, I have strong disagreements with your description of the priesthood. However, I do not wish, as they say, to go there. I will simply ask for a clarification: What do you mean by the priest facilitates “peoples’ presence to God”?
I didn’t mean to suggest that priests were uppity, any more than I think my boss is uppity. We just aren’t playing in the same end of the swimming pool and it’s hard to imagine how genuine friendship could arise out of our relationship. But if there were no one else in the immediate vicinity who my boss could open up with, I am sure he would be lonely and stressed. That’s why, in the past, I am sure, that relationships among priests themselves were considered imperative. I am also uncertain that this phenomenon is unique to Catholic priests, but it’s probably more acute because they lack other familial relationships that might be expected to offset some of its effects.
I meant of course, among Catholic priests as opposed to Protestant ministers or Jewish rabbis.
If there is nothing special about a priest and what he brings to the mass and our spiritual lives as Catholics, then we might as well all be Protestants.
That said (and maybe this is where Joe is going) is that we ALL have a “priestly” mission, to facilitate God’s presence to each other.
Might not our mission extend to the priest himself? Not necessarily in dinner invites and football tickets, and the kind of fawning gifts that might be showered on him. But in some kind of basic human understanding?
If not, how can we expect that the “right” kind of men (i.e., those who are not authoritarian control freaks) will want to be priests?
Jean: To be clear, I have no objection to referring to there being something “special as a priest and what he brings to the mass” and to the spiritual lives as Catholics. Special can mean distinct and distincly valued, but it need not mean higher.
You would also be correct in guessing that I have the so-called priesthood of all believers in the background of my thinking.
“That’s it. That’s who he is. Alter Christus.”
Jesus himself spent thirty or more years that we know nothing about, but if he was fully human, he must have spent those years much like any other man of his time and place. And the Gospels don’t give anything resembling a detailed account of the personal life of Jesus during his public ministry. There is no account of him laughing, singing, sleeping (except for once, in a boat during a storm!), dreaming, coughing or sneezing.
Even Einstein took time off from thinking about physics to play the violin.
Although the article and this thread are about the problems of priests, Paul Stanoz talks about “the decline of U.S. Catholicism” and “a foundering church,” and nobody has commented on that.
Particularly interesting was the reference to the study that “ranked U.S. Catholic teenagers well behind their Protestant peers in adherence to their religious tradition’s beliefs, norms, practices, and commitments.” That would seem to indicate that not only is the Catholic Church foundering, it’s foundering at an alarming rate. And if it were the case that young people found “conservative” Christianity too demanding, why would Evangelicals be in decline less than both Catholicism and Mainline Protestantism? (See the statistics below.)
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The most significant drop in attendance came at the expense of the Catholic Church, which experienced an 11% decrease in its attendance percentage from 2000 to 2004. Next, and not far behind were mainline churches, which saw a 10% percentage decline. Evangelicals experienced the smallest drop at 1%.
http://www.christianitytoday.com/outreach/articles/americanchurchcrisis.html
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I don’t have the statistics, but I’m guessing that if they were available, the most dramatic sociologically measurable difference between the heyday of the RC priesthood and right now, in the doldrums, is the number of hours spent in the confessional.
The patron saint of parish priests spent 18 hours a day in the confessional.
The average parish priest spends 15 minutes every other Saturday, plus maybe that scrupulous lady who drops by the rectory twice a week.
That’s a big loss in terms of one of the priest-as-intermediary’s roles. He should be Moses standing in the breach. Instead he’s been reduced in public expectations to Phil Donahue or maybe Oprah.
In general, don’t we spend a disproportionate amount of quality time (that is to say Sunday morning) being friendly, and not enough time with the intensive spiritual goods? (I say this as someone who’s all about , “Hi, how you doing?” to the point of annoying people.)
Kathy,
There may be some truth in your claim about the time spent in the confessional, but unfortunately to get at it you parrot one of the biggest “urban legends” promoted by the right wing about post VII priests, that they are less mediators than performers. I take that as your meaning in the reference to Phil Donahue and Oprah.
Not every one of that generation of priests has an ego that enters the sanctuary fifteen minutes before he does. While there is nostalgia today for turning the priest back away from the people, I do not think we should forget the priest’s role in the liturgy as the one who leads in prayer and worship; the one who facilitates the formation of the Church as a community through its liturgical life. I suspect it was easier to face east and not to have to look into the eyes of the congregants to witness their hopes and fears and to be reminded of how short you have fallen from your mission to lead and help them to become the church of Christ. Did some let themselves get in the way, yes, but I think the talk on the street regarding the liturgy and the priest’s intermediary role after the Council is greatly exaggerated and often for the wrong reasons.
I think the author demonstrates well the problems and burdens that the modern Latin presbyterate faces.
With respect, I disagree with his characterizing a possible married presbyteriate as being “progressive,” primarily considering that the “strict groups such as Pentecostals, Evangelicals, and Mormons” that he notes in the next sentence “continue to grow rapidly” embrace a married clergy.
Further, the Church recognizes that the state of married clerics is “sanctioned by the practice of the primitve Church and of the Eastern Churches down the centuries” and “is to be held in honor.” Codex Canonum Ecclesiarum Orientalium canon 373. A “practice of the primitive church” doesn’t sound very progressive to me; it sounds on the contrary rather traditional.
I’d be interested to hear to what extent this health crisis affects Eastern Catholic presbyteriate. If it affects Eastern priests in the same way, then the quick dismissal of a married Latin presbyteriate would be more warranted (and honestly could be why the author chose not to go into his reasons beyond his perception of the move being progressive). If not, maybe the idea deserves a little more consideration than given.
” . . . . difference between the heyday of the RC priesthood and right now, in the doldrums, is the number of hours spent in the confessional.”
If I’m not mistaken, there were no confessionals before the early 17th century. So I guess the heyday of the Catholic priesthood is comparatively recent.
I wonder how the Catholic Church today would deal with a priest who became so famous that tens of thousands of people made pilgrimages to have their confessions heard by him.
Alan,
I don’t think it’s an ego issue. I think it’s a problem of expectations.
Somehow when St. Paul said he had become all things to all men, in order that he might save at least some, he didn’t have in mind “So, how about those Redskins!! And let’s all give a big round of applause for the choir!”
I think that the expected degree of bonhomie has become frankly weird. And yes, I do think that facing east would help. We have an unnatural amount of eye contact with/ undue emphasis on the man who for whatever mysterious reasons has been called to be with us (that is, facing God with us) as well as for us (listening to us, telling us the truth). When someone faces a large group, the group attends to him. It’s a huge imbalance in liturgical gesture.
I think part of how we can best support him is to take the pressure off. I can’t imagine trying to be the life of the party for 60 years in a row. But isn’t that what we are requiring of him?
Whatever happened to thinking of priests and deacons as servants of Christ and servants of the people? As a servant, one need not be successful, only faithful. Don’t get me wrong, I think being a servant can lead one to feel the need to be a jack of all trades and master of none. Because this is often the outcome, I continue to have the highest regard for clergy.
Speaking of confession, a priest once confessed to me over a game of pool that he sometimes wished he had a gun with him in the confessional, as it so depressed him when he gave absolution to someone he knew would just go out and start sinning again. A gun, he explained, would allow him to dispatch the person to glory in the state of grace that follows absolution. I should hesitate to add, since you all know me too well, that the priest was entirely sober when he made this proclamation, and, he seemed not entirely to be joking.
Don’t we know for sure that Jesus is quite Anti-clerical? This is what is so startling about the Constantine transformation. The persecuted church became the triumphant church. Martyrs became a premium since no one was willing to be a martyr anymore. Relics were not only the most desirable item they were the new articles of faith in place of discipleship. One became holy by association rather than by imitation. Obviously then, relics had to be mass produced and seven bodies of the same martyr was condsidered miraculous not fraudulent.
Alter Christus? I will be restrained on this one. But definitely not!
We are a church of sinners, not dilettantes or prima donnas. Cathy Kaveny in a great article in America pointed out what Christian Catholics are. We are not even wholesome. We are real people leading real lives with hope, faith and charity. Notice the marvelous quoted words from Flannery O’Conner. http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2823
Hello All,
First, let me express my hope that all of you who participate here had a Happy Thanksgiving and easy travel to and from your loved ones.
Now, I don’t mean to start a tangent to the main discussion but I found one observation by Alan C. Mitchell particularly interesting and disturbing. I’ve taken the liberty of quoting him:
The bloggers and their fellow commenters gloat openly about the “dying out” of the Vatican II generation of priests, or they make not so subtle allusions to their disappearance by simply writing “tick-tock, tick-tock.”
Now I don’t think I am as tuned into this network as are many (being a philosophy professor, to some extent I am technology impaired!), but Mr. Mitchell’s observation is consistent with some of my own experiences, and I suspect with some others here as well. Although I admit I have only a rough idea of what is meant by the “Vatican II generation of priests” and more generally, “Vatican II generation Catholics”, I am rather painfully aware that at least some of our Catholic sisters and brothers from the John Paul II generation think I and other Vatican II generation Catholics are the enemy and treat us as such. Another relevant example: Three years ago one of my students had sent me a message singing the praises of George Weigel, frequently referred to as a Catholic intellectual. I was honest with this student and told him very politely I was not impressed by what I had read of Weigel’s and recommended he look at the work of John Finnis, a conservative Catholic intellectual who I think is worthy of the name. Said student promptly broke off all contact with me, and I have to admit I was not sorry because this individual was so full of venom for anyone, either in or out of the Catholic church, who deviated from his conservative agenda.
Now being a former statistical analyst and now a philosopher I am loathe to generalize, but I don’t know very many of the John Paul II generation Catholics who seem to love the earlier generation, and being a college professor I meet many young people. I guess I’m asking for reassurance: Does anyone else here have happier experiences with Catholics of the John Paul II generation?
Kathy,
The issue you bring up about expectations is a deflection from the real issue. If there is a problem of high expectations of “bonhomie,” (and I am not sure that there is; seems to me to be one of those straw men thrown up by the right in the liturgy wars), there are also genuine expectations of humble service in ministry. The problem of expectations is, of course, compounded by self-expectations on the part of a new generation of priests and the desire they have to be treated in a certain way by the people they should be serving (Mark 10:45). When reality sets in, whatever they have been told about who they are in the seminary (or fantasized being) seems to evaporate. Rather than bring a preconceived notion of what it means to be a priest to their ministry, they would be better off discovering the many ways they are called to be priests by their congregations, that they had never anticipated in the seminary. By responding to those kinds of demands with openness and humility they may, over time, end up becoming great priests.
Hebrews 5:1-10 gives a good description of what priesthood should be: humble service to the people of God by someone who stands with them as one who has not sought the “glory” of the priesthood but accepted it because he was called to it. That initial call by God is re-issued time and again whenever the people ask him to be their priest.
We will have to disagree about “facing east” as part of the solution. What you describe as group interaction is also part of the narrative of the right who oppose the mass of the Paul VI missal. There have been aberrations, but they do not tell the whole story, and it is a bit lopsided to focus on them as the hallmark of the post VII liturgy. It is very helpful for the priest to stand with the people and lead them in prayer while facing them, precisely so that they can see and hear him pray in words they understand rather than mumble in Latin hunched over with clenched fingers, making arcane gestures in highly privatizing ways.
Peter (it always makes me smile when I see your posts; are you always of such a happy turn of mind? Or do you have to cultivate it? If you could turn it into a method, you could be very wealthy).
But, let’s see, yes, I have happier experiences with young Catholics.
It happens once or twice a semester. I have a student, usually female, who confides that she doesn’t really want a high-profile communications in sports or entertainment, but is interested in (sotto voce) a nonprofit where she can make a difference.
I spent most of my communications life with nonprofs after the newspaper, so I try to find out what kind of “cause” the student is interested in, to suggest some contacts/internship ideas, to reassure her that it is entirely possible to make a living wage at a nonprof.
And, in the course of the conversation I discover, almost invariably, that the student is a Catholic, and the faith is what calls her to the nonprof life.
What I find inspiring about these students is that they realize political solutions to problems are limited, and they aren’t out to change the world. They are idealistic, but pragmatic. They seem to embody Blessed Pope John’s outlook: “See everything, overlook a lot, change a little.”
Just as a point of interest, and as I’m ruminating over the names of the students referred to above, I have to say that those who are not Catholics have been Jewish.
I just happened to begin reading Bernanos’ Diary of a Country Priest. It was written in 1937. I came across this entry where the hero visits an older priest mentor who informs him that “When I was your age we had MEN in the church – men I say – make what you like of the word – heads of a parish, masters, my boy rulers.
Nowadays the seminaries turn out little choirboys, little ragamuffins who think they’re working harder than anybody because they nver get anyting done. They go snivelling around instead of giving orders…
A true priest is never love, get that into your head. And if you must know: the Church doesn’t care a rap wheter you’re loved or not, my lad,..What the Church needs is discipline. You’ve got to set things straight all the day long….
The point is that this debate of the role of the priest, the quality of priests (to say nothing of the nature and purpose of the Church) is probably as old as the Church itself (or herself).
Kathy,
I think people who support celebration of the Mass ‘ad orientem’ negate some important components of the Catechism. Specifically, that Our Priests “act in persona Christi Capitis” and that Our People (to include Priests) are created in God’s own image. Furthermore, as Dr. Theodor Klauser argued, the “new East” is Our Altars where the ULTIMATE coming of the Lord happens each Holy Sacrifice (A Short History of the Western Liturgy, An Account and Some Reflections, 1969 Oxford University Press). Could there be a more Holy, Divine and/or Reverent back drop (each other) to the ULTIMATE coming of the Lord each Mass? Did Jesus celebrate his last supper ‘ad orientem’?
End of debate in my mind – what more “scholarship” or “balance” is needed?
Balance I say, balance. Health is all about balance!
Peter V,
I am a Catholic of John Paul II generation (I think – age 32) that was falling into the George Weigel’s realm you wrote of just prior to Pope Benedict’s election. It took a few e-mails to a baby boomer Priest mentor of mine to get me back on the path that feels much closer to “home” for me. (But – boy was this other path sure attractive in this age of scandal and polarization!!!) If you want some “happier experiences” I would suggest giving my Blog a quick read. It is all about my Journey of Faith experiences for the past few years. http://tibotmorfenoo.blogspot.com/
I should have added that one can certainly have a priest as a friend if he is a colleague and his status as priest is incidental to the relationship. When the relationship is pastoral, I do not think friendship is possible, at least in most cases, and certainly not with the so-called JPII priests.
Oonefrom,
The Eucharist is PENultimate. It’s no less real for that.
The Second Coming is ultimate. Ad orientem posture awaits our blessed hope, the coming of our Lord and Savior. And the priest still faces the altar of sacrifice anyway.
But just as a clarification, my point in bringing this up is simply to say that if people feel really terrible in their current situations, it’s probably a good idea to look for excessive wheel-spinning, areas in which vast amounts of effort are being expended to everyone’s frustration.Nobody rolls out of bed on Sunday morning in a committed way for entertainment. Might as well watch whoever is Charles Kuralt these days. So maybe priests should stop trying to do what they have never really had to do anyway.
The converse angle is to look for rewards that are supposed to be inherent in the situation but are not. One of the biggest rewards of a priests life ought to be the reconciliation of sinners to God. Nowadays, that reward is largely missing.
At the risk of bringing up the solemn subject of a priest’s tender feelings for a boy, may I just add one more word to the discussion, a stanza from Hopkins, The Bugler’s First Communion:
…Then though I should tread tufts of consolation
Dáys áfter, só I in a sort deserve to
And do serve God to serve to
Just such slips of soldiery Christ’s royal ration…
“Might as well watch whoever is Charles Kuralt these days.”
Charles Osgood, since 1994!
Stanosz wrote two articles on seminarians for Commonweal in Oct. 2005 and Dec. 2006. His focus was the new JPII priests, their sense of specialness and superiority over the laity.
Stanosz excerpts: Priestly training in the seminaries I studied tended to impart a clerical difference, a sense of specialness that led the seminarians to see themselves as not only separate but also superior to laypeople. These students tended to see loving human relationships as involving lust and sexual desire rather than mutuality, communication, and collaboration…
The current dearth of priestly vocations also leads seminarians to think of themselves as markedly different from other people. That they are entering a profession for manifestly altruistic purposes and lofty ideals likewise adds to their understanding of themselves as special or different from most other people.
I found that this sense of specialness was also heightened by a feeling that their services would be in great demand following ordination. The day would come when men and women, a generation or more their senior, would address them as Father and kneel before them for a blessing…
Priestly identity must be rooted in the person and ministry of Christ and the church, not in a search for superior status…
To be sure, many fine candidates continue to enter seminaries, and not a few seem certain to become holy, caring priests who will serve with devotion and even distinction.
Still, growing numbers of seminary faculty are frustrated and alarmed by the declining intellectual ability of the applicant pool. (This is something they would say to me only behind closed doors.) Statistics support their concern…
Many of the men in my study entered the seminary in their thirties and forties, yet – like many younger candidates – they frequently seemed to lack well-developed social and relational skills.
Faculty members I interviewed noted that today’s seminarians are frequently drawn to theologies that exalt the status and distinctiveness of the clerical role, and are more interested in consulting the Catechism of the Catholic Church for clear answers than in exploring the wide breadth of Catholicism’s theological heritage.
My sense from my research visits is that a significant number of seminarians are looking for a religiously saturated environment that will bestow a special sense of sacred identity. Their rooms often have the appearance of shrines, and their days are spent in study and prayer among peers who share their worldview…
With fewer well-prepared, gifted, mature men seeking ordination, why aren’t seminary administrators and faculty members publicly calling for a discussion of the quality of applicants to their schools?
What will become of a church that settles for mediocre leaders and excludes many who feel called to priesthood simply because of their gender, sexual preference, or desire to marry? “
IMHO, the VII priests who struggle to keep hope alive are the servants offering bread instead of a stone. Mature faith built on reaching to their own depths, without theological bullying or orotund voice or rote answers — a guiding shepherd, a friend in the Spirit instead. And who treat laity like adults. I simply find the hyperorthodox youngsters insufferable.
I see the priest shortage as a blessing in disguise that will eventually break the clerical choke hold on absolute power and force adjustments down the road, bumpy though it may be along the way. I am optimistic in the long view that new modes of ministry will prevail, and bring more blessings than problems.
New power structures of collegiality and shared community will make a huge difference in the attractiveness of priesthood. Perhaps a bishop would no longer be able to chew up and spit out the most creative priests at his pleasure.
“The spiritual life is not a bandaid for a priest. The spiritual life is all there is. ”
I was referring to the common advice that if priests or seminarians just prayed more the problems would go away. I do not believe that this is a sound attitude.
“There is such a thing as a natural desire to have a family. Family life, while I’m sure it is infinitely complex, and trying, beyond my understanding as an outsider, has its rewards.”
Many priests feel the lack of intimate companionship as a huge void in their lives. Cardinal Basil Hume, who was a man of prayer, said that he never married a couple without feeling envious of them.
“I guess priesthood has rewards in terms of golf outings and what have you, but in natural terms, it simply doesn’t make sense.”
Priesthood makes perfect sense. Celibacy makes sense for some people, either as a destiny that overtakes them, or as a creative use of resources.
” Whatever the original call consisted of, that is, whatever the mix of religious, social, psychological motivations were at the time (Power’s Morte d’Urban is hilarious on this point), eventually the props are removed and a man either has a life with God or he doesn’t. If not, there is really no justification for his life as a priest; his priestly identity makes no sense.”
What does “a life with God” mean in today’s cultural context? suspect that most priests have more of a life with God when they leave the seminary than they do later in life. Their piety is intact on the day of ordination and their readiness for unworldly sacrifice is huge. The long grind that comes after makes them belatedly “count the cost” and wonder if they have not been cheated by their own youthful folly and hubris and by the false pretences of an institution that imposes celibacy without really believing in it or wanting to think too closely about it. (As I recall, the promise of celibacy is administered in a rather clandestine way, a quick signing of a paper in the chapel sometime before subdiaconate or diaconate.)
” The priest facilitates God’s presence to people and peoples’ presence to God. That’s it. That’s who he is. Alter Christus.”
This sounds as if you are reducing the priest’s humanity to a theological role, making him a sort of living sacrifice, crucified by celibacy, and putting him apart from the ordinary laity.
My feeling is that this whole way of thinking about priesthood is radically archaic. Anglican priests do not seem to have these over-wrought Bernanosian agonies; perhaps here, too, we have something to learn?
“Anglican priests do not seem to have these over-wrought Bernanosian agonies.”
No, their agonies are about whether their wives (or husbands) will shoot off their mouths and offend major church donors.
A friend whose father was an Episcopal priest supported celibacy whole-heartedly, said her mother spent 40 years drinking and keeping her trap shut. Nobody celebrated his retirement more joyously than her mother.
Many clergy, I’m sure, maintain better balance in their family lives, but the spouses of clergy must have a hard time keeping a straight face listening to those sermons sometimes.
My husband and I attend Mass at different times, but he came to church ON PURPOSE when I was lectoring to hear me read St. Paul’s letter that admonishes women to obey their husbands. Dream on, boyo.
Minor examples of what the family experience might add to the job stress of a married priest.
Carolyn,
Thanks much for your interesting post. The crisis in clergy education has been known for some time, and of course it is now evident in the hierarchy as these poorly educated priests have gone on to become poorly educated bishops. Is it any wonder the Church is in crisis? Anyway that is not my main point.
While we have all heard of the anecdotes of an undereducated clergy now ministering to congregations of people better educated than they, I do not think we have seen the quantitative evidence. I am surprised you were allowed into seminaries to interview faculty and students, but I am happy you got the chance to do that. Is your study published? if so, where can I read it?
I don’t know about the quality of seminarians, though there have been a few young priests in my diocese who have made waves by publicly upbraiding their parishioners for their disfavored poltical leanings, for which they have been publicly deemed pompous jerks by their parishioners. I mean, it can’t be a good day when the bishop tells the local paper that he has given Father Do-right a stern lecture about the consequences of his over-enthusiasm.
But really, I think a lot of things have changed, all leading to the following place: priests don’t inhabit the same moral space as their parishioners, and it must be very dispiriting to know that on a day in and day out basis that married people pretty clearly don’t embody the church’s teachings on contraception or divorce. And perhaps, foregoing marriage was formerly seen as a sacrifice, it was also seen as a boon for independence and personal achievement (I had unmarried great aunts who consciously chose to forego marital life for this reason). But marriage isn’t seen anymore as an existence tethered to worldly sorrows as well as joys. Mostly it’s seen as a positive (although this is a bit ironic considering how many marriages fail). Surely, the evolution of marriage has alot to do with how priests relate to their parishioners and view their role within the Church’s life.
I call your attention in the same issue to Davidson and Hoge’s article on the growing gap between ckergy and laity – the laity who hold on to the “servant leader model” and the “cultic” model urged by JPII and BXVI, adopted by seminaries and by many younger clergy in the past couple of decades.
This gap will continue to frustrate clergy. Most bishops, apponited by those ywo pontiffs, will suport the “cultic” model – leadeing to the continuation and probably growth of the gap.
Still another fault line of division among Catholics…
“an institution that imposes celibacy without really believing in it or wanting to think too closely about it. (As I recall, the promise of celibacy is administered in a rather clandestine way, a quick signing of a paper in the chapel sometime before subdiaconate or diaconate.)”
I wondered whether a course on ‘affair-proofing’ marriages could be offered in marriage prep. classes. The priest said that it was unlikely as the Church would look at that as acknowledging a negative. I looked puzzled and stated that at least 80% of marriages will experience infidelity at some time or other and most people don’t enter marriage with the expectation that infidelity will occur. But it does – and frequently.
Maybe that was just him but it seems to me that there is an awful lot of institutional denial going on everywhere and in many different arenas.
My last thought:
The issue up front is a morale crisis.
The exchamges between Stanosz and his Bishop are instructiveI think the Bishop is sympathetic to the problem, but, as one of my old psychology professors used to say, “sympathy solves nothing.”
The Bisjp[‘s response is managerial. What’s lacking is emapthy, priests crying out to be really listened to.
But empathy for bottom up problems is not a strong suit in the hierarcgal milieu these days,, both for priests and for laity who want to surface problems.
If the the JPII priests tend to be as awful as described on this blog, what does that say about the “legacy” of JPII? JP the Great?
Stanocz suggests that the JPII priests seem especially likely to have a rude awakening in mid-career, once the luster of their status fades and their first enthusiasm dims. But in truth I think a clerical system that persists in treating grown men like children and keeping them on a short leash can’t help but blight their lives, no matter whether they are of VII or JPII inclinations. The more interesting and effective priests one runs into have often had to swim against the current, much to their cost.
Kathy,
I take your point, “Ultimate” was a poor use of terms – it was mine, not Klauser’s – as was “new East.” Perhaps I should have just left it up to Klauser, pages 165-166:
“There are many indications today which point to the fact that in the church of the future, priests everywhere will once more celebrate FROM BEHIND THE ALTAR, FACING THE PEOPLE AS AT ONE TIME THEY ALWAYS DID, AND IS STILL DONE IN THE ANCIENT ROMAN BASILICAS TODAY; for indeed the fact that people in many quarters want the community aspect of the Eucharist as a gathering of the faithful round a table to be given clearer expression seems to demand just a resolution of the problem. Nor indeed would the rule of turning East for prayer stand in the way of such a development. FOR, IDEALLY, THE OBJECT OF TURNING EAST IS TO FACE GOD AND HIS ONLY BEGOTTEN SON, WHO LIKE THE SUN, ARE THOUGHT OF AS ENTHRONED IN THE EAST AND COMING FROM THE EAST. NOW, HOWEVER, THIS “COMING” OR “ADVENT” OF GOD IN HIS THEOPHANY TAKES PLACE ON OUR ALTARS; HENCE IN A CHRISTIAN CHURCH, THE OBJECT OF TURNING EAST FOR PRAYER IS TO FACE THE ALTAR; AND, THEREFORE, BOTH PRIEST AND PEOPLE HAVE TO TURN TOWARDS THE ALTAR.”
Still, at least for the hour or so I am at Mass each Sunday and if I’m lucky – daily – it is the pinnacle.
Back to the subject of Blog – I think many younger Priests are putting too much pressure on themselves in the midst and now fallout of the scandal. Quite often this is unhealthy and leads them to engage in unfair criticisms about some of the catechistical sound (though sometimes labeled as “new” or even “mistakes” but could arguably be viewed as even more orthodox than they would like to admit) ideas/beliefs flowing out of Vatican II. I think re-visiting some of the prevailing thoughts (i.e. Klauser) that helped influence or flowed out immediately after Vatican II makes this phenomena (or “confusion” as Pope Benedict referred to it as) in the midst of the scandal more understandable – the ‘ad orientem’ preference/apathy debate being just one example.
Thank you, Alan, for your incisive and helpful comments, and for the scripture references. The priest as a leader of prayer should indeed regard the faces of those whom he serves not as an impediment to his ministry but as a gift. He should indeed see them as the very face of Christ; their presence is not some sort of intrusion into his ministry before God, or a distraction from contemplation of the Second Coming. What is “too much eye contact”? It used to be said that the eye is the window to the soul. Have we too much “soul contact” in our churches? No, I think, all too little, and we need much of it if we are to thrive. Do we not bless the eyes of catechumens as part of making them Christian? Let us see as Christ taught us.
Let me hasten to add that neither is the priest in his humanity to be regarded as a distraction to the assembly — the incarnational assumptions of the whole Christian project depend upon our being able to grasp this essential fact. If we are still fleeing from each other, no matter how beautifully we wrap the package in spiritual language and symbolism, we are fleeing from Christ.
One thing I’d add to your sad account of the so-called JPII priests. I’ve noticed that the more insecure they are, the more they will attempt to shore up their identity by adopting a pack mentality and jeering at “outsiders.” Alas we do sometimes see them making scapegoats of Vatican II priests, progressive Catholics, or whomever they identify as “not us.” It’s a poisonous dynamic, and harms the perpetrator as well as the target of assault. It’s related to a culture of bullying in the Church, which unfortunately is alive and well. The Australian anthropologist Gerald Arbuckle has written persuasively about this subject. It’s a tough dynamic to crack, too.
My dear Kathy, I came to this thread late and was mildly astonished (but pleased of course) to read that you would call on me for ideas to revitalize parish life and hence priestly ministry. I would offer two notes here, on the more narrow question of priestly formation. First, I’ve been very impressed with the Jesus Caritas priest’s fraternity, which is based on the spirituality of Blessed Charles de Foucoult. Humility and commitment to prayer are very evident in that effort, but it is also a network of people and thus helps break that debilitating isolation that can actually make priests sick. Second, I found Michael Papesh’s book Clerical Culture: Contradiction and Transformation (Liturgical Press, 2004) to be most enlightening, and I would recommend it to anyone who is seriously concerned about the state of the priesthood today.
Rita, always look forward to your posts.
Here’s a bit that troubles me, though: “One thing I’d add to your sad account of the so-called JPII priests. I’ve noticed that the more insecure they are, the more they will attempt to shore up their identity by adopting a pack mentality …”
I’ll grant that there are some strident voices among laity and clergy that make me cringe. But no worse than the pack mentality adopted by my fundamentalist relatives.
But don’t we have to be careful of doing the same thing by bundling and dismissing the so-called JPII priests?
Not every priest who “grew up” under Pope John Paul II draws lines in the sand, wants to “correct” Vatican 2, or kick people out of the Church.
Moreover, connecting Pope John Paul II’s name to that kind of behavior isn’t entirely fair to his memory; he inspired many people people to more than just a return to “the old days.”
I converted when John Paul II was still Pope and in the middle of the clergy sexual abuse scandal. While I did not find the Pope as winning as many people, I have to say that I appreciated his willingness to meet with Jews and Muslims, to talk about Galileo and the Holocaust.
Rita,
Thank you for your eloquent post. You have really focused the issue by affirming the incarnation to show how “alter Christus” embraces humanity, as Christ himself did. For me that is the fundamental Christian project: to become human rather than to become divine. I guess it is because I believe that what is deeply human is also deeply Christian. Grace builds on nature.
Jean,
I believe you are correct that not all JPII priests manifest the attitude and behavior I have noticed among many. The Stanosz article drew out the general characteristics he observed from interviewing them, enough to make some valid generalizations about them as a group, which sees itself over against an older generation of priests.
I take it that Rita’s observations stem from a similar analysis. I would have to agree from what I have seen as well. By and large they are attracted to dogmatic solutions rather than to dialogue, and they exhibit in general a new wave of the “Father knows best” disposition. Their confidence in the rightness of their views can be a positive obstacle to a ministry of service. It is true that John Paul II inspired many to do great things and continues to do so, but he also believed that young men would not come to the priesthood unless it were sharply distinguished from lay life and was marked by a special status. I am afraid that the return to the triumphal priesthood that the new generation of priests seems to favor was largely of his doing, something his successor is all to happy to continue.
Alan, I defer to those who’ve studied priests.
I’m just sayin’ that liberal Catholics (or whatever we are, bad Catholics, in my case) aren’t making their own “pack,” as Rita puts it.
If “they” are driving wedges, “we” need not help pound them in.
Thank you for your kind words and the caveat about making generalizations, Jean.
By saying “so-called” and “sometimes” and “the more insecure they are” I thought I was acknowledging that the pathology we were discussing is not universal, and doesn’t exist to the same degree even when it’s shared. In any case, that is my view. (The bullying dynamic, by the way, is present across generations, and lay people can bully priests and religious mercilessly too.) But it helps to name the demon.
I’m no sociologist, but I’ve worked with a lot of priests and seminarians over the years. I find the more personally mature and individuated the seminarian or priest is, the more likely he is to be capable and willing to embrace sacrificial work for the sake of the kingdom — in fact, he’ll go out and serve no matter what — and the less he depends on receiving a higher status in the eyes of others or acknowledgement of his being “unlike” some despised or pitied “other.” In fact, it’s the ability to identify imaginatively with people who are outsiders, or who are weak and needy, or who fail at things, that makes one a better priest. (We’re back to Hebrews!) Walter Ciszek has a wonderful passage about his own learning of humility by suffering loss of respect for his priestly standing, in his profound book, He Leadeth Me. When I read about or hear people lamenting over how can we expect young men to embrace the priesthood these days when we don’t have such a special status for them, I think of that passage. And the second chapter of Philippians. What happened to Jesus as the model?
Not to press a point to death, but to what extent might the egoism, rigid orthodoxy, etc. of younger priests be chalked up to their being younger men in general, who are more conservative than their elders, and have more energy to compete in their field, make a splash, get a name?
I’m sure seminaries aren’t perfect, but are they creating this phenomenon or are they simply feeding what’s already there?
These fellows grew up at a time when “liberal” became a dirty word (beginning with Reagan’s new day in America).
But maybe I’m stating what’s already considered a given by the rest of you in this discussion.
I realize I’m coming awfully late to this discussion, and, while I’ve read all previous 65 comments, I can’t be totally sure this hasn’t yet come up. But I’ll give it a go anyway.
I found Fr. Stanosz’ article refreshing in its candor, and encouraging if for no other reason than because he’s willing to keep slugging it out in a church in decline. But something struck me as strange. He tells how sociologists like Stark, Finke, and Smith “have advanced the theory that stricter religions, the ones that maintain a higher level of tension with the surrounding culture, are more likely to flourish.” A bit later, he quotes Charles Morris to the same effect, only on the Caholic side: “The old-line bishops instinctively understood that strength lay in a prickly apartness from America’s great leveling engine, a proud declaration of difference.”
But isn’t that part of what “JPII” priests are known for as well? Isn’t there a counter-cultural aspect to the approach of folks like Steubenville and Christendom grads? To the many Catholic conservatives who choose to homeschool their children and rejoice in the recent motu proprio making the Latin Mass more available?
Fr. Stanosz claims that “Catholics will not be returning to their cultural ghettoes,” but it seems to me that this really is happening among younger, more conservative Catholics. Maybe they’re not returning to the cultural ghettoes of yesteryear, but they seem to be creating brand new ones in which like-minded folks gather either to congratulate each other on their convictions or encourage each other to keep it up. And they seem to be quite active in their churches, as well.
Jean may have a point when she notes that younger men (and in some ways, younger women as well) tend to be attracted to projects that are demanding, rigid, and idealistic. If that’s being offered in the church, they’ll flock to it. If it’s being offered by Regnum Christi, they’ll go there, or Opus Dei, or some other extra-parochial group.
We may question whether these manifestations of Catholicism are balanced or even theologically sound. But they do seem to be attracting the larger number of adherents.
So my question is: What’s wrong with counter-cultural? How is it worse than accepting a smaller, less dynamic church and figuring out how to minister to it?
This is not a rhetorical or snarky question. I’m asking because I don’t know the answer and want to hear from some of you.
I wonder sometimes whether we haven’t lost so many young people because we have not been demanding enough. Or to put it better, because we have not done a good job at tapping into young people’s sense of idealism and thirst for a callenge. But at the same time, the more conservative JPII triumphal young Catholics can scare the hell out of me. Quite the puzzle, no?
I guess the question is, how are they demanding.
I think that a certain type of religious conservatism is demanding in one way, but not in another. It’s like the Marines. You are called to live up to clear standards, whose absolute worth you take for granted. Moral worth, religious worth are able to be obtained by a clear, if difficult path.
But you don’t have to do the hard, messy work of trying to look behind the curtain, see the contingencies of history, the mistakes, and find the hand of God in it anyway. Existential angst, intellectual angst are two difficulties this approach keeps away.
So the question is, is it good for people to go through a period of existential angst and intellectual angst in reaching an adult religious formation.
My personal pastoral approach is to tread very lightly here.
First of all, although angst is a part of the process of growth for some, it seems to me that it is hardly universal. Souls differ.
Secondly, while it’s fairly easy to bring someone to a place where they can speed downhill in faith, it’s very hard to control the process once it has begun.
God often brings people to the brow of a hill and gives them a push. If so, He knows best. But I would never take it upon myself to accelerate the process.
While Kathy’s pastoral approach sounds very wise, I think Cathleen is asking whether a priest ought not to have had some time to attain spiritual maturity through personal struggle.
As adolescence seems to stretch to about age 30 now, maybe 35 is a better age for ordination than–what is it now–26.
By the same token, age isn’t always a good indicator of spiritual maturity. I’ve always been a late bloomer, myself …
Evelyn Waugh says somewhere–I think in his book on Mexico–that we are all potential recruits for anarchy. I wouldn’t disagree, but I would add that we are likewise all potential recruits for fascism and related -isms. Fanaticism is easy. Balance is difficult.
Cathleen:
Good questions. Thanks. I still do wonder, however, whether part of the problem is that the Marine-like approach to Catholicism seems to be the only thing out there that is demanding–regardless of the nature of the demands being made.
Unless one is fortunate enough to be a graduate student at the likes of Notre Dame or Boston College, where does a young-adult Catholic get his or her presuppositions challenged? Who is expecting any more from this demographic than that they show up on Sunday? That’s what can be so frustrating about all of this.
What is the right kind of “demanding,” and who is out there making these demands? Anybody have any clues?
I thought that Christianity was demanding because Christians are supposed to love one another and, of course, love their enemies.
Of course, the call to love is a demanding call. But as Cathleen noted above, there are different kinds of demands. What I’m talking about are the demands inherent in the disciplines of the Christian life–the practices and modes of formation that keep us on the path of love. I know for myself that if I don’t stick to a life of daily prayer (which in and of itself demands a certain degree of structure, even as it involves communion with the Lord), it becomes a lot harder to love–and a lot easier to excuse lack of love. The same holds if I don’t spend time reading, studying, and pondering Scripture.
Then there are the intellectual demands of learning more about my faith (e.g., Spes Salvi) and of keeping up with the mountains of good material to challenge my presuppositions and learn from people who have thought through issues I have only glanced over (e.g., Commonweal Magazine).
My experience has been that groups such as RC can be helpful in this regard because the are more demanding than what one finds in the average Catholic parish. The problem is that many of these groups have a more dogmatic and self-serving air about them.
The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid growth of charismatic prayer groups and communities, attracting younger Catholics to a deeper expression of their faith. But numbers dwindled as the Charismatic Renewal became more mainstream, less ecumenical, and more traditional in its expression of piety.
So what’s around that’s demanding and at the same time well-rounded?