Point of Clarification
Just a point of clarification on my earlier post. I was not trying to argue, that “liberal Catholicism” was responsible for the decline in vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
My point was rather that most of those who are entering seminaries, monasteries and houses of formation these days can hardly be described as “liberal Catholics.” This point has been made so often in the pages of Commonweal in recent years that I expected my assertion to be uncontroversial. If my prose was convoluted enough to give a different impression, please accept my apologies.
It may be true, as Margaret suggests in a comment, that liberal Catholicism has given rise to other kinds of vocations. As a married layman involved in prison ministry who is currently studying theology, I’m obviously in no position to argue! But I do believe that the relative under-representation of “Commonweal Catholics” among the ranks of the younger clergy and religious is something that is worth pondering seriously.
And now I think I’ll shut up for a few days…:-)
Hi there and welcome to the blogosphere! I just had to chime in on this one. Don’t count out “liberal” vocations just yet, even the more “tradiional” ones.
In fact, there’s a little corner of the Catholic blogosphere where you will find those of us that are liberal (if not progressive) and concerning vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
Speaking for myself, it was my work for justice and peace with the church that finally got me to listen to that persistent voice.
Don’t get me wrong … numbers will continue to be small. But God has plans we can only imagine, and liberal catholics as priests and religious will continue to play a role in that plan.
Peter,
It’s DEFINITELY something worth pondering seriously. You’re on to something. So, please don’t back off pondering it seriously, and inviting others to!
Susan Rose’s comment also causes me to wonder: Is there a difference in patterns in vocations among women as opposed to among men? If so, might that tell us something?
Pondering is certainly good, I just didn’t want to ignore the fact that I personally know a handful of women (and one or two men) who are of the “Commonweal Catholic” variety and actively discerning vocations in the church.
I don’t want to lead people astray though … the majority of folks becoming priests and religious these days do seem to be motivated by a more conservative orthodoxy.
I just wanted to share my anecdotal evidence that there are a few liberal catholics too. And in my opinion, we need all of us together!
My parish of about 400 active souls (50% of membership) would be considered to be a liberal parish of liberal Catholics. We have had 2 of our members enter the priesthood in the past 10 years and one has become a deacon. We actively support our in-parish St Vincent de Paul conference, an AIDS Support Group, a Wednesday night supper that feeds 250-300 per week, and a daily sandwich program that feeds about 50-60 per day. We also have an ardent rosary group and quarterly reconciliation services.
The pastor and associate are wise enough to know a good thing when they see it, i.e., active, committed, involved laity who accept (and demand) their responsibilities in these areas. We contribute about $5,000 a week and pay off a building debt to the tune of $15,000 per month.
The point of all of this? We recognize and foster vocations where they arise and within those who manifest them. If women could be ordained I can think of about 10 right now who would step forward and who we would actively support.
I tend to agree with Susan on this issue, and am curious if there is any hard evidence that there actually IS a surge in “traditional” vocations. Or are they just a larger percentage of a markedly smaller population of seminarians as a whole?
My impression as a Jesuit scholastic is that vocations are fairly infrequent enough in all situations that we find ourselves trying to extrapolate trends from isolated cases. As a result, hype tends to trump reality, particularly in the case of broader public perception. In other words, I rarely see claims of “full seminaries” and “rapidly growing orders” that are backed up by actual numbers.
Here’s an example: when I was a Jesuit novice, I became good friends with the local superior in a very traditional women’s religious order. She surprised me one day by asking “what was the Jesuits’ secret” to getting vocations. It had been my perception that her order was flourishing around the world, whereas Jesuits tend to bemoan the Society’s drop in vocations in the Western world in the past forty years. But she looked at the numbers differently: she saw two or three women entering her order every year from the United States, oftentimes at a very young age, while the Jesuits had 50 or more men entering the novitiate every August in the United States.
My experience in the Jesuits has been that vocations are coming, albeit in small numbers, from across the theological, ideological, and ecclesiological spectra, and that most vocation stories contradict any larger “trends,” at least in the United States.
I’m not sure I understood Margaret’s point about liberal Catholicism encouraging vocations to marriage. More than conservative Catholicism? I’m intrigued and I’d like to see her develop that thought a bit more.
I would agree, however, that progressive Catholicism led to a greater sense of the priesthood of the laity and enabled indivuals like myself–a lay counselor with additional training in theology who writes and ministers to Catholics around the world, produces Catholic radio programming, etc.–to do what they do. I think my role would be virtually unheard of 50 years ago. But this development is really the fruit of VII which was promoted by progressives like JPII and B-16–the same progressives that are regularly dismissed by some on the left as retrograde and ultraconservative.
Nevertheless, a better sense of lay ministry is definitely a legitimate fruit of progressive Catholicism.
That said, as JPII noted in Christifidelis Laici, there has been a great deal of confusion of the roles of the common priesthood and the ministerial priesthood. I don’t think the left makes an adequate distinction between the two which, if it is in fact true, may account for the lesser numbers of liberal clergy than conservative. Why? Well, if I don’t see any real qualitative difference between the ministry of the common priesthood and the ministry of the sacramental priesthood, then how is it worth the extra sacrifice–of celibacy especially? It won’t be. I can do ministry that is “just as important” as the priesthood without jumping through all the clericalist hoops.
If I take this view, then instead of discerning a vocation to Orders, I will be more likely to spend my time kvetching about the arbitrary “obstacles” (like celibacy) to Orders that the old boys club sets up to keep out the hoi-polloi. That isn’t to say clericalism isn’t a serious problem. It is. But the answer isn’t clericalizing the laity. The answer is having a healthy appreciation of the complimentarity of the role of the laity and the role of the clergy. I wold argue that only when contemporary progressive Catholics celebrate this complimentarity will they experience the increased vocations that are enjoyed by their peers on the right.
Just a quick hello (at the suggestion of Susan Rose) to say that here’s another liberal headed for the convent. I’m not as far down the road as Susan is, but I wonder if part of the “phenomenon” may have something to do with entering later in life? (I’m 30) We’ve had time to outgrow some things and to grow into a wider world view perhaps?
These are the thoughts of a Catholic sister in a Dominican congregation, and only hers. They reflect experience with a multitude of Catholic young adults and many women’s religious communities.
It seems to me that much of this discussion assumes shared definitions of: liberal, conservative, traditional, progressive, etc. I am all of those things. Some would call me very traditional; some would call me a lefty-pinko-liberal. Both would be accurate to some degree. My religious vocation was nurtured in a Catholic Newman Center which was both liberal and traditional (our priests were Dominicans.) And I entered a rather liberal community which, relatively speaking, is more traditional than some and more liberal than others. What kind of vocation does that make me?
I’m struck by the assumption that larger numbers is somehow more valuable than smaller ones. Recently I had a discussion with a peer-age sister from a supposedly more traditional congregation of Dominican women who for years was delighted because their congregation was getting “lots of vocations.” Mine, arguably was getting far fewer. In my congregation, however, retention from first profession to final has been 100 percent for nearly two decades. In hers, quite frankly, not so much.
Analyzing our time, sociologists might caution, is near to impossible. We likely won’t know for decades to come whether this was a fertile time for vocations to the priesthood and religious life.
If you compare todays rates of entrance, say, in women’s religious communites, to those of the 40s, 50s, and early 60s (in the US): well one is likely to be discouraged. Compared, however to *most* other periods of history, the rates are fairly consistent. Like anything else, it follows a cycle (as a Catholic I understand this to be the Paschal mystery – and why should it be otherwise?)
And finally, it was/is the post VCII which called me back from agnosticism and which nourished my faith and vocation. That I never was given strong roots in a “more traditionalist” church does give me pause and a deep yearning for roots. It is this, in part, that led me to religious life. It is this that is fed by my “liberal” community.
Just some thoughts.
I apologize if others have made this point, I really don’t have time to read the other comments right now.
I think there are two reasons why a lot of liberal Catholics aren’t exploring vocations to the priesthood and religious life (though there are exceptions, as I know some of the other commentators have pointed out):
1. Liberal Catholics have great respect for lay vocations, and we’ve been working hard to develop lay vocations in the Church since Vatican II. While I think this is important, I think we may also have neglected the importance of priestly and religious vocations. It is important to emphasize the universal call to holiness and the baptized priesthood, but it is also very important in light of our sacramental tradition to emphasize the importance of ordained ministry, sacramental vitality, and setting aside one’s life completely for the service of God in the Church.
2. I think liberal Catholics also feel that we are not welcome to explore priestly and religious vocations. Women certainly feel that they are not welcome to explore priestly vocations (because they’re not), and perhaps this makes many of them feel less inclined to explore religious vocations since this is the path prescribed by the male authorities who exclude them from the priesthood. Speaking as a gay man, I can say that the Vatican’s unwelcoming tone lately has led me to cease consideration of a vocation to either the priesthood or the religious life. Perhaps the seminaries or religious orders would overlook my sexual orientation, but I don’t want to be “overlooked.” I want to be welcomed for who I am and for the gifts I bring to the Church. I won’t collaborate with a system that’s going to “overlook” the gifts that God has given to me or to other people like me.
Perhaps another consideration is the possibility that liberals will be silenced in priestly or religious vocations. We’ve all seen in the example of Fr. Thomas Reese what happens to liberals who voice even moderate opinions within the Church. The Vatican has tried to do the same thing to Sr. Joan Chittister, with little success. This happens less frequently to laypeople than it does to the ordained and the religious, because the Vatican has less direct control over the lay faithful and no meaningful way in which to punish laypeople for dissent (even excommunication is almost unenforceable these days). This, together with the fact that we are made to feel unwelcome in the priesthood or religious life, could explain why many liberals stick to lay vocations.
Greg Popcak wrote: That isn’t to say clericalism isn’t a serious problem. It is. But the answer isn’t clericalizing the laity. The answer is having a healthy appreciation of the complimentarity of the role of the laity and the role of the clergy. I wold argue that only when contemporary progressive Catholics celebrate this complimentarity will they experience the increased vocations that are enjoyed by their peers on the right.
While I think I agree with what you’re trying to say here — that liberals should respect that lay vocations, religious vocations, and priestly vocations all have meaningful gifts to bring to the Church– I would caution against the use of complementarity. I think it would be better to use a model of partnership.
I’m uncomfortable with complementarity because it has so often been used to make some superior and others inferior. For instance, the idea that men and women are complementary to one another. In practical terms, this has meant that men can do a great many things while women have historically been limited to either marriage and motherhood or religious life and virginity. The idea has been that men are active, women passive. Therefore, men will do and decide everything, including what women’s vocation is to be within the Church. This dangerous complementarity is still being used today — men are like Jesus, women like Mary; therefore, priests must be men like Jesus and women prayerful virgins or mothers like Mary. The argument is a bit more complicated than that, perhaps, but that’s the bottom line. Essentially, complementarity when applied to men and women has meant “separate but equal” — and we all know that separate almost always means unequal.
Feminists have proposed partnership rather than complementarity to restore a correct relationship between men and women in the world. I think partnership is also the model that should be utilized to restore a correct relationship between the clergy, the religious, and the lay faithful. As partners contributing our various gifts, we work together as one Body of Christ to build up the Body and proclaim the good news of God’s Kingdom. As partners — not as “separate but equal” with narrowly defined roles to fulfill, roles which are always defined by the clergy without consultation with the religious and lay faithful.
commonweal catholics? What’s that supposed to mean?
If you’re Catholic, you believe what the Church teaches. If you don’t believe what the Church teaches, you’re not Catholic. This isn’t a cafeteria.
Notes from a “progressive” in discernment:
I think that everyone here believes what the Church teaches, but Catholics may differ on how some of those teachings are applied in daily life.
For example, the Church teaches us to care for the poor. Do we do this through social programs designed to raise the status of the poor so they are better equipped to compete in the market, or do we try to create an unfettered market where the poor may have more job opportunities?
For this reason, Catholics are found with all kinds of political viewpoints: Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, Independents (making us a wonderfully universal Church, imo).
Here in the U.S., sometimes politics and Church are entwined in a way not found in other countries. Somehow, there is a perception that conservative politics is linked with traditionalist old-school Catholics, and progressive or liberal politics seem to go along with post-V2 “reform” Catholicism. This is simply not true in many other countries.
Now, on many issues (but not all), I tend to lean towards the liberal side of politics, while I love traditional “high-church” liturgy, and sometimes find myself longing for the uniquely Catholic identity that many traditionalists promote. So am I a traditional Catholic or a progressive Catholic?
Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine is another good example: a pro-life, anti-death penalty Catholic Democrat. Is he a conservative or a liberal?
We as American Catholics need to move past mixing Church and politics, and recognize that Catholic teaching transcends political boundaries and liturgical style. In this way, I think, we will strengthen our Church and be better evangelists for the Faith.
The fact that practically every bishop around today has been picked by JPII and B16, is it any wonder that conservative clergy would emerge from the parishes. Rome knows that it can control the clergy while it cannot control Catholic magazines and the Jesuits, Thomas Reese notwithstanding.
Secondly, the knowledge that marriage is not a second class choice anymore is a huge reason for the lack of interest in vocations.
Thirdly, the knowledge that the priest is not that important in the Body of Christ has slowed vocations. So this might be a very good thing. Greeley says that the sacralization of the clergy is a big problem. As we insist that the community makes the church rather than the hierarchy, perhaps we will shift the focus to discipleship rather than to someone who supposedly can pronounce magic words.
Claire: do you believe that this is what “the church teaches” …….
“God does the choosing and you find out about the rest gradually from your folks: How you have landed in a turbulent and global household with the galaxy’s most eccentric rules; that the lights are never to be put out and the stranger never to be turned away; that the meals are to be served whenever there is hunger; that the groceries must be generously depleted and generously replenished with everything everyone has; that those who fret and grouse and cheat and lie and steal and kill must be relentlessly sought out and brought back to life; that those who break the rules and those who abandon the house must be pursued to the remotest frontiers of their souls and forgiven; that those who pass judgment on the violators of house rules, like those who take their author for granted, are doomed. And that those who inhabit the household must always remember that what is outside is ending.”
If so, do you also know that a Commonweal Catholic will most likely buy into this 100% AND will work within the world to see that it happens as much as possible.
I hear the less-than-liberal Catholic world preaching a lot, but very little like what I printed above.
What say ye?
Oops … so I am not McBriened by any CNS types, that quote is from Michael Garvey, Commonweal, 1990
Nate,
I would suggest that your discomfort with complimentarity arises from your formulation of active/passive which represents the popular but frankly inaccurate view of complimentarily. Femininity is not passive, it is receptive. There is a difference. The whole human race is receptive to God’s action, but you could hardly take that to mean that we are passive players in God’s plan. We’re quite active, actually.
Complimentarity is actually closer to the partnership model you describe but it exceeds it because where partnership gets bogged down in equality, complementarity is really about egalitarianism. Make sense?