Posted on 05/03/2002 5:44:02 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Bump.
I think this is my favorite paragraph (but it's really hard to choose):
In a letter to priests, the U.S. cardinals expressed the mother of all euphemisms by saying: "We regret that episcopal oversight has not been able to preserve the church from this scandal." 1 Is the systematic promotion of homosexual ordination, defiance of Church governance and cover-up of sexual abuse by hundreds of priests over decades really adequately described as an "episcopal oversight"? This was not a post-it note that accidentally dropped out of one priests file, nor was it a mild or innocent mistake. Are the ones who orchestrated this mess so naïve as to think double-checking their work next time will make everything better? Come on now.
Though a lot of Law's recent comments are at least in the running for the "mother of all euphemisms" award.
In the May 6 issue of NEWSWEEK - What Would Jesus Do?, there is a 1 page article by Kenneth L. Woodward entitled A Revolution? Not So Fast. In it, he addresses these same topics with a frank and honest openness.
1. On allowing priests to marry.
"The practical argument for opening the priesthood to women and to married men is that ther are not enough priests. Clearly, these steps would provide the church with a wider pool of candidates. But I happen to think that a married clergy, while possibly solving one problem would create others in its place.
Pastoring a congregation is stress-ridden work. The pay is low and the hours rough on spouses and children. There is no reason to believe that many married men - or their wives - would be attracted to the priestly ministry. Typically Catholics give less on Sunday than their Protestant brethren. Are they willing to treble their donations to provide a living for families?
2. Ordaining women presents an even greater problem. Would married women with children be included? If not, once the novelty of female priests wore off, would many single women choose the low-status job of parish priest in lieu of high-status careers? Or would they all aim for the job of bishop??
He ends the article with this. "But within that structure (the priesthood), it is the laity who are supposed to lead in making Christ present to the world, with priests and bishops in roles of support. If the next pope were to risk making that idea a reality, there would really be a revolution in the church.
With the last, however:
. . . it is the laity who are supposed to lead in making Christ present to the world, with priests and bishops in roles of support. If the next pope were to risk making that idea a reality, . . .
What exactly could a pope do about this? Aren't the laity already supposed to be making Christ present to the world?
I take it that Miller believes, like Pat Buchanan, that if we could just return to the 1950s, everything in the Church and the world would be sweetness and light.
What he fails to point out is that the worst of the offenders (Shanley, Geoghan and others) were in the pre-conciliar seminaries and were ordained well before Vatican II "ruined" the Church.
There's no turning back the clock. Let's stop worrying about returning the Church to some kind of triumphalist "glory,"and start worrying about serving the people as Jesus did.
Agreed. I have about had it with the Amchurch Hirarchy. The past nearly forty years has seen an enormous rise in "secondary christianity" (I think that was coined by theologian Romano Amero)which is a christianity barely distinguishable from The Salvation Army.
When was the last time we heard a sermon about SIN and its malign consequences? At Mass all we hear anymore is how God loves us just as we are, how we are wonderful, generous people and how the "Feeding-the-poor-drunks-passed-out-in-the-park-when-they-are-not-begging-for-money-on-the-streets-and-peeing-in-the-alleys-Ministry" will be having a bake sale right after Mass.
Eschatology? Sure, give a ham sandwich to a drunk. THAT is the "narrow path" to salvation. I'll bet a million dollars there isn't a person on this thread who can honestly say they have heard a sermon about the NECESSITY of one having Sanctifying Grace in their soul at the time of death.
I am beyond tired of this "spirituality." We are a deracinated people. For two generations our Faith has been stolen. Our Bishops have abandoned us. The Pope does not have faith we can stand to hear the truth about our mortal peril.
The wolves are in the Sanctuary and we are counseled to have "patience." IT is FAR WORSE than most are willing to admit. Corporately speaking, we are DEAD...
Now, it IS true that tiny pockets of Christianity remain, but those pockets of Faith are few and far between and the Hierarchy tolerates but does not promote those places (I am thinking of FSSP and Bishop Bruskewtiz etc).
The situation is drastic. We are Laodicea (3rd chapter Apocalypse) and the candlestick has been removed from the Hierarchy. ALL has been corrupted from Biblical Scholarship, to the Universities, to Catechetics, to the Seminaries, to the Liturgy, to our Chanceries and ALL we get is equivocation, tepidity, rationalising, temporising and buck-passing from our timorous NCCB.
Rome even had the AUDACITY to propose the Bishops set aside a day or prayer and penance for EVERYBODY. Speaking just for myself NO WAY, JOSE.
When I came to YOU Bishop, asking YOU to condemn Blasphemy in YOUR Dioscean paper, you called me crazy (after you said you agreed with the blasphemy). When we BEGGED you to STOP that pornography masquerading as "sex ed" in your Catholic Schools you told us you thought it appropriate and that while you understood it ws a burden to take our kids OUT OF STATE to get a decent Catholic education, you would not make changes. When we BEGGED you to STOP your priests from Liturgical anomie, you told us you thought we had a healthy and vibrant community of believers and you promised us another meeting. You never gave us that meeting.
. So NO. I won't do penance for YOU destroying MY Catholic Church. YOU do the Penance PUBLICLY.
When I go to Confession, I don't ask you to do MY Penance. Don't ask me to join you in doing Penance for YOUR SINS. Grow the hell up or LEAVE
ping with heartfelt thanks to nickcarraway!
One of the prime motivations for celibacy is the witness value it brings in the modern world. I question how much the average Catholic even cares that their priests are unmarried. I think it matters not a whit to the vast majority of them.
God notices, of course, and that's not a bad audience to play to, but I know, in my case, that I wouldn't have lasted two years in the priesthood had I gone on to ordination, God or not.
It took me several years to get over the idea that I had somehow failed in my life by not becoming a priest. Now, with my family, I wonder how I could have ever thought that.
If they're about 70 now, they were probably ordained in about 1960. Vatican II was announced in 1958 or 1959. But I think all the things that burst out in Vatican have to have had their seeds in the 50s, as the hippies of the 60s were in some ways the offspring (in some cases perhaps literally) of the beatniks of the 50s. I did read somewhere that many of those in the hierarchy who attended Vatican II pushed through a lot of their agenda while the rest of the bishops were still getting used to the Latin.
Geoghan, in particular, probably owes his ordination to his monsignor uncle who pulled strings to keep him from being thrown out, but I doubt that using influence is particular to any one period.
The problem with the two of them is that their "careers" mostly ran after Vatican II. These things must have occurred before, but I think Shanley, in particular, would have had a much harder time pre-Vatican II -- I don't think priests worked with "street kids" (that wasn't an observed social problem then.
Of course, I was only a kid in the 50s and there were no altar girls. The only bad experience I had with a priest in the 50s was getting thrown out of Sunday school because I wasn't in the parish (I was nine years old, and my parents had separated that summer; my mother wasn't coping, and I got myself to Sunday school with a friend. I still don't like the Redemptorists.)
I'm surprised you even post here, seeing as how those of us who love the Church today and are not longing for the "glory days" of the Tridentine Liturgy are such rabble in your eyes.
Somehow, I get the impression that, during a sermon on sin, you would be patting yourself on the back and thanking God that you are not like the rest of men.
Of course they did.
But, as Cardinal Spellman told one of his boytoys who asked him how he tolerated the hypocrisy, he said "Who would believe it"?
(And before the hate mail starts, I'm merely quoting a Howie Carr column running on FR today. Spellman was a notorious gay, but was powerful enough to keep all evidence of it out of the New York Press)
Nobody would believe priests would abuse young boys, and many bishops used that gullibility to berate the victims into silence.
Do you think -- or have any way of knowing -- whether the incidence of molesting children was the same or lower or higher in earlier decades? Was it merely better secrecy that kept priests trusted?
Is it too much to ask you to read a post carefully before you respond? I was addressing THE HIERARCHY.
I am NOT surprised you'd "get that impression," because you often take the exact opposite impression of what a post intends. I was speaking of SIN and I was addressing personal SIN and I addressed my own Confession and Penance. One who goes to Confession - frequently - and does Penance is not a Pharisee who thinks himself less sinful than others.
Sinkspur. I understand you have a problem with me and my thoughts. But at least due me the kindness of reading my posts carefully before responding and try to withold judgement of my internal dispositions and motivations. I really DO know my motivations and intentions better than do you
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