What is happening to the Priesthood?

In the May 2003 issue of Mass of Ages I published an article, ‘What Has Happened to the Sacristy?’ It was intended to provoke us to look at the question of how we behave in the sacristy and how we prepare for Mass and hand on our love of the Mass to our young people, and especially our altar servers. Since then another important question has caught my attention and we must find the courage to look at some possible answers. The question I mean is – ‘What is happening to the priesthood?’

I’m sure many of us look back to the Protestant Reformation and lament the damage that was done to the Church. True, we can also take heart and even rejoice when we look at the extraordinary faith and courage of the martyrs of that time – priests willing to lay down their lives in order to be able to celebrate the Mass and administer the other Sacraments to the faithful, and lay folk willing to accept suffering and death in order to shelter those priests whose ministry was seen as indispensable to the life of the Church in this land.

Now many of us have been called to a new form of martyrdom as we have watched and indeed suffered for forty years as a new Reformation has gripped the Church, causing huge waves of extensive damage. The statues scarred and desecrated by Oliver Cromwell and his companions have now been pulled down and thrown out; our Stations of the Cross have been replaced by posters and altars have been replaced by wooden tables; convents have been closed and churches shut down: why is all this happening?

Because priests are once again being replaced by ministers! Indeed, the whole concept of priesthood is being replaced by ‘ministry’. We no longer need priests! Everyone should be a minister. We are replacing Catholic truth with Presbyterian ideals. We don't need priests if we have enough ministers. There's the ministry of reading, the ministry of flowers, the ministry of music, not to mention our extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and our lay chaplains at the hospital and school.

“Your priests shall be clothed with holiness”, says the scriptures, but not ours. We have spent forty years and more defrocking them so that they may no longer wear a cassock as an outward sign of their dignity as reflections of the glory of Christ, the Eternal High Priest. Those priests who wear a cassock, just as occurred during the first Reformation, are now penalised by being made to look the fool and treated as outcasts, not only by people who know no better but even by their brother priests and bishops. The cry today is for our priests to be just one of the lads. We’d sooner see them on the golf course or in the pub rather than at the altar. We want them dressed in casual clothes as a sign they are just one of us. We flinch from the idea that maybe, just maybe, God has called them and set them apart. God has anointed them and singled them out to be holy and wholly His.

We have complained at the way they turned their back on us during the traditional rite of Mass, but in truth we have turned our backs on them! We don't need a father figure any more and we don't need the wonderful and miraculous Sacrifice of the Mass any more. We happily settle for a Sunday service, where we can focus on the children or on the music or on our old people. We don't need a sacrifice, we’re happier with a special meal. We can share our bread and wine and shake hands with one another. We can talk about the poor and the needy and cheer ourselves up with clapping and music. There’s no need for silence in church and in any case there’s no one to enforce silence because we are all equal in the eyes of God and no one tells us what to do.

So what is happening to the priesthood? We are abolishing it! And you may ask what is happening to the Mass? We are, as in the previous Reformation, driving it underground to be celebrated by the chosen remnant behind closed doors. We no longer want priests, we can replace them with anyone willing to entertain us for an hour on Sunday morning. “Our pastor…,” (we don't even like the word ‘priest’ any more), “…is at a very important meeting this morning so Mary Smith or Bill Jones is taking our little communion service”!

When I was ordained a priest some twenty years ago the ordaining prelate picked up the words of the prophet Isiaah, “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news.” The ordination of a new priest meant another pair of feet would tread the path of Christ. Another pair of hands would be consecrated to the service of Christ. Through the gift of preaching and the celebration of the Mass another generation of people would hear the voice of Christ. The Sacrament of Ordination meant the transforming power of the Holy Spirit would reach out even further, spreading the kingdom of God. By the gift of the Holy Spirit, all things could and would be made new! Bread once again would be changed into the body of Christ, wine into His precious blood. Sinners could be changed into saints, and man made in the image and likeness of God could by baptism become part of the new creation. By the laying on of hands and anointing with Chrism, the oil of gladness, a man would become a new manifestation of Christ, the Eternal and Sovereign Priest.

Yet now we reject the very idea of a royal priesthood; now, in our obsession with throwing out all things old and turning our backs on Tradition, we are not reforming the Church but deforming it. We tell ourselves we don’t need the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacrifice of Christ. In fact, we tell ourselves, we don’t need Christ! He needs us! We have closed the mouths of those who greeted us with, “Dominus vobiscum”. We are abandoning the Faith of our Fathers, and even resent calling God our father in the interests of making women feel more at ease in our parish communities.

So, little wonder those seminaries will flourish where the priesthood is still something to aspire to. Little wonder that in the Institute of Christ the King, Sovereign Priest and the Fraternity of St Peter, vocations abound and the priesthood is loved and cherished. These and other institutes like them, will be the beneficiaries of our Catholic heritage because, “to those who have more will be given and from those who have not, even what they thought they had will be taken from them”.

The diocesan seminaries, where they still exist, will continue to offer courses to catechists, parish administrators and others interested in theology and philosophy, but ordination, for them, is a thing of the past, the age of the laity is here. So, let’s burn the books and destroy the vestments. This is a new age and we need to have a fresh start! Let’s strip our churches bare; tell the old priests to be quiet and tell our nuns and friars they should feel ashamed to wear their habits. Enough of this clericalism! Confession is old fashioned and any one can visit the sick and the house bound. We certainly don't need men to pray for us and for the whole Church, we can form our own prayer group – our prayers are just as good as any priest’s.

So our priests get older and are not being replaced, for there are no vocations to an obsolete ministry. So, if it is still burning could the last one out of the church please blow out the sanctuary lamp because we don't need the Real Presence of Christ in our tabernacles any more, we only need Him in our hearts…

I am blessed now with early retirement. There was no room in the inn for me, but I have a small chapel and a handful of good people who come to daily Mass as often as they can. As I offer the Mass and pray for the Church and all the baptised, I ask the Lord to grant us the humility to see. “Lord let us see again”. We do need the Mass, we do need priests and we do need to pray for our priests. We can afford to take the risk of letting them be clothed in holiness again. We need to encourage them to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass with reverence, love and dignity. We can and must encourage our young ones, especially by example, to use the Sacrament of Confession regularly, to recognise Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar and to find Him often in silence. We need to restore a sense of balance to the Church by sharing out the work load to include more and more laity but without losing our special regard for the Sacraments and those who administer them.

We must promote and encourage vocations to the religious life and to the priesthood. We need those who are willing to pray for us and offer themselves as sacrifices acceptable to God through their poverty, chastity and obedience; and we need those who are willing to go unto the altar of God and there offer the Sacrifice of Christ to the Father in the unity of the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of our sins and the salvation of the whole world.

Sing a new Church into being, one in faith and love and praise...

Trying to pass-off the current regime as "orthodox" must be a frustrating affair - I'm glad I abandoned the effort some time ago. "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!"

Dear AAABest,

I think it unfair that you should question sinkspur's Orders unless you know some genuine reason to do so. He was probably ordained in the old Rite and so you should have more confidence in his than in mine!

Obviously you should feel free to call him out if he starts blathering nonsense, but unless you have good grounds to query someone's bona fides, then you should assume that they are in good faith and standing.

I also disagree with much of what he says, but that in no way impacts on his being a deacon.

I know you are a good-hearted and faithful Catholic (one of the best), but please, for the sake of charity, let that one rest.

God bless you.

Augustine.

Here you are, in the middle of the problem again.

I rarely see you discuss anything anymore, besides yourself and how much you despise tradtion and the forum.

This is a conservative forum, sorry if most here reject your liberal ideas regarding a 1,500 year old institution.

"Trying to pass-off the current regime as "orthodox" must be a frustrating affair - I'm glad I abandoned the effort some time ago."

"orthdox"? I would never accuse said bishop of being such a thing!

That was directed more at the forum - I'm pretty sure you've got a realistic opinion of His Excellency.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.