Posted on 03/18/2007 2:11:30 PM PDT by NYer
Part of the background to a puff piece on the ordination of a married Anglican convert for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles:
In the 12th century, when the Catholic Church adopted a celibacy requirement, it was as much about protecting property as it was committing priestly intimacy to God, said the Rev. Thomas Rausch, a Jesuit professor of theology at Loyola Marymount University. "The church was worried about church property going to the descendents of priests," he said.
Historically accurate? Somehow I doubt it's the whole story.
Note the topspin on the shot: the insinuation that the spiritual reasons for celibacy are a pious myth and the real explanation (for those not afraid to look at the facts) is to be sought in economics. This is the sort of reductivist account our parents might have heard from a Marxist professor of history; we get it from the senior clergy.
A young man whose father tells him that monogamy is, at bottom, a ruse concocted by women to get their housekeeping expenses paid will surmise that his father's own experience of marriage was not especially gratifying, and that, to the extent his father was a faithful husband to his mother, this fidelity was motivated less by love than fear. By the same token, when Catholics hear from celibate priests that celibacy, at bottom, concerns property control, they are unlikely to believe that such priests find the "religious side" of their lives fulfilling. We can imagine a man taken in by a scam in his gullible youth who later come to see through the hoax; but once the fraud was exposed, who would continue to play the dupe except a profound cynic or a weakling?
Some of us, perhaps, are old enough to feel residual shock at the profane apathy of the conciliar generation of clergy who, like Waugh's Dr. Beamish, are "much embittered by the fulfillment of their early hopes," and who console themselves with animal comforts or politics. Younger Catholics, I find, either accept the world-view of the 1970s liberals (in which case they drop the institutional-religion-thing altogether) or else they reject the programmatic cynicism and -- by employing a severe ex opere operato theology -- make use of "massing priests" to confect the sacraments (for lack of an alternative) while directing their spiritual attention elsewhere. Jody Bottum's article in last October's First Things touches on the same subject:
A few years ago, I was out in Southern California, visiting a school in Orange County. I can't remember the name of the parish to which the students took me for Mass, but what has stayed with me ever since is the conversation as they drove me back to the hotel. Talk about the homily's content didn't interest them; even talk about the homily's lack of content didn't interest them. "I just kind of tune it out," the driver said, and the others all agreed. "I just go to church for confession, to pray, and to take Communion," added the young woman in the back. "At least the priests can do that."
[chop]
"You remember how, you know, the old hippie types used to say, 'Never trust anyone over thirty'? Well, they were right. Only it was their own generation they were talking about," the thin, quiet one in the back announced as we pulled up to the hotel. "You can see it clearly out here in California. That whole generation of Catholics in America, basically everybody formed before 1978, is screwed up. Left, Right, whatever. ...The best of them were failures, and the worst of them were monsters."
Is this dismissiveness an instance of the impatience that every emergent generation displays towards the failings (real or perceived) of its predecessor? In part. But as Bottum points out, "These were serious Catholic kids -- daily communicants, pro-life marchers, soup-kitchen volunteers, members of perpetual-adoration societies." In the 1950s, a young Catholic could purchase esteem by partaking of these activities; to be recognized as a participant would gratify almost everyone whom it was important to gratify. But today such allegiances come at a cost. They put the Catholic at odds with profs, with fellow students, with prospective employers, sometimes with parents and pastors as well; they teach him what it's like to be an outsider -- at least an outsider to those on the make, to those who are "upwardly mobile."
In view of this, I don't think the priestly disparagement of celibacy will do much damage in the long term. It's patronizing. And young people hate to be patronized. Those who have paid a price, however modest, for a stronger-than-required religious fidelity are simply not interested in the worldlings' boredom with spiritual realities -- or, indeed, in their opinion on anything else.
The numbers showed that the homosexual acts peaked AFTER V2. Come out come out where ever you are. There were probably diocese already leaning way left at the time.
I am continually puzzled that the only men ordained in the Catholic Church seem to be from the Episcopal or Anglican (and maybe a Lutheran or two?) lines who convert to the True Faith. Why not other Protestants, such as Marcus Grodi or Scott Hahn (to name only two - there are many others, of course)? There must be a good reason somewhere.
A few months ago I took a class from a Evangelical-turned-Anglican Priest-convert. He was married with two or three kids. He didn't even try to become and ordained priest. He's trying to get a dispensation to become a Deacon and he's teaching high school for the archdiocese. He was very inspiring.
Only men or only married men? One of my favorite priests is a convert from the Presbyterian Church. Check out the archives for the Journey Home on EWTN's web site. There are priest converts from other denominations.
I thought there must be, but rarely hear of them - it seems mostly the Episcopalians make the news. I was thinking mainly of the married ones, as I know there would be less or no impediment for a single man to be ordained from any background as long as there is a true call. I think it should remain the exception, and if the spouse should die, no remarriage should be permitted (I think that's about how it stands now).
I know the reason why vocations in the LA Archdiocese are so low, from a personal perspective, and it has nothing to do with celibacy. In the past I was considering entering the priesthood, however I was looking for a prayerful environment which would help me discover and cultivate my vocation (if I had one). I did not know where I wanted to go, I was leaning toward the Capuchin Franciscans. However, I knew exactly where I did NOT want to go: St. John's Seminary (the official seminary of the LA Archdiocese). My decision was based not only on the fact that the environment offered by the Archdiocese lacks in prayer, but on the fact that it is also very hostile to traditional catholics. In the end, celibacy was not the reason that made me decide priesthood was not for me. In fact I knew that celibacy would be a gift that I could offer to God, so that I could serve Him fully.
What the Jebbie is saying is a half-truth, which is what the Jebbies are famous for. Fact is, as Judge John Noonan has said in his book "Contraception," Christians have always valued celibacy over marriage, even why raising marriage to the level of a sacrament. That's because that is why Christ did. Christian heresies deprecated marriage to the point of calling it--and sex--evil. The Church has always called celibacy preference precisely because it was the sacrifice of a good and noble thing, something comparable to Christians' union with the Church. But celibacy is one step beyond nobility and like poverty and obedience a renunciation of good things for better ones.
A serious study of the schools would show that sexual deviants are shunted from district to district as part of the dance of the lemons.
We have less than 50 'registered' families. Were they to fulfill their weekly financial obligation, we might be in better shape. However, only a small handful are considered regulars. The others come when the mood strikes; otherwise they go to a RC Church closer to home. No amount of cajoling or reminders to make up their weekly envelopes, has been effective.
As to women who sew, there are a few who can fix things up but none who can make vestments. We have a vestment fund but here again, that entails additional giving on the part of those who already don't attend on a regular basis. Abouna will look into a new set of vestments made by the nuns in Lebanon. There is also the question of who owns the vestments - the priest or the parish.
When it comes to fundraisers, those monies now go to keeping the existing facility up and running until we complete restoration of the future church. The big difference, K, is that the parish sold off its Hall about 20 years ago. Once we move, the current building will become the parish Hall which we expect will generate sufficient revenue for both facilities. Until then, the annual challenge is to keep everyone sufficiently motivated to sell their share of fundraiser tickets - no mean feat.
There have been other Priests (Anglo-Catholics, and Anglican) who have sought to enter the Roman Catholic Priesthood in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. They were all turned down. St. Mary of the Angels was the one which has received the most coverage as wishing to enter the Catholic Church corporately.
Two of it's Priests became Catholic Priests, but had to do it through different Diocese, than Mahony's.
"We have less than 50 'registered' families."
There's the major part of your problem. When we were down around 65 pledging "units" we were up against it. I remember one year as moderator of the parish Geneneral Assembly telling the assembly that we were in the hole and bills were ue. I pulled out my checkbook and told them to get writing. They did and the bills barely got paid. Other times individual members simply paid, say, the light bill. Personally, I think 65 is about as low as one can go and still have a viable parish with a full time priest.
What you need to do is go to a pledging system in addition to the weekly collections (we have two) and even more important, grow the parish. The suppers and the festival and the annual Greek Dance attract all sorts of people and we pick up at least a family or two every year from the festival alone. We've also had a number of Lebanese families join over the past 6 or 7 years as they are still coming to America. I can remember years ago discussions at the General Assembly about how there was no more Greek immigration into America so the day would come when we would simply die out. We really thought that would happen. Well, a few new Greek families did show up, but the majority of the "new people" are converts (especially) or other types of ethnic Orthodox people from Eastern Europe, the Middle East or North Africa and Ethiopia. Now we are sort of a "multicultural" group.
I should think that growing your parish through conversions might be difficult, however. All of our converts have come from Protestantism or simply unchurched people. Roman Catholics don't seem to convert, which is understandable. We do have a Maronite woman, married to one of the Orthodox Lebanese guys but we just pretended we are in Lebanon and recognize the de facto communion for her! She was chrismated about a year after her wedding. :) For you guys, however, I should think that Protestants would either convert to the Latin Rite or become Orthodox all things being equal. The main source for people, I should think, would be Roman Catholics like you. But clearly your priest can't start on a campaign to "convert" Latins to the Maronite Church. That would lead to big trouble no doubt. In the end then, it will all come down to hospitality, to "philoxenia", friendship to strangers to such a level that people will want to be part of your community because you have a good community. It can be done. We did it, though it very nearly took a personality transplant to pull it off! :)
Maybe this is new in LA, but if my memory serves me right it's been going on for awhile elsewhere with converted episcopalian priests, although I'm not sure if they get their own parishes.
I don't have much of an opinion one way or another. Both situations present challenges.
I have a Lutheran friend who sits on her church council's finance committee.
The Lutheran minister has a decent sized family and the board is trying to figure out how to provide decent medical benefits for them. The costs are skyrocketing and they don't know how they're going to do that.
Stick a buch of nice sized catholic families in that situation where dad is a priest.
And then celibacy has its own set of problems of course.
I'm glad it's not up to me.
This will happen once we move across the river to Watervliet. In that community, the RC bishop just closed 5 of their 6 parishes. These residents are in serious pain. They know we're coming and are cautiously following the work at the future Church. In early April, the first sign will be erected in front of that church. It is the official NYS Parks sign listing the Church's name and Father's as well. Like a tulip slipping through the snow, that sign will bring hope to a community in mourning.
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