Posted on 05/18/2003 4:18:48 PM PDT by Maximilian
When Priests Don't Run the Parish
In this diocese, lay people, deacons and nuns have new roles.
By Larry B. Stammer
Times Staff Writer
May 18, 2003
Faced with a shortage of priests in one of the fastest-growing regions in the nation, the Roman Catholic diocese of San Bernardino is becoming a national leader in using lay Catholics, nuns and permanent deacons to run parishes and meet the spiritual needs of its flock.
Though virtually every diocese in the country faces a serious shortage of priests that threatens to leave parishes without full-time clergy, the San Bernardino diocese, which covers San Bernardino and Riverside counties, is meeting the challenge on a scale not seen elsewhere.
A dozen of the diocese's 110 parishes and missions — some among its largest — are being run by so-called parish coordinators, half of them lay persons. The rest are nuns and deacons...
San Bernardino's effort to use lay Catholics to run parishes is being closely watched by bishops across the nation. If the approach succeeds here, San Bernardino's plan could become a model for the wider church....
Sister Marita Beumer, who has run St. Bernardine's parish for the last seven years, said parish coordinators hear relatively few complaints these days. Parishioners who remain unhappy probably left long ago, she said....
A growing reliance on non-priests is likely to be the trend for the foreseeable future. "It's only going to increase," said Bishop Barnes. "Even if we had 100 seminarians today, we would not have enough to meet the needs of our people."
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
The same demographic realities exist in virtually every single diocese. And the same modernists are pushing the same solution in every diocese. Coming soon to your parish: a laywoman as pastoral administrator who "values the opinion" of the priest who is brought in occassionally to say the magic words.
And if you don't like it, note that they don't care -- they are perfectly happy if you leave. The nun running the one parish says that all those who objected have left the parish. Tens of millions of Catholics have voted with their feet since Vatican II, but these revolutionaries just don't care. Better that they should have uncontested control of a smaller church than have a larger church which opposes their revolution.
... unless there is no where else to go.
What a depressing article. I hear this all the time from my own parish pulpit. Instead of explaining the reward of being a servant of the servants, the focus is on the coming complete collapse of the priesthood.
Close all seminaries and open up 10 or so throughout the country. Chanceries can be a waste of a priest who is shuffling papers and not in a parish. I know this firsthand.
Welcome the FSSP in every diocese. One of the saddest things I've seen around here is the day a local FSSP priest said his first Mass in our one Tridentine parish (servicing an archdiocese with over 2 million Catholics it's a regular NO parish with a Sunday noontime Latin Mass) and he went elsewhere for his priestly career as there is no FSSP here. He is a late vocation and a local guy who was inspired by attending that very same Tridentine while he was in college. I am sure he would have been thrilled to stay local.
OTOH. One of the hardest things we have facing us as Catholic Christians is the APATHY in the pews. EEM's? Most people don't care whether they receive Communion from a priest or not. Eucharistic Adoration? Count on the same dozen or so people to attend. Rosary? Same dozen people. Let's face it. As long as there is a priest to marry us in a pretty church ceremony, a ton of Catholics are unconscience the rest of the time.
The priesthood is certainly under attack from all fronts. But the saddest thing is that it is being undermined by the very same men who made a vocation of the priesthood and now look for replacements in all the wrong places.
/rant over.
Unfortunately, I don't think the vast majority of the people filling the pews really care. They have lost respect for the priesthood (probably because few priests actually respect the institution anymore). Some layperson or renegade nun is more likely to tell one to keep practicing birth control, don't worry about Confession and don't worry about divorce.
Most are probably filling the pews on Sunday to either avoid committing a mortal sin or to avoid some social stigma associated with going to Starbucks to read the Sunday newspaper rather than to church. They probably don't care who their worship leader is.
IOW, most Catholics who go to the Novus Ordo mass don't love God as much as you, who are a member of a sect OUTSIDE the Church.
Aren't you relieved that you are not like the rest of men?
How long have you considered yourself a man?
It's not about me, Pharisee.
The SSPX is outside the Church, in schism; otherwise, why the need for "reconciliation"?
You chide them for pride and holier-than-thou attitude, but it looks to me like they are sincerely trying to be more reverent than thou art.
Reverence? Is that virtue higher than obedience and union with Rome?
No there isn't. Reverence means nothing if it's not rooted in the truth.
Inquiring minds would like to know in her case, What type of a catholic stayed behind ??? After a hiatus of many a year I came back and was simply appaled at the lack of respect shown during the Mass. For a moment it seemed like a pentecostal revival with all the indiscriminate gestures, reverence for the Eucharist seemingly amiss. Female EU's doling out the Eucharist, as one poster described, as if she were at a poker game. I'm wondering just what the Bishop's agenda in all of this is?
The SSPX does not accept the judgment of the Holy Father on Vatican II or the Novus Ordo. For that, and because their founder ordained bishops outside the domain of the Holy Father, they are in schism.
Don't be surprised if, after a universal indult is instituted, that the SSPX remains outside the Church.
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