America’s New Catholic Priests: Young, Confident and Conservative {Catholic/Orthodox Caucus}

New York Times ^ | July 10, 2024 | Ruth Graham

[Cronos]

...talking about what it meant for them to choose the Catholic priesthood in the year 2024. The next morning, they would make lifelong promises of celibacy and obedience, and they were elated by the prospect. ...

There was a time where the church “maybe apologized for being Catholic,” he said later in the conversation. He and the other new priests agreed they were called to something different: advancing the Catholic faith, even the parts that could seem out of place in an increasingly hostile world. “The church is Catholic, and so we should announce that joyfully,” he said.

In an era of deep divisions in the American Catholic Church, and ongoing pain over the continuing revelations of sexual abuse by priests over decades, there is increasing unity among the men joining the priesthood: They are overwhelmingly conservative in their theology, their liturgical tastes and their politics.

Priests ordained since 2010 “are clearly the most conservative cohort of priests we’ve seen in a long time,” said Brad Vermurlen, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, who has studied the rightward shift of the American priesthood. Surveys tracking the opinions of priests have found that, starting in the 1980s, each new wave of priests in the United States is noticeably more conservative than the one before it, Dr. Vermurlen said.

His and his colleagues’ analysis found newer priests were significantly more conservative than their elders on questions including whether homosexual behavior is always a sin, and whether women should be able to serve as deacons and priests, for example.

More than 80 percent of priests ordained since 2020 describe themselves as theologically “conservative/orthodox” or “very conservative/orthodox,” according to a nationally representative survey of 3,500 priests published by the Catholic Project at the Catholic University of America.

[Cronos]

In an era of deep divisions in the American Catholic Church, and ongoing pain over the continuing revelations of sexual abuse by priests over decades, there is increasing unity among the men joining the priesthood: They are overwhelmingly conservative in their theology, their liturgical tastes and their politics.

One of the points made by Trent Horn is that men who join the priesthood now are overwhelmingly aware that they will be mocked AND at the same time the gays are aware of "other choices" and the Church cracking down on them (albeit late). So we end up with more conversative, TRUE, vocations

[Cronos]

..Politically, the trend is similar, with almost all priests ordained in 2020 or later describing themselves as moderate or conservative.

That represents a sharp contrast with priests ordained in the 1960s, about half of whom describe themselves as politically liberal, and an even greater share as theologically progressive.

[Cronos]

Changing attitudes will reshape parish life, where priests choose topics for homilies and have discretion over matters like whether girls can volunteer as altar servers and lay people can assist in the distribution of Communion. It will also influence the leadership ranks of the American church, which already has a global reputation for conservatism, and antagonism to Pope Francis’s more pastoral tone in leadership.

[Cronos]

Today’s young priests don’t see themselves as a conservative insurgency, but as part of a new generation who embrace difficult church teachings rather than soft-pedaling them in what they see as the misguided pursuit of big-tent evangelism.

In an attempt to make the church seem more welcoming and difficult teachings easier to accept, Father Galante said, generations of clergy softened expectations around everything from regular prayer to cohabitation before marriage to dressing nicely for Sunday Mass.

Many priests in the 1970s and ’80s, he said, “were looking at the world and saying, ‘The world is changing, we need to change, too.’”

That approach didn’t work, as he sees it.?

[Delta 21]

Did they survey them and find out who was homosexual or a registered pedophile? Seems this would be important.

[Delta 21]

I missed that part about the accidental sinless homosexuality. I better read it again.

[Cronos]

None of them. That’s the point - they know that they will be accused of such things and even then they join because they really have a vocation

[Cronos]

Essentially we are looking at a situation where young men willingly enter a profession that has been besmirched, and they knowingly enter a “lion’s den” of accusations.

You gotta really want to serve God to be willing to do this.

Kudos to them

[stevio]

My (very conservative) priest is a vocations director for our diocese. Their radar is out for this and the latest crop of priests are very conservative. 3 out of the 5 were homeschooled that I know of.

It's actually a pretty good time to be a Catholic, at least in my area. The numbers may be less, but we are more devote. It's contagious. I split my attendance between a conservative novias ordo and TLM. God will not abandon His Church.

[Bigg Red]

mark