Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
We hope you enjoy your visit!
You're currently viewing Catholic CyberForum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our online cyberparish, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.
Join our community!
Messages posted to this board must be polite and free of abuse, personal attacks, blasphemy, racism, threats, harrassment, and crude or sexually-explicit language.
If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Priesthood of the Future
Topic Started: Thursday, 21. June 2012, 09:17 (1,033 Views)
Mairtin
Member Avatar

In 1969, despite the social upheaval that was taking place worldwide and the internal fallout within the church over Humane Vitae, the future appeared generally positive for the Catholic Church; the changes from Vatican II were taking effect, people were getting involved in new ways, despite a few dissenting voices, laity and clergy were getting more actively involved than had seemed imaginable just 10 years previously and there was a tremendous air of excitement.

One highly regarded young priest didn’t see it quite like that, however; in a now famous interview about the impact of social unrest throughout Europe in particular over the previous 12 months, he forecast:
Quote:
 
From today’s crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and, to a large extent, will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers, she will lose many of her privileges in society. Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers

The young priest was Joseph Ratzinger and he certainly got that part right with an almost uncanny prescience of what was to befall the Church over the next 40 years.

In the interview, he continued:
Quote:
 
... As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs.

So are we likely to see that part and when?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Anne-Marie

Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 09:17
So are we likely to see that part and when?
Not during the present papacy.
And that because Pope Benedict appears to be visibly declining, and seems unlikely to have the time left to make significant further changes.
Until we know the identity of the next pope, we can't even expect (or not) such changes, welcome though they would be to many.

The idea is particularly interesting in that it just might result in the effective de-clericalising of the Church... for better or worse.
Anne-Marie
FIAT VOLUNTAS DEI
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 09:17
One highly regarded young priest didn’t see it quite like that, however; in a now famous interview about the impact of social unrest throughout Europe in particular over the previous 12 months, he forecast:
Quote:
 
From today’s crisis, a Church will emerge tomorrow that will have lost a great deal. She will be small and, to a large extent, will have to start from the beginning. She will no longer be able to fill many of the buildings created in her period of great splendor. Because of the smaller number of her followers, she will lose many of her privileges in society. Contrary to what has happened until now, she will present herself much more as a community of volunteers

The young priest was Joseph Ratzinger and he certainly got that part right with an almost uncanny prescience of what was to befall the Church over the next 40 years.

In the interview, he continued:
Quote:
 
... As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs.

So are we likely to see that part and when?
Why did the young Father Ratzinger say those changes would have to be implemented 40 years on, and no in the immediate future? It strikes me as "Oh well if the day comes when there are not enough priests do do everything we will be reduced in calling upon any talents the laity might have, if any."

Announcement of appointments of new bishops give the total population, Catholic population and numbers of priests, deacons and religious. It is odd that the fewer priests the higher the Catholic population. I can only assume that wider involvement of laity being essential that is what is happening and it is bearing fruit. The priest has his role, much of which is reserved to the ordained priesthood. If any of them say they are overburdened with administrative responsibility, I ask why, is there nobody else who is more talented than they in purely secular matters.

Do the rest of us have to wait until we have only a few dozen priests to half a million Catholics?
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mairtin
Member Avatar

Rose of York
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 11:12
Why did the young Father Ratzinger say those changes would have to be implemented 40 years on, and no in the immediate future?
He didn't forecast when they would happen, just that they would.
Quote:
 
The priest has his role, much of which is reserved to the ordained priesthood. If any of them say they are overburdened with administrative responsibility, I ask why, is there nobody else who is more talented than they in purely secular matters.

He wasn't talking about admin tasks, he was talking about the ordained priesthood.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 11:33
He wasn't talking about admin tasks, he was talking about the ordained priesthood.
Sorry, Mairtin, my mistake!

Mairtin
 
n the interview, he continued:

As a small community, she will demand much more from the initiative of each of her members and she will certainly also acknowledge new forms of ministry and will raise up to the priesthood proven Christians who have other jobs.[/quote]

That is a practical solution. I do not see it happening in the near future, "the Church" (meaning the senior clergy) do not like change. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there are men who have taken early retirement, are well educated and grounded in relevant fields, and would serve us well as priests in areas of low population. In a team ministry with a few priests, there would be one bearing responsibility for the whole circuit, available as mentor and guide to others who had a shorter training and are new to priesthood. Nurses used to be there for purely practical tasks. Now we have specialist nurse practitioners, highly trained and experienced. Why cannot the Church do something similar?
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Mairtin
Member Avatar

Rose of York
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 11:53
It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that there are men who have taken early retirement, are well educated and grounded in relevant fields, and would serve us well as priests in areas of low population.
I think Fr. Ratzinger was also talking about priests who would have other jobs, effectively part-time priests.

Quote:
 
I do not see it happening in the near future

I can see it happening through the role of deacon being enhanced.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Eileenanne

Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 13:05
I can see it happening through the role of deacon being enhanced.
You mean deacons becoming priests? That is the only way they can be useful where there is a shortage of priests.

Eileenanne
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
OsullivanB

Many deacons are married. How do you see that playing out, Eileenanne?
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Eileenanne

OsullivanB
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 16:04
Many deacons are married. How do you see that playing out, Eileenanne?
I don't. I was making the point that I don't see how the role of the deacon can be "enhanced" (Mairtin's word) in any way that would help alleviate the shortage of priests.

Eileenanne
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
OsullivanB

Perhaps a deacon could have all the powers and responsibilities hitherto exercised by the parish priest, while a priest acts as the sacerdote for a number of such parishes.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Eileenanne

It COULD come to that, and I am sure that kind of thing happens in mission territory, where lots of the responsibility falls on catechists, not even ordained deacons, but I am sure it would be very much a last resort. I don't like to think of priests as mass saying machines - although you word is a much nicer one!

Eileenanne
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
OsullivanB

Perhaps it wouldn't be such a bad idea to treat England as mission territory.
"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance - that principle is contempt prior to investigation." Herbert Spencer
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rose of York
Member Avatar
Administrator
Eileenanne
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 15:18
Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 13:05
I can see it happening through the role of deacon being enhanced.
You mean deacons becoming priests? That is the only way they can be useful where there is a shortage of priests.

Eileenanne
Oh what a shock you will get if a deacon buries you.
Keep the Faith!

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Angus Toanimo
Member Avatar
Administrator
Perhaps the then Father Ratzinger saw what he perceived to be an erosion of the priesthood to the point that no young man would bother seeking a vocation to it as, apart from celebrating Mass and administering Extreme Unction, what's so special? Did he forsee that sin would be played down therefore a rare need for a priest to act as a confessor?
Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Angus Toanimo
Member Avatar
Administrator
Rose of York
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 16:45
Eileenanne
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 15:18
Mairtin
Thursday, 21. June 2012, 13:05
I can see it happening through the role of deacon being enhanced.
You mean deacons becoming priests? That is the only way they can be useful where there is a shortage of priests.

Eileenanne
Oh what a shock you will get if a deacon buries you.
What a shock he'll get if she comes back and haunts him.
Posted Image
Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · General Catholic Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply