Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Married Priests a Necessity?

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In America we have a tendency to pour energy into symptom management instead of addressing the fundamental issue.  It's true that we don't seem to have enough priests, especially young ones, to answer the demands for clergy within the Church today.  Part of that may be a problem with our expectations.  We actually have more priests per member in the pew and more Masses available than in any other country I've visited.  But, I think the central issue is a lack of vocational investment in young men.
First to examine the media's proposed solutions of married priesthood or perhaps opening the clergy to women . . . 
There is a tradition of the priesthood being open to married men.  In fact, it was implicitly licit until a little under a thousand years ago, though most men still chose to be celibate.  Having worked as a missionary (and obviously one who could not have the additional service of administering the sacraments), ministry is all-consuming.  To add to that, I can't imagine having to chose between your sick wife at home and a sick lady across town who needs Last Rites.  Your time and investment in relationships for those you minister to are hard to maintain when you are committed to a set of primary relationships. 

There is the additional danger that a call to the clergy becomes merely another job option amongst others--both lessening the cultural value of religious men who are "set apart" for service and holiness as well as compromising the clarity of a "call" to walk in the footsteps of Christ.  Priesthood becomes a function of a person instead of an indelible spiritual character.  Perhaps I've read too much Victorian literature, but the idea of washed up, married academics settling into a preaching job doesn't seem to be the spark that will reignite the American church.  The Vatican hasn't said anything that would indicate this is an anticipated change either.
Just to be fair, Eastern Catholic Churches have maintained a tradition of married priests without (the appearance at least of) watering down the quality of their ministers.  We must remember, though, that they serve communities of only a couple hundred families at most, and they come from a different culture in terms of their understanding of marriage.
It seems that if there were an abundance of men with a genuine calling to married ministry then we would have plenty of permanent deacons.  They can be married, plus they can perform two of the sacraments and can do any of the administrative, teaching, and counseling that a priest does.  However, we also have a paucity of them.
In regards to opening the clergy to women.  I think it would quickly become a political statement rather than a spiritual opportunity.  It also would be a sacramental impossibility since we believe that the priest actually stands at the altar and in the Confessional as an "Alter Christus," another Christ.  Since, Christ chose to reveal Himself to us as a male, we follow His example in keeping the outward sign consistent with the inward reality of God as protector & provider (traditionally, male attributes).  There's a bunch more here and here and elsewhere, but that's the cliff notes.
So, onward to my somewhat optimistic solution.  I say "somewhat" because it seems unrealistic to anyone talking to the average Generation Y citizen on the street, but I have seen it work out beautifully within small communities across the nation.
I look at my fellow 20&30-somethings and notice a sad trend.  Why are we so convinced that a married clergy will be a solution when we can't even convince young adults to marry?  It's not only the idea of a religious vocation that is in crisis; it is the idea of ANY life-long vocation.   So, here's what I've seen work:
Vocational investment starts in the home.  Families that form the interior lives of their children raise young people who are introspective enough to hear the call of heroic generosity.  Parents need to hold up each vocation as worth of consideration, and they need to honor their priests.  They also need to support their children when they do feel a call to accept a religious vocation--sometimes this is as much a sacrifice for the family as it is for the child.  All of this is part of putting God first and everything else second, which is difficult between cleaning diapers and scrubbing crayon off the wall.  But the kids know who is first in their home and who ought to be first in their lives.
Secondly, Catholic schools need to be concerned about more than measuring up to the nearest half-decent public school (with the bonus of uniforms and a better-off peer group.)  Catholic schools have a responsibility toward vocation education and providing students with opportunities to meet and feel comfortable around religious.  Implementation of deeper theology and Church history and perhaps rudimentary Latin also helps a young mind that might be inclined toward priestly studies to feel that attraction.  Yet, those subjects are hard to find in most Catholic schools, especially at the high school level.  Schools help create a narrative framework for our children's future choices.  Most Catholic schools in the last 50 years have been opting to teach no narrative at all, or a secular narrative that doesn't foster a love of the Church and the Faith.
Within the parish and diocese, there needs to be specific support for those considering a vocation to the priesthood.  Just as we encourage (or require) engaged couples to go through formation and/or retreats, future priests need formative guidance.  Dioceses across the nation that have large amounts of men in seminary have vibrant youth groups, vocational discernment groups and individual mentorship from a strong vocations director in the diocese, retreats, etc.  Interestingly, in my experience, the parishes within those dioceses that send the most young men into seminary also have only male altar servers and priests who spend extra time investing in those young boys.  Vocationally blessed dioceses also have parish-based prayer support in the form of chalice programs, etc. that get individual families to pray for vocational openness in their parish and in their own family.  This works.  Check out the numbers of seminarians in dioceses where Archbishop Chaput or where Bishop Conley have been.  They're really focused on these types of programs.  NC has not been doing too poorly either in the last 7 years after these things were implemented.
Any vocation, especially to the priesthood, is a total gift of self.  Helping it to be more culturally acceptable (by adding women or sex) doesn't automatically yield more generous people.  As you all know from working hard to raise your own children, a culture of generosity starts at home.  In our homes we create our own culture, nurtured by faith, that starts by honoring God and heroic generosity and ends in a personal call to love in a particular way through each of our vocations.  If the Church has to go through a bit of a sacramental fast so that we can appreciate the value of our priests and the sacraments they administer to us, I'm ok with that.  God can do anything with a few loaves and fishes.  And meanwhile, as one of the few people intentionally reproducing in my generation, maybe I can work on that raising future priests issue too.  :)

PS: Two of those small communities of young people and students that I have personally witnessed transforming the vocational crisis of our nation have been:
Christendom College--around for 35 years and has always had less than 400 students total at a time-->alumni yield 68 priests, 50 sisters, 1 deacon, 2 brothers,  and 25 men currently in seminary.
Fellowship of Catholic University Students--around for 15 years and is a group that has grown to a couple hundred missionaries working on college campuses around the US-->285 have entered seminary; 110 have pursued religious life; 49 men entered the seminary from a FOCUS program just last year.
God is doing plenty of calling.  We just need to open the ears of young people to listen.

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