The Roman Catholic Church has to change, particularly in America. It needs to allow women to become priests and it needs to allow priests to marry. Up until 1139 priests were allowed to marry. The idea behind it was to separate priests from a sinful world. The hypocrisy there was that priests were, and still are, sinful themselves. They are human, they screw up, the have to go to confession. At the time it was meant to insure the morality of the priesthood.
That worked up until the mid-20th Century when those men entering the priesthood declined. And the decline continues. There are places in America where churches have no priest permanently assigned, the duties being taken over by a deacon or by a priest who travels from one parish to another.
The American Catholic Church is so arrogant that when Poland offered to send priests to cover parishes in American they were declined! Maybe they were embarrassed that the word would get out that most Sunday masses in America are only lightly attended.
This brings me to my issue with the Church. I am a divorced Catholic and have been so since 1988. Because I am now remarried I cannot receive communion, central to the Catholic service. Curiously, I have been told by more than one priest that were I to stand in front of him to receive communion, and he knowing I was divorced and remarried, he would not deny me. I mention that because there appears to be a large group of priests who believe the prohibition is ridiculous.
There is a remedy according to Rome. A divorced Catholic must petition the Pope to have his marriage annulled. Now understand, an annulment, according to Catholicism, means no marriage occurred in the first place. I have three beautiful children by my first wife. I refuse to insult them, or my former wife, by getting an annulment. But I want my church back.
I firmly believe that were Jesus to come back just to visit the Pope and his college of cardinals, he would have some very harsh words for them. I think they need to read that part of the Bible which speaks of the shepherd who leaves 99 sheep in search of the mission one.
divorce
New Pope But Same Old Church!
The Roman Catholic Church is the elder statesman of all Christian churches. Prior to the “church of Rome,” as it is sometimes referred to as, there was the Church of Turkey. Early Christendom was kept alive there before moving to Greece and then to Rome. Like every family, there were differences in beliefs even in those early days. The Eastern rite churches, Greek and Russian among others, broke from the newly formed Holy Roman Church with its Pope.
In those days, priests of either rite married and had children. In 1139 the Roman church decided celibacy was a more proper route for its priests. This position was reaffirmed by the “Council of Trent” in 1563. But by 1563 the Roman Catholic church was under fire. It had for centuries maintained its own army and fought wars, mostly within the Italian provinces but also with Spain and France. And the power of the Pope had at least twice been challenged, first by King Henry VIII and then by one of its own bishops, Martin Luther. Each in turn formed new Christian churches, Henry the Church of England, and Luther the Lutherans. The Roman Catholic Church dug in its heels proclaiming the infallibility of the Pope and by extension, his decisions. The infallibility remains and is referred to as “ex cathedra.” This means whatever pronouncements the Pope makes takes on the power of church law. Popes have been extraordinarily careful in their pronouncements.
In 1965, during the 2nd Vatican Council, several changes were made by Pope Pius XII and his successor, Pope Paul VI. No longer would the mass be given in Latin but in the native language of the attendees of the mass. Other lesser changes were also made but people looked at this as a new beginning for the church. Unfortunately, and predictably, that was a far as any pope wanted to go. The College of Cardinals, those in charge of electing a pope, has stayed very conservative in its general beliefs and ensured those beliefs would remain by electing very conservative popes. Cardinals elect popes and popes raise bishops to the rank of cardinal. It is a very self-serving process that insures a continued conservative control. As an aside, by Catholic law, any Catholic man can be elected pope, he need not be an ordained priest but that has not happened since the earliest of days.
We now have the relatively new Pope Francis. He is the first pope elected who was not born in Europe and because of that many of the faithful thought, hoped, this signaled a new order. Francis is viewed as being a pope of the people. That is, his closeness to the poor of Argentina, where he was a cardinal, allowed him to be viewed as something other than the regal previous popes. But in truth, that is mostly hype rather than reality.
Pope Francis has reached out to gay and divorced Catholics, inviting them to return to the church. It was hoped that he would speak ex cathedra and at the very least embrace gay love as equal to any other but he has not. It was hoped that he would do away with the prohibition of divorced Catholics who have remarried from receiving communion, but he has not. I asked a priest why I, a divorced and remarried Catholic, would want to attend church services and not receive communion. A politic man, he had not good answer and side-stepped the question. I do not blame him, he is, after all, answerable to the Pope.
The Roman Catholic mass, and I believe Episcopalian and Lutheran services as well, are centered around the reception of holy communion. What is going on is like having a cake and ice cream party and inviting people to join in on all the festivities but not the cake and ice cream. It is pure silliness.
The Roman Catholic church is stuck in the 16th Century and staunchly refuses to move forward. Most church laws are founded on Biblical teachings. In the 16th Century, when most people could not read and were extremely poorly educated, that worked. But the intervening 500 years have seen the education of most Catholics far beyond just the ability to read. Educated Catholics have learned to think for themselves and that does not sit well with Roman Catholic leadership.
Even 500 years ago, however, certain beliefs of the Catholic church were challenged by enlightened men, Copernicus, Galileo, and Michelangelo. The Popes of those days could not imagine that the earth was not the center of the universe and declared heresy any who said otherwise.
Today, scholars are at odds over not just the meaning contained within the four gospels of the Bible, but their validity. You see, each of the four gospels, it is known, is an almalgem of early writings with unknown, or at best, questionable authors. And those are just the four accepted gospels. In truth, there are dozens of gospels. There are the gospels of Matthias, Mary, Thomas, Truth, Judas, Peter, and Phillip, to name a few. Many of these gospels are fragmentary at best and of debatable origin. Still, this shows the difficulty in determining the authenticity of what is written. I mention this because the four accepted gospels are referred to as the word of God when in fact they are the words of men. I am not trying to demean the gospels but simply put some perspective on them. I believe the most honest depiction of the gospels would be to refer to them as being divinely inspired.
The New Testament Bible we have today was translated from the ancient Greek. Theologians are wont to explain the construction of each. The four seldom are in complete agreement about any particular event and sometimes are in obvious disagreement. Therefore, to base an entire large religion on these texts is of questionable decision. One of the places all four gospels are in total agreement is where Jesus teaches that prime of following him is faith, not just in belief but in works. He taught basics of humility, kindness, honesty, empathy, suffrage, and acceptance as being more important than position, money and even man-made law. The Catholic Church, however, has chosen to not follow all of His beliefs. Jesus accepted all who came but the Roman Catholic church picks and choses who it will accept. How is that following the most basic teachings of Jesus? I suggest it is contrary.
The Roman Catholic Church has things backwards. It tells its membership to do what it wants rather than serving them as it should. That is, the church says, “here, come do this for your church!” Instead, it should be saying, “how can we better serve you?” The reason is does not and cannot ask that last question is because it would be required to allow priests to marry, women to become priests, gays to marry, and remarried Catholics full participation in the mass. These conservative old men, who Francis leads, simply cannot imagine such a situation becoming a reality. But it is a reality they need to embrace or they will be burying the very church they claim to defend. The percentage of participation by those born into the Roman Catholic church is falling world-wide and will continue unless changes are made.
A New Pope, But Same Old Church
I was born a Catholic. The first Pope I remember was Pius XII. When he died in 1958, the College of Cardinals elected Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli to be his successor. He became Pope John XXIII. What the College of Cardinals were looking for then, and still are, was someone who would maintain the status quo. What they got, unexpectedly, was a reformer Pope, like none who was known in their recent memory, and who has been unparalleled in his desire to bring the church into the 20th century. While he did not succeed, he did bring it into a more reasonable form. Most notable was changing the mass from being said in Latin to that of the local population. Other changes, what nuns could wear, the addition of lay members as servers, allowing for changes in how the mass is celebrated. But John XXIII died in 1965 and since then there has been a succession of very conservative Popes. These Popes have been deaf to the cries of the 1 billion plus Catholics throughout the world.
A Pope is an absolute ruler. He is answerable to no man on earth, only to God. A Pope can speak ex cathedra, which means, he can arbitrarily change church law without advice from anyone and there is no mechanism to reverse his decrees, short of his dying and a new Pope coming into power.
When I was young, Lawrence Massachusetts had 14 very active Catholic Churches and their associated parishes. The masses were well attended, and the churches were relatively healthy. Today there are only 2 Catholic Churches in Lawrence even though the city’s population boasts of just as many who claim to be Catholic now as did then. And Lawrence is not the exception but the rule. American Catholics have deserted their church in droves. Why? The answer is both simple and obvious, people who must live in the 2013 world are being led by men who still think like it was 1813.
In 2012 the Archdiocese graduated exactly one man, Patric F. D’Arcy, from its seminary. That number is by no means an anomaly. For decades now dioceses all over the United States have had to tell aging priests they could not retire because there was no replacement. Not having a replacement would not be so bad if that priest were also not the only priest in that parish. But that is exactly what is happening. This knowledge I gained through first hand contact with a priest in Oklahoma City. There are parishes in the United States that have no priest at all assigned because of the extreme shortage. These parishes are serviced by a visiting priest. How well can he know the people of that parish and attend to their needs?
Several years ago I was privileged to visit Poland. Polish Catholics are very active and their churches well-attended and healthy. I am at a loss to explain the differences between Polish Catholics and American Catholics. I think it possibly, and likely, that Polish Catholics have only been free of Communist rule for 20 years and are still in that honeymoon phase where they can openly attend their church without worry about what the government might do to them. But while there I also learned that a Krakow Catholic church had sent a priest to a Massachusetts parish that was experiencing a desperate shortage of priests. That priest, however, was made to feel persona non grata and soon returned to Poland. He was not made to feel that way by the parishioners but by the diocese in which the church was located. Poland has an abundance of priests. Is the American Catholic Church too vain to accept help?
One thing that probably drives more Catholics permanently away from their church is the church’s stance on divorce. Unless you can get the church to annul your marriage, something money, not truthfulness, can attain, then you are not allowed to remarry in the Catholic Church. The divorce rate among U.S. Catholics is probably identical to that of the rest of the population. The U.S. divorce rate right now stands at about 50%. The Catholic Church has immediately disaffected half of its starting population. It is small wonder that so many churches have had to been closed. Why would anyone go back to a place that has rejected them?
A Boston Paulist Priest, Jac Campbell, now deceased, started a program, “Landings,” in the late 1980s to invite “lapsed Catholics” back into the church. The program was meant for all Catholics who had left the church, but was clearly targeting that one group. I attended a “Landings” seminar in the early 1990s, and while I was touched, and at least briefly returned to the church, I understood that regardless of how welcoming the Paulist fathers are, the rest of the church is not following suit.
“The Paulists seek to meet the contemporary culture on its own terms, to present the Gospel message in ways that are compelling but not diluted, so that the fullness of the Catholic faith may lead others to find Christ’s deep peace and “unreachable quietness.” Paulists do not condemn culture, nor do they try to conform the Gospel to it. Rather, we preach the Gospel in new ways and in new forms, so that the deep spiritual longings of the culture might find fulfillment in Jesus Christ. To this end, Paulists use printing presses, movie cameras, and the Internet to give voice to the words of Christ – the Word Himself – to a new generation of Americans.
The Vision of the Paulist Founder
The founder of the Paulists, Isaac Hecker, was a spiritual seeker, a wandering soul. He lived for a time in Transcendentalist utopian communities where he consulted the leading thinkers of his day. Though a seeker, he became a man of conviction: once he found the truth in the Catholic Church, he gave his whole life to it. His only desire was to proclaim the truth to others so that they too could find their true selves as North American Catholics.” http://www.paulist.org/who-we-are
In Boston at least, the Paulist fathers are some of the most liberal priests anywhere in the church. To their credit, they openly welcome gay Catholics to their masses. They are active participants in the “Landings” program. They make lots of room for divorced Catholics and Catholics of all sorts regardless of who they are. They are, in my opinion, exactly the face the entire Catholic Church needs to put forward if it ever hopes to meet the needs of all its people, and not just those who will give in to its absolutist ideals, its impossible demands.
We have a new Pope and he has a great opportunity. He can allow the church to wallow in its 19th century ideas through the 21st century, or he can be an advocate for all the people of the church, not just the select few. With Pope Francis I we have some hope because he was renowned for working with the poor in his native Argentina. But he is also known to be extremely conservative. The question is, is he happy with the way things are?
You Didn't Ask But..... 