Advice to a young seminarian - part 2

Continued from last week… 

If I understand correctly you are contemplating the diocesan priesthood.  Perhaps I should start by defining what you are thinking of becoming. First you are thinking about being a priest. Priest is a very problematic word. You will get a lot of grief in this ecumenical world about the priesthood. People will quote the letter to the Hebrews saying that Christ is the great high priest and we have no more need of priests. They will doubtless quote the first letter of St. Peter, “Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.” (1Peter 3:18) No more priests, no more sacrifices. It’s in the Bible.  

So why are you claiming to be a priest? 

These folks never took my Greek class. If they had, they would know that the English word “priest” (or German/Pruester, French/Prete, Italian/Preti,) are all derived from the Greek word, “presbyteros” which means elder. There is another Greek word “hiereus” that means sacrificer.

You see the problem here? We are dealing with two completely different Greek words here; presbyteros (elder) and hiereus (sacrificer) and these two completely different Greek words are translated into English by the same exact word – “priest.” If you are called to the altar, the bishop will lay his hands on your head and ordain you to the priesthood (sacrificerhood) of Christ in the order of presbyter (elder). You will be ordained an elder who offers true sacrifice. All Christians participate in the sacrificer-hood (priesthood) of Christ by virtue of their baptism. You were anointed “priest (sacrificer), prophet and king” when you were baptized. 

“So, what’s this priesthood thing if I was already baptized and anointed as priest?” 

You will preside at the one, timeless sacrifice of Calvary when the bishop can’t be there. The bishop is the head elder as well as the head deacon (a word which means table water in Greek.)  This may seem complicated and pointless, but if you’ve read anything I’ve ever written you’ve come to expect that. It’s not quite as pointless as it seems. Back to those ecumenical types who never studied classical language. They are quite correct in saying that Jesus is the only high sacrificer. You and I are members of His body the church. If He is a sacrificer then so are we. We are one body with Christ and the bishop, Christ’s vicar (a Latin word for “stand-in”) is the head and the stand in for Christ at Christ’s sacrifice. In the parish you are the bishop’s stand in, and so, you are a true sacrificer offering a true sacrifice.

Why should we offer sacrifice at all if Christ has offered the perfect sacrifice on Calvary?  St. Paul says, “I make up in my own flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ.” (Col 1:24) What could possibly be lacking in the afflictions of Christ? Nothing, expect my participation. There is a beautiful prayer that I recommend to you:

O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer You my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of Your Sacred Heart, in union with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass throughout the world, in reparation for my sins, for the redemption of the world, for the good of all who have asked me to pray for them and in particular for the bishops and for our Holy Father, the Pope. Amen.

I love this prayer. I try to say it every morning, usually as I slink back into the rectory after Mass, waiting to hear about the “disaster-du-jour.” The morning offering is all about our calling as baptized people to be priestly (by this I mean sacrificial.) You, the presbyter will make it possible for every baptized person to climb the steps of Calvary and to stand at the foot of the cross with Mary, our Blessed Mother, where we can offer ourselves with Him who so loved the world.

That’s what the priesthood is primarily about, the presbyterate, the elderhood whatever you want to call it. Our first purpose is to extend the one sacrifice of Calvary to every corner of time and space. We are the first to climb Calvary with Christ. We are the elders of a priestly people, a sacrificial people. We are the first to give our lives. We wear the strange ancient roman clothing and we are the first to drink from the cup of Calvary because we have been called to be the first to offer our lives and, if need be, our deaths for the Bride He so loves.

Next week: Okay, Priest – but Elder? I’m barely in my twenties.

A reflection on priestly life -- part 12

Letter to Ann T. Clerikuhl continued.  

On to another thrilling episode in an ongoing disquisition on what’s wrong with the Catholic priesthood, but first; a grammar lesson. 

Verbs can have a number of moods. Some verbs are in a good mood, others are in a really lousy mood. I’m joking of course.  No, the moods, or modes, of the verb are as follows: The declarative mood states a fact: “I blather on endlessly.”  The subjunctive mood states a  possibility or contingency: “I may blather on endlessly if no one shuts me up;” or “I may choose to blather on endlessly.” The optative mood express a wish (or a hope) “May spiders nest in your bouffant hairdo and finally cause you to change it.” 

  

In English, a strange and convoluted language that was once spoken in the United States, one uses the word “may” to denote the subjunctive or optative mood. The word “can” always expresses a fact. It is always in the demonstrative mood. All this is a prelude to a discussion of the minister of the sacrament.

1. Any Christian CAN validly baptize. Only a priest or deacon MAY licitly baptize except in the case of real emergency. 
2. Only a bishop CAN hear confessions or an ordained priest who is delegated by his bishop. 
3. Only a bishop or priest CAN confer the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick.
4. Only a bishop, or a priest specifically delegated by a bishop CAN confer the Sacrament of Confirmation.
5. Only a bishop MAY validly ordain a priest or another bishop. Even if a bishop is not the ordinary bishop of the diocese, he CAN ordain, but MAY not without the permission of the ordinary diocesan bishop. A bishop CAN, but MAY not ordain a bishop without the express delegation of the Pope.
6. Only a bishop or priest CAN validly offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Eucharist. A priest MAY be the principal celebrant of the sacrifice in the absence of the bishop, though he MAY NOT, or at least should not, be the principal celebrant if a bishop is also celebrating the Mass with him.
7. A Bishop, priest or deacon CAN NOT confer the sacrament of marriage. The ministers of the sacrament of Matrimony are the bride and groom. The bishop, priest or deacon stands as witness for the Church. If there is no possibility of a bishop, priest or deacon being present, a delegated layperson MAY be the Church witness to a marriage. This is very exceptional. It only happens during plagues, persecutions or on deserted islands. Though the bride and groom are the ministers of the sacrament, they MAY NOT and usually CAN NOT marry expect in the presence of an ecclesial (Church) witness. 

Well, that should clean things up! Let me summarize the whole thing. There are 7 sacraments. A bishop CAN confer six of them, all but marriage. A presbyter is a sort of stand in bishop for Confirmation, Holy Eucharist and Confession

.  

Now pay attention.This part will get really confusing. 

A deacon is a sort of stand in bishop for Baptism and as a witness for Marriage.  The priesthood and the diaconate are the two arms of the bishop. The priest is the icon of Christ the shepherd, and the deacon is the icon of Christ the servant. The bishop is both the head deacon and the head priest of a diocese.

I believe that in well run parishes where people are really desirous of the sacraments, a deacon should baptize new Christians young and old, and should be the witness to marriage, leaving the priest free to say Mass, hear confession and anoint the sick. Things like visiting the sick, feeding the poor, conducting wake services and such, CAN and MAY be conducted buy any baptized believer. Bishops, priests and deacons CAN and should feed the poor and console the bereaved, not because they are clergy, but because they are baptized Christians. These works of mercy are the job of the believer, not the clergy.  I hope you understand me. I’m not saying that the clergy are off the hook, but they are not the only ones responsible for the works of mercy and the life of the Church.

Here is an example: I offer Mass. I stand in the vestibule. People come and want to arrange a marriage in 30 seconds while small children are tugging at my chasuble and people are trying to greet me and a sobbing penitent wants his confession heard right there in the vestibule. Meanwhile, the St. Dymphna Guild is having their annual baked groundhog dinner in the basement. Someone comes upstairs to tell me that both the St. Dymphna Guild and the baked groundhog casserole are getting cold and are waiting for you, Father, to come down and offer the traditional baked groundhog blessing. You finally dismiss the last suppliant who was telling you in real time about his Bible Cruise to Alaska, you run to the sacristy, rip off your vestments, charge down to the basement to be greeted by a hungry mob saying, “Where have you been????”   

I tell them, “You should have started without me!”  

“Oh no, Father! That would have been impolite, and besides, only a priest can say the annual groundhog prayer of blessing, or it will not come with the traditional indulgences.”

Again, I can feel my coronary arteries tightening in preparation for the ingestion of groundhog gravy. 

The point I am trying to make is that it’s over. Done. Finito. Kaput. If the laity don’t understand that they CAN, MAY and SHOULD exercise their legitimate ministries in the Church, things like the joyous celebration of St. Dymphna and the groundhog casserole will soon go the way of the dodo and the wooly mammoth.

Here’s an example of something that’s going well. In my parish I say Mass every morning.  Mass is followed by the Prayer to St. Michael, the Rosary, the Litany and the Divine Mercy chaplet. I lead none of them, though I sometime stay for them, schedule permitting.  Were I to lead any of them, those devotions would stop when I was not present and when I am done with this vale of toil and tears and they send some new fellow, those devotions would stop entirely. 

You see, my job is to say Mass and preach a sermon. None of the rest is my job. It is yours.  

“But Father, it’s so much nicer when the priest is there.” 

No it’s not. The clericalism of the past has caused Catholicism to become a sort of spectator sport for most people who call themselves Catholic.That era is ending. And it’s ending fast. My job is to pray and preach and to make sure the sacraments are validly and licitly administered. It is not necessarily to bless groundhog gravy. 

A reflection on priestly life -- part 10

Letter to Ann T. Clerikuhl continued. (I guess I’m still whining, but now I’m whining about evangelism and our lack of it.)

You may well ask, “If this stuff is so great, why didn’t we Catholics used to talk this way?”  Catholics don’t “get saved.”  They don’t “accept Jesus as their personal Lord and savior.”  They don’t have altar calls, they don’t have revivals and above all, lay people, the rank and file doesn’t pray spontaneously with other people. Clergy don’t even pray like that. You might say an “Our Father” or for the really fanatical, you might say a Rosary, but praying with someone to “meet Jesus”?  Unheard of! Impossible! My interior should stay right where it is: inside! That’s why it’s called interior. Religion is best left to the professionals. Let the clergy do the praying.  My job as a layman is to go to Mass, shell out the bucks and keep my nose clean. Now you want me to hold someone’s hand, tell them to close their eyes and ask Jesus into their hearts. If someone did that to me I would suspect they were thinking about picking my pocket. No, sir! When I want religion I go to a professional and when I go to Mass I sit in the back pew because I am not worthy and proud of it!

Alright, I’ll admit we didn’t talk this way years ago, we didn’t have to. We lived in a world where we couldn’t help but meet the Lord. He lived down the street from us in the big house with the steeple. We went to Catholic schools where we were taught by nuns, some of whom actually had an intense faith. Our two parents, one male, one female, taught us to pray and took us to Mass. To see my parents pray quietly after Communion was to see someone who was talking to the Lord. We absorbed Him from our very environment.

Now, Communion is a chaotic melee as we get ready for the after-Communion liturgical dance, the speaker who wants to shake down the congregation for a worthy cause or the Communion class singing a “meditation song” that is sweet enough to give you diabetes. Kids don’t get the chance to watch their parents or anyone else in prayer. The only thing kids can absorb in church these days is a strong desire for donuts and coffee. The idea of lingering in church to pray after Mass is unthinkable. All the best donuts will be gone!

I was saved by watching my parents pray. Kids in this present age of the Church rarely have this experience.
The dear nuns reinforced this sense of the presence of the Lord, but at the same time as they encouraged us to have a strong spiritual life, they warned us never to talk about it, because that would be spiritual pride, and that would cancel out all the grace we had just gotten from prayer. Grace was sort of like points in a video game that you could lose instantly with one false move.

If as a kid you actually prayed, you never talked about it for two reasons: you were afraid that because of spiritual pride you would wake up one day roasting in hell because you had committed the sin of PRESUMPTION!!! And there was a yet more dreadful fate! You kept your mouth closed about your spiritual life because if you seemed excessively pious, they might just ship you off to a convent or seminary at the age of 13 just when those formerly yucky members of the opposite gender were beginning to get interesting.

It was just best to leave the whole religious thing to the clergy and to those rather strange children who demonstrated an unhealthy interest in religion and were obviously destined to waste their life in a convent or rectory. In the good old days you were a Catholic or some other flavor of Christian because everyone else was, not because you’d had an experience that convinced you this stuff was real. Of course it was real. Everybody said it was real. Hollywood made movies about it and the president of the USA said it was real.

Have you looked out the window recently? Things have changed. The important people in the world, Hollywood stars and the politicians who idolize them are no longer saying this stuff is real. Most of them are saying it’s all a bunch of hooey. Your kids don’t believe for precisely the same reason you did believe. Everybody says it’s NOT real. What evidence do they have to the contrary? Have they met the Lord? Have they heard the Gospel? Have they witnessed a miracle? They may have seen a lot of liturgical dances and learned some really zingy new hymns, but those get old fairly fast. Real miracles, the Gospel and above all a sense of the presence of Christ never get old. We are giving them theater and thinking that somehow showbiz religion will save them. It ain’t working.

In the old days when they dragged you to church as a little kid, you had a little kid’s openness to truth. That was before your brains had turned to concrete and you lost a sense of wonder and awe. The stained glass windows, the strange rituals, the music, watching your parents kneeling with heads bowed and eyes closed. It was special. Now not much goes on in a Catholic Church that couldn’t happen in your basement entertainment center or in a theater near you, that is if you don’t count the miracle of transubstantiation. We need a new strategy if we believe the Church and the Gospel are worth the effort.

In the 1960’s there was this big convention that a lot of bishops went to. I think it was called the Ecumenical Council, or just Vatican Two. It was odd as far as councils go. It wasn’t a response to a heresy or anything like that. It didn’t produce any new Church teaching as such. It didn’t change the liturgy very much. That came later. It was about the role of the laity in the work of the Gospel.  It seemed to be saying that the people of God, clergy and laity together, are the Church.

When people heard that, they decided it meant everybody in the Church is the same. I remember a truly blasphemous comedy song written in the style of rag time tune that mocked the Church and the Council. One of its lines went, “Everybody say his own Kyrie Eleison, doin’ the Vatican rag.” And “Say whatever prayers you want if / you have cleared it with the pontiff.”  The attitude after the Council was “Anything goes.” We have not recovered to this day.

We may all be equal in God’s eyes, but we most certainly aren’t the same.  We all have our jobs to do in the Body of Christ. Eucharistic ministers are a good case in point.  A priest I know suddenly had a surplus of priests and deacons in his parish. They all were happy to help distribute Holy Communion. This meant that lay extraordinary ministers of communion were less necessary.

This drove one of the extraordinary ministers to a near crisis of faith. She railed at the pastor, “You’ve ruined my ministry! This was the only thing I could do and now you’ve taken it away!”

To which he responded, “Why don’t you visit the sick or help with religion classes?”

She had failed to notice that part of her title was EXTRAORDINARY minister. The priest and the deacon are the ordinary ministers.  She served the Lord just by being available to help. Her ordinary ministry is the one thing that belongs to all lay people, to make Christ present in the home and the workplace, to join in the spiritual and physical works of mercy. The aggrieved minister had lost her moment to shine, not the opportunity to serve. This sort of thing is a clear example of the misinterpretation of the Council.

The Council didn’t teach that the laity were to do the work of the priest. The Council taught that the priest should stop doing the work of the laity. I had another good example of the misunderstanding of the Council when some parishioners wanted to start a Charismatic prayer meeting. It was an obvious thing to do. I am, in effect, one of the founding fathers of the Charismatic Renewal, though I heartily dislike the name “Charismatic”. I prefer to call myself a Pentecostal Catholic as we did at first because Pentecostalism is a spirituality of conversion, not a movement.

It seemed absolutely natural to have a prayer group here. It was a colossal failure. Few of the lay members of the group took responsibility. If they had something better to occupy their time on Sunday afternoon, they were no-shows. Father had to be there. If Father couldn’t come, we had to cancel the meeting. Father set up the chairs, made the coffee, played the guitar, gave the teaching, prayed with people after the meeting, turned off the lights and locked up the hall, all this after having said two or three Masses. The prayer group was not a calling for anyone but the priest. For the others it was an optional entertainment. It was the post Vatican II Church in miniature. The only person who now has a Sunday obligation is the priest. For everyone else there is a Sunday option.

Clericalism is alive and well, not among the clergy, but among the laity. All those people who are unhappy with the Vatican Council are quite mistaken. The Vatican Council has gone unimplemented. The laity who now dominate the liturgy offices and the parish councils assume that they are supposed to tell the priest how to do his job. The Council was really about getting the laity to do their job, not to tell the priest how to do his, or worse to do the priests’ job themselves. Where the laity doesn’t learn how to share the good news, the Church will invariably die.

The Church is currently growing by leaps and bounds. Conversions, vocations to the priesthood and traditional religious orders are up. The Church is flourishing in places like Africa, Mexico, China, India, the Philippines and the rest of Asia. In Europe and North America, the great consumerist societies, the Church is evaporating, but even there, those Catholics who can share the beauty of the Gospel without hesitation are creating dynamic enclaves of Catholic faith.

Next week: What is the job of the priest?

A reflection on priestly life -- part 4

Letter to Ann T. Clerikuhl continued.

“Benefice” denotes either certain property given for the support of ministers of religion, or a spiritual office or function, such as the care of souls, but in the strict sense it signifies a right, given permanently by the Church to a cleric to receive ecclesiastical revenues because of the performance of some spiritual service.  (Plagiarized from the “the Catholic Encyclopedia”). 

There were such things as single and double benefices.  A single benefice was a kind of living, or salary provided for a clergyman whose job it was to offer Mass and pray the liturgy of the hours for the well being of the faithful. Such a priest didn’t have to live in a parish. He could do his praying anywhere and just pop the check in the mail, please.

A double benefice included the basic job description of praying for the faithful plus the care of souls! The recipient of the double benefice is expected, “to preach and take care of the religious instruction of the faithful (especially of the young), supply their spiritual needs by the administration of the sacraments, reside in their parish or mission, administer the property entrusted to their care, watch over the moral conduct of their parishioners, and remove as far as possible all hindrances to their salvation.”  I suppose that means I am supposed to peer in your window to see what you are watching on HBO and, if need be, pull the plug or take an axe to your new flat screen. Keep your eyes peeled. That rustling in the shrubbery in the front yard just might be me!

For these services, I am to be reasonably remunerated. As the French say, “One must eat”, except they say it in French.  Keeping me in fighting weight, a salary and a roof over my head is sufficient these days. Back in the dark ages when a man’s wealth was estimated in chickens, the living provided the clergy was a scosche more direct. A parish might have a few acres attached to it, a household, and a flock of sheep, a few peasants and a certain number of barrels of wine in the rectory cellar. From the revenue generated, the priest maintained the church and the rectory and provided for his needs and that of his household. Had I lived then, my household would definitely have included a lute player and a retinue of dwarves. Ah, good times.

I digress. Times have changed. I don’t think we are even allowed to use the word “dwarves” anymore. We no longer deal in barrels of wine, chickens, dwarves or even sheep. We deal in little bits of plastic and computer printouts, but I remember once upon a time in the grand old days of my youth when the medieval concept still applied. The pastor was entitled to all the income of the parish from weddings, baptisms, Mass offerings and funerals. He might, or might not share this income with the 2 or 3 assistants (not associates) who served under him. He also received the Christmas collection, the Easter collection and the All Souls Day collection.  There were more prosperous parishes called “plums” by the clergy.

These were places like Sts. Pecunia and Prospera here in the Forest Lake district of the West Shore here in the Frostbite Falls Parish. A pastor was expected to maintain his household with this income, but the rest was his to do with as he chose and this occasionally involved real estate in Boca. Most pastors were hard working and generous. I got in on the tail end of this system. I remember a pastor who every week would give me an envelope in which he had scrupulously divided the income from stipends (money offered by the faithful for a Mass intention, stole fees money received for services rendered while wearing a stole, such as blessings, marriages, baptisms etc.).  It was all recorded in his precise hand, Stipends, Stole fees, Masses and a category I didn’t quite understand: Fun. One day I asked the pastor, Fr. John, a real saint, what was meant by “Fun Money”.  “Oh,” came the reply, “That’s for Funerals.”  Fun Money. Oy!  

Less saintly and less scrupulous pastors than Fr. John were not quite as generous.  The less it took to maintain the household in the parish, the more one had for the winter retreat in Boca. I remember a pastor whose life was determined by his housekeeper, famous not for food, but for frugality. The young assistants used to come down to my mother’s kitchen frequently. It seems that the rectory housekeeper’s specialty was boiled chicken feet. I am not making this up. I remember another great story of a young assistant moving into his new assignment and being greeted by the pastor who handed him a bag of nickels and pointed to the pay phone on the wall. He then turned and went into his room and shut the door. “Welcome, Father New Guy.” A lot of pastors never gave keys for the rectory to their assistants. The doors to the rectory were locked, and if you weren’t home by ten you were on your own. The rectory and its revenues were the property of the pastor, not of the assistant.

Assistant pastorate was a kind of indentured apprenticeship. Young priests were not allowed to drive for the first five years of their ministry; they were expected to “take the pledge”, that is to abstain from alcohol for the first five years of priesthood. They did the baptisms, the weddings, the funerals of less important parishioners, and said the later Masses. Remember that in the old days one did not eat or drink — even water — before Mass. If you had a Mass at 11AM on a hot summer day, chances are you would have heat stroke, especially if it was a high Mass involving incense. The Pastor said the 6AM Mass and then returned to the rectory to tuck into a sumptuous breakfast of chicken feet….that is if he were in town. Remember the house in Boca?

If a pastor had a real “plum” of a parish he could leave the work of ministry to his assistants and, loosely interpreting the injunction that he live in his parish, go where he pleased or do what he wanted. I remember an old priest under whom I served as a deacon. When he was asked, “How are you doing?” He invariably responded, “Pretty much as I please. I’m a pastor.” Actually he was a very good pastor who loved his flock and worked very hard. Died young as I recall.

To leave the ministry to your assistants and the money to your personal accountant was called “hanging up your stole.” I remember a story from the days of old Cardinal Cody back in the sixties. When he first arrived in Chicago he was very hands on. He would go from parish to parish all by himself without handlers and without warning. He wanted to get to know the diocese first hand. He was death on alcoholism among the clergy and if he suspected you tippled a bit, you were off to rehab in a New York minute. 

One afternoon he was making a sweep of parishes on the south side, and after leaving a parish, the assistants quickly called the next parish over to warn the assistant priests there that the boss was on his way and they had better get the pastor, old Monsignor James Beam, in presentable shape. It seems that Monsignor Beam enjoyed a glass of sherry now and then….mostly now. 

They got the beloved old coot showered, combed and dressed in a clean cassock. They poured black coffee down his throat until he could hold no more, and sat him upright in his study. Cardinal Cody walked in and said to old Monsignor Beam, “Monsignor, I have heard complaints that people can smell alcohol on your breath at baptisms.” To which the old priest responded without losing a beat, “Your Eminence, I haven’t baptized a baby in twenty years!” This is what was meant by “hanging up your stole.” 

I can hear you harrumphing, “Well, How shameful!” Remember that the great majority of priests I knew and under whom I served were true servants, especially the ones who went on to be bishops. I suppose my point in telling these stories, of which I have many more, is that the priest felt absolutely secure once he had been made a pastor. This was for two reasons. 

                     

First, there were such things as irremovable pastors and moveable pastors. An irremovable pastor has the right of perpetual tenure, not unlike an incompetent university professor. He cannot be removed or transferred except for a reason laid down in canon law. Even if he is accused of criminality he could not be removed except by a canonical trial!

A movable pastor was one whose office did not have this right, but the bishop must have some just and proportionate reason for dismissing or transferring him against his will and, should the priest believe himself wronged in the matter, he could appeal to the pope and the pope usually ruled in favor of the pastor. So, a removable pastor was in effect irremovable.

 

Second, people living within the parish boundaries could not go to another parish or another priest other than their pastor, except with his or the bishop's consent.  This means; no baptisms, no last rites, no anointing of the sick, no holy communion, no marriages and no funerals outside their parish and no permission to be buried in a Catholic cemetery next to Grandma Gewurztraminer, even if you had already bought and paid for the plot and the perpetual care grave package with waterproof coffin included!  If you didn’t like your pastor, it was pay, pray and obey. That or move or join the high Church Anglicans.

People really respected this system. In 1947, my parents moved out of a parish on the south side of Chicago because the pastor was a horrible man. They thought their children would not grow up Catholic under his influence. He was the pastor of Five Holy Tombs, a parish you may have heard about in the book, Last Catholic in America. They moved into a suburban parish after convincing the realtors that — despite my father’s family name and the fact that he was in the retail garment business and the only gentile in his company Morris B. Sachs — they were not Jewish. 

They went to meet Monsignor O’Brien who always stood on the church steps after every Mass. They introduced themselves as new parishioners and started the usual small talk, at which point Monsignor O’Brien broke in and said, “I’m sorry, but I’m not here to chat. I’m only here for parishioners who need to talk to a priest.” 

They nodded and decided to stay. They never regretted it.

Next week: How the dark ages ended in 1972

A reflection on priestly life -- part 3

Letter to Ann T. Clerikuhl continued.

In order to understand the current pickle, we must delve deeply into the culture and religious climate that created the American Catholic parish as it now exists. We must delve deeply into the murky history of the dark ages, a mysterious and distant period called the Dark Ages. This was a benighted and ignorant time in which men married only women and people did not usually kill their children in the womb nor did they have the means to blow up whole cities. 

The Dark Ages begin with the fall of the glittering urban civilization of the Roman Empire, built and sustained by slaves. The Dark Ages lasted until about 1972. For most of that dark and distant period the Mass of the Catholic Church in Europe looked and sounded pretty much the same. By the time of Emperor Charlemagne (800 AD, give or take), Mass was pretty much the same from Bishop’s Ichington England to Dabrow Tarnowska, Poland. 
  
There were two flavors of Catholicism at the time, diocesan and monastic. The monastic flavor was the style of worship cultivated by monks in monasteries. The word “monk” comes from the Greek word “monachos” or “loner.” Monasteries were places where the monks of the 4th and 5th centuries came to be alone together. Being alone without anybody to help you be alone can get very tricky. Monasticism got its start among the Christians in Egypt around 250 AD. It was getting harder and harder to get martyred as a Christian and there were more and more Christians with lower and lower standards, so people would run off to the deserts to get away from the worldly influences that were creeping into the Church. These first Christian hermits would try to draw closer to the Lord and to Christian perfection by living alone in such out of the way places as caves, tombs and the occasional abandoned chicken coop. It didn’t always work. 

My favorite monastic ascetics were the pillar sitters. They would try to escape the corruption of the world by living atop pillars, where those still in the world would gather to gawk at the wonder of such sanctity. The pillar sitters would hurl holy abuse at the reprobates on the ground floor and build higher and higher pillars to remove themselves yet further from this evil world. This would cause more gawkers to assemble in awestruck admiration. Soon it was a matter of the higher the pillar, the holier the hermit. This kind of monasticism carried on in the Eastern Church well into the 12th century. In fact, even now, Fr. Maxim, a monk in the country of Georgia is fixing up a hut on top of Katshki pillar and intends to take up residence when the hut is complete. Happy days are here again! 

This sort of thing largely died out in the West because of a fellow named Benedict of Nursia (around 500 AD). He too, wanted to escape worldly corruption, but managed to do it with other like-minded people for whom he wrote a rule of life, now called the Rule of St. Benedict. It was a brief constitution on how to live the Christian life in a community of people who were withdrawn from the world. They live a shared life, isolated from the outside world, but they had lived under the leadership of an abbot who kept them from going completely squirrely and climbing pillars. Benedict’s motto was “ora et labora.” Pray and work.  In other words, “Get off the #$%!@ pillar and make yourself useful.”  And, boy did they!  They salvaged western culture, preserved the intellectual heritage of antiquity, preserved literacy, developed farming, drained malarial swamps, fed the poor, cared for the sick and developed the liturgy and theology of the Church. Their monasteries were beacons of light in a troubled age. And they brewed beer. It’s all good. There was another flavor of Catholicism: the diocese. 

In the later Roman Empire things were organized into administrative districts called “dioikesis”. The root word of diocese is the Greek word “oikos” or “house.”  Diocese, in ancient Greek meant administration, or household management. Similarly, the word parish comes from the word “oikos.”  “Par-oikia” becomes “parish” in English. So, a parish is,“the (area) around the house”, or the “neighborhood.”

During the 4th and 5th centuries, the persecuted Church slowly became the official Church. It was only natural that the administrative divisions of the Church conform to the structure of local civil society. We still do this. We still identify local churches with civil units such as the Archdiocese of Chicago which is limited geographically to Cook and Lake Counties.

When the barbarians (my people) invaded and conquered the western half of the Roman Empire around from 450 AD, the Roman army and government bureaucracy skedaddled to the east where the empire still stood with its new capital, Constantinople. Bishops and priests in Europe stepped in to take the place of the absent Roman government; things like feeding the poor, judging legal disputes, cleaning out the aqueducts, etc. From that point on things got strange. The government tried to appoint the clergy and the clergy tried to control the government. To be a member of the body politic, it was necessary to be a member of the Church. If a pope or local bishop excommunicated a king or feudal lord, the subjects of that ruler no longer had to pay their taxes, serve in the army or even to obey. In effect, the citizenry would go on strike. It often worked. The rulers dreaded excommunication. The flip side of the coin was that kings and local rulers got very involved in the appointment of clergy. It was great to have a friend or relative on the local episcopal throne who wouldn’t dispute your choice and number of wives or your abuse of the peasants.  

The state and the Church became hopelessly intertwined in Europe. Take, for instance, the Holy Roman Emperor, who was never Roman and rarely holy. He nominally controlled most of Europe. He was elected by 7 electors, four of whom were secular leaders and three of whom were Archbishops! The job of elector was quite a plum. With it came huge bribes and favors from those wanting the job of emperor. It sounds a little like Chicago, no? 

There were reasons to aspire to the episcopacy other than a desire to give your life to Christ. In 1461, there was a shooting war in central Germany, called the Erzstiftsfehde, or “church feud.”  Bishop Diether and Bishop Adolf decided to fight it out as to who would be the Archbishop of Mainz, and hence an imperial elector. The village of my grandmother’s family backed the reformist, Bishop Diether. Bad choice. Bishop Adolf put the town under siege and after three days we ran out of beer and sausage and so we surrendered. There are three cannon balls mounted in the town church wall to commemorate the event. 

That was a time when people took religion seriously! Things were quite a muddle. The clergy could excommunicate the local leader, but on the other hand, bishops were by and large appointed by the local aristocracy after a bit of negotiating with the pope and other local church officials. Parish priests were pretty much appointed by the local squire or landowner without a lot of training, or much of a salary. They might have to farm on the side and maybe charge a little extra for a wedding just to make ends meet. In remote districts and small towns the local pastor might not have a clue what he was saying at Mass, because he couldn’t understand Latin.  

Meanwhile, there were still the monasteries where the clergy were literate and sometimes even devout. The life of the monk was designed to be a rhythm of prayer, study and work. They prayed the Liturgy of the Hours, a collection of psalms and readings that gives a wonderful rhythm to life and faith. Monastic life endures to this day. The parish priest on the other hand buried the dead, baptized the babies, dealt with the local chaos like cheating spouses, feuding neighbors and accusations of witchcraft. In addition they had to squeeze enough money out of the job, the people and the local landlord to keep body and soul together. It is interesting to note that even now monks and nuns tend to live into their 80’s and 90’s. Diocesan (parish) priests tend to drop dead in their 60’s and early 70’s.

Next Week: “the “Benefice”, or “All this can be yours, Father”

A reflection on priestly life -- part one

Dear Rev. Know-it-all,

I will never go to a Catholic bingo game again. My Aunt Morticia was snatched away from us at the tender age of 101 and 8 months. We were overwhelmed by her premature and untimely death.  Aunt Morticia had not attended Mass since the Korean War, but was deeply spiritual and a devout Catholic. She never failed to attend Monday night Bingo at Our Lady of Spain Parish. She felt it her duty to support the church in this way.

In our grief, we called the nearest Catholic Church to arrange a funeral and spoke with Monsignor Fensterslammer.  He was horrible. We informed him that we had planned a wonderful slide show on the life and loves of our Aunt Morticia and wanted to show it in church after communion. (She once dated Xavier Cougat and was rumored to have had a fling with Calvin Coolidge.)  This was to be followed by a bag pipe rendition of “Puttin’ on the Ritz” to which melody her great, great, great niece was going to tap dance in the sanctuary. (It’s the cutest little routine. Morticia loved it. We just knew that the marble floor in the sanctuary would be perfect for tap dancing.)

Despite our grief at the unexpected death of our beloved Aunt Morticia, Monsignor Fensterslammer just said, “Are you out of your minds???”  

I didn’t think this was very pastoral and neither did Bishop Lance Fairweather whom we promptly called to complain. He said Monsignor Fensterslammer would be hearing from him. I hope he gives it to him good.

Yours,

Ann T. Clerikuhl

 Dear Ann,

I commiserate wholeheartedly with your grief. I myself am mourning the loss of a beloved friend, one of the finest priests I have ever known. I miss him greatly, because, among other things, he always counseled me to restraint and tolerance. Now that he is gone and no longer able to restrain my baser instincts, I would like to address your question in the context of a long treatise on the priestly life in our times, at least my priestly life in our times. He always told me it would be unwise to do this, but he ain’t here, so here it goes.

First, allow me to say that I have no regrets about having spent my life as a priest. As I see life’s little conveyor belt chugging along and the people just ahead of me dropping into the great beyond like widgets off an assembly line, I have no regrets about having said “Yes” to the Lord’s call to the altar, no matter which way the altar happens to be facing at the moment. I whine a lot, but I come from a long line of world class whiners who thought that complaining was an Olympic event. 

I remember complaining to another whiny descendant of the Germans. He looked square at me and said, “Yeah, but you get to say Mass.”  He was absolutely right. I get to say Mass. To hold bread in one’s hands as it becomes the flesh and blood of the Messiah is an amazing privilege. It is not the priesthood I am complaining about. It is the non-priesthood I am complaining about. And my parish — my parishioners are wonderful. They far exceed me in holiness and generosity. I am not complaining about the parish. It is the non-parish I am unhappy with. 

Non-priesthood? Non-parish?  The non-priesthood and the non-parish are things like the pet “parent” calling and asking for a wedding ceremony for their two dachshunds.  We wouldn’t want them to live in sin now, would we?  Or the person who comes looking for a gallon jug of holy water because some psychic told them they have to paint their children’s bedroom with the stuff.  I just love it when the TV psychics tell people that because their house is built over an ancient Indian graveyard, they have to get a Catholic priest to do an exorcism while a shaman blesses the house with burning sage.  Then the TV pans to some priest, supposedly “Catholic”, doing a scene right out of the “Exorcist”. 

“Get the yellow pages, Junior. That’s just what we need to get Pa’ to stop drinkin’! They got to have discount exorcists in the Catholic Church. After all, don’t all them priests take vows of poverty?” 

I may be exaggerating, but I am not making any of this stuff up. I have been asked to do the strangest things for animals and to cast the devil out of the darnedest places. People seem to get most of their religion and all of their history from the television and having seen a show on the discovery channel, they assume that they know how this stuff is supposed to work.  Catholicism is a coherent and reasonable way of life. As such it is not well suited for present day America. 

I think that the priesthood, especially the diocesan priesthood is in crisis. Our understanding of the priesthood and the parish comes from Middle Eastern and European village life a thousand years ago. The expectations we have of priests and churches are created by television and the popular (lack of) culture. Most of the pundits of modern culture, the geniuses of the media, have not darkened the door of a church or synagogue since Jesus was a boy, yet they create an outdated expectation for the Church that the faithful, the unfaithful and, amazingly the clergy swallow hook, line and sinker.

The faithful and the unfaithful can be forgiven for their ignorance. After all, if it’s on TV it must be true. But the clergy? The clergy of our times constantly talk about “being pastoral.”  This is new-speak for wanting to be liked because if we are not liked, people will leave the Church and that would be horrible wouldn’t it?  Jesus was always nice to people, especially small children and large dogs. He was so nice that they crucified Him.

The geniuses of the media are about as deep as a puddle.  Allow me to recount an incident from my own life. When the movie “The Exorcist” was re-released about 15 years ago, the mid-level officials of the diocese went into panic mode. They had no exorcists because they fervently hoped that no one actually believed in that stuff anymore. The mid-level officials certainly didn’t. They realized that they were going to be deluged with calls from people whose children’s heads were spinning around 360 degrees as they levitated over the furniture. Worse than possessed children, they were going to get calls from journalists looking for a slow news day scoop. The mid-level diocesan officials summoned all the priests who were involved with the charismatic renewal, the only ones who still believed all that mumbo jumbo, and told them to brace themselves.  Having some fluency in the Spanish language, I was assigned to all Spanish speaking demons and the journalists who accompanied them.

Sure enough, it was not long before I got a call from the chancery asking me to come down to the chancery for an interview with some network called Telepsycho, or Mundobizarro or something like that.  I then got another call telling me they would come up to my parish because they wanted some place that looked more, well, religious than an office downtown.  That afternoon I got a call from my secretary to come downstairs. The Telepsycho Mundobizarro people had set up for the interview in church. I walked over and the place had been backlit in smoky purple light that made it seem like a cheap fortune teller’s storefront. They wanted to put a light on me that made me look a little like Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. I said “Kill the lights or no interview.”  They grudgingly did so, but it was clear that they were looking for a story and not for the truth. If you see it on TV, it’s probably a lie, especially if it’s on the news.

Next week: More of a harangue that will go on indefinitely.