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Why do we have priests? It seems a
question too obvious for a Catholic to
ask. But we have a problem. Perhaps, a
generation after Vatican II, we are moving
into a new era for the Church,
entering an “age of the laity.” Our bishops’
new guidelines on lay ecclesial
ministry, “Co-workers in the Vineyard
of the Lord,” a sign of that.
Yet a critical shortage of priests is
upon us, even as, in this country at
least, we are not declining in number of
parishes. Consider recent reports by
the Center for Applied Research in the
Apostolate (CARA) and the Gallup Poll.
There were 16,751 Catholic parishes
in our country in 1965. By 2005 that
number had grown to 18,891. On the
other hand, there were only 549
parishes without a resident priest in
1965. By 2005 the number of U.S.
priestless parishes had grown by nearly
six times to 3,251.
There has been a steady decrease in
Mass attendance since the 1960s, say
both polling organizations. That tells us
that, though we are experiencing a
change in the big picture, the scandals
during recent years of priestly sex abuse
and mismanagement of the cases
haven’t caused any large exodus of the
faithful.
Gallup notes that the yearly average
percentage of U.S. adult Catholics who
say they attended Mass in the last seven
days (not necessarily every week)
decreased from 67 percent in 1965 to
45 percent in 2004. Yet CARA found
that regular weekly Mass attendance
declined only slightly from 2000 to
2005, from 34 percent to 33 percent.
So, 40 years after Vatican II, we find
ourselves with more parishes, six times
more priestless parishes, and smaller
but apparently stable Mass attendance.
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It’s a thorny problem. In an era of identity
quest, it seems that our Church is
struggling to understand why it has
priests. Otherwise, wouldn’t the seminaries
be bursting with candidates?
One theory might be that Catholics
don’t like priests. But go to most any
parish and you’ll see otherwise. Most of
us Catholics love our priests. At the
mid-November bishops’ meeting, there
was a 40-second standing ovation for
priests. Why?
Personalities and Church politics
aside, Catholics love the Eucharist, the
promise of Jesus to be with us for all
time, especially in the celebration of the
Lord’s Supper. And the priest’s most
fundamental role is to lead the celebration
of that great sacrament, as our
theology says, in persona Christi, “in
the person of Christ.”
Now Jesus left us with seven sacraments,
and our priests are intimately
tied, in various ways, to the other six as
well. But the Church from its earliest
days has recognized what Vatican
Council II declared again 40 years ago: “The Eucharist is the ‘source and summit’
of the life and mission of the
Catholic Church.”
Fundamentally, we have priests because
Jesus gave us the Eucharist. And
fundamentally, we have the Eucharist
because Jesus is alive and with us, loving
us, shaping us, calling us to grow
and to conform to his Way of Love.
No Answer Here?
That’s why Pope John Paul II called for
a Year of the Eucharist, concluded last
October under the new Pope Benedict
XVI’s leadership, by a World Synod on
the Eucharist.
At that synod, representatives of the
world’s bishops gathered for three
weeks to pray together and to share
views on the Eucharist. Many Catholics
wondered if, at that gathering, under
the guidance of a new pope, the bishops
might consider the worldwide
shortage of priests and look toward
allowing married men to become
ordained in the Latin Church, as they
are in Eastern Catholic Churches.
Those who hoped for anything new
were disappointed. Frankly, the bishops
didn’t realistically face the gravity of
our priest shortage.
“Very few would have called for a
married clergy,” said USCCB President
Bishop William Skylstad, though the
bishops wished and prayed for better
liturgies and stronger preaching.
Yet Bishop Denis Browne of Hamilton,
New Zealand, president Oceania’s
bishops’ conferences federation, told
the synod: “We, as Church, need to be
continually open to finding ways in
which the Eucharist can become easily
available to all our faithful people,”
and stated that isolated rural people,
too, have a right to the Eucharist.
Cardinal Claudio Hummes, O.F.M.,
of Sao Paulo, Brazil, decried his inability
to counter evangelization by Pentecostal
Churches, with their multiplicity
of married ministers, without more
priests: “We wonder with anxiety, how
long will Brazil be a Catholic country?”
How long, indeed, will our Church
insist there isn’t a real possibility that
the Holy Spirit is calling us toward
ordaining married men? In addition
to Eastern married priests, the Roman
Catholic Church even allows married
priests in the cases of married ministers
who convert to Catholicism. The sky
hasn’t fallen yet!
Eucharist is Key
We’re living in an in-between moment.
We’re in between what the Spirit called
our Church to become at Vatican II
and our realization of what that really
means.
While our priesthood languishes we
are developing a new understanding of
what it means to be lay Catholics. But
we trust also that the Spirit is calling us
toward a strong priesthood to maintain
our eucharistic spirituality. Let’s pray
for a win-win.—J.F. |
