Armchair Priests

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Yep! Lots of people want to be Pope, but not so many want to be priests. —KCT

It is not about wanting to be Pope. Its more that people want to follow the Pope. Unfortunately—there are priests and bishops that make this difficult—because they do not have allegiance to the Pope.
 
Yes, I agree. This point has been very enlightening for me. When I looked down the list of topics in the Liturgy category, all I saw was whining and complaining. It seemed so trivial compared to the abuse alegations that my parish will hear about from our bishop tomorrow. Our Father hand holding, EMHCs, altar girls, etc., etc., are nothing. Now, I can understand how it might be important to some people when that is the worst going on in their world.
Well, if you are looking in the Liturgy forum, you are going to find more posts about Liturgical abuses than any other form of abuse. There are plenty of threads in the other forums (Catholic news and spirituality mostly, I think) about the child abuse issues.

The other thing is that the priest sexual abuse crisis only involved a few priests and relatively few parishes. Most of us have never known a priest who was accused, let alone was guilty of abuse of a child. I submit that almost all of us have, at one time or another, been to a Mass that could definately fall into the realm of Liturgical abuse. We have “been there” and can sympathize and vent legitimately.

Redemptionis Sacramentum also gave the lay the duty and the means to be heard when we are subject to Liturgical abuse. We don’t have that right (and shouldn’t in private matters) with regard to allegations against our priests.

It would be wrong to equate the severity of a problem with the number of posts in a public forum.
 
Yep! Lots of people want to be Pope, but not so many want to be priests. —KCT
No, because the Pope corrects with his own authority. We can only use the documents that the Pope has issued, such as Canon Law, the GIRM and those to whom the Pope has delegated legislative authority, such as the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

And we MUST do so, for the Pope himself has commanded us to do so.

Redemptionis Sacramentum
[183.] In an altogether particular manner, let everyone do all that is in their power to ensure that the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist will be protected from any and every irreverence or distortion and that all abuses be thoroughly corrected. This is a most serious duty incumbent upon each and every one, and all are bound to carry it out without any favouritism.
So it isn’t enough to say that “Oh well, that is not much of an abuse, the Church has more to worry about”

The Pope commanded us to be do all that is in our power to correct any and every irreverence.

That seems pretty clear to me.
 
It is not the first time it’s happened. We’ve heard we should never model our lives on other Catholics, even saints, but it’s OK to take up the lifestyle of Ghandi, a real Christian.
:eek::eek::eek::eek:

St. Michael the Archangel
Defend us in Battle
Be our safeguard against the wickedness
And snares of the Devil
May God rebuke him
We humbly pray
And do Thou, oh Prince of the Heavenly Host
By the Power of God
Cast into Hell, Satan
And all the evil spirits
Who prowl about the world
(and have worked their way into OutinChgoburbs’ parish)
Seeking the ruin of souls.
Amen.
 
It would be wrong to equate the severity of a problem with the number of posts in a public forum.
I never implied such.

With the state of affairs at my parish in mind when I looked at the usual numerous thread complaining about at priest doing or not doing this or that just hit me real wrong. To be honest, the whining has been bothering me for quite some time.

The day I started this thread, several people were whining about churches they had only visited once. Give me a break. Everytime I visit a strange church and they do things differently, I wonder if the differences are right or wrong. It doesn’t occur to me to come here and point fingers at the priest I’ve only seen once or write to his bishop, but to appreciate the priests at my parish.

I have become much less critical since becoming Catholic. :confused:
 
So, yes, in that instance, I *will *play “armchair priest” and say something. Not that I’m angry with Leah for asking.🙂 Right now, I’m just very frustrated.
I have no trouble with you wanting to play “armchair priest” now that I understand why. It makes me appreciate the wonderfully orthodox priests I have. There are three Catholic churches within three miles on the same street of which one is mine. I wouldn’t think twice about making a left turn instead of a right turn on the way to church if I weren’t happy.
 
Everytime I visit a strange church and they do things differently, I wonder if the differences are right or wrong.
Well, that’s part of why people are playing “armchair priests”. There shouldn’t be so many differences between NO Masses in the Latin Rite that a Catholic has to wonder whether they’re right or wrong. And what does it say about the state of the liturgy today if someone assumes that what may be a legitimate difference is actually an abuse?
 
Well, that’s part of why people are playing “armchair priests”. There shouldn’t be so many differences between NO Masses in the Latin Rite that a Catholic has to wonder whether they’re right or wrong. And what does it say about the state of the liturgy today if someone assumes that what may be a legitimate difference is actually an abuse?
Okay, here’s one for you. At the last church I attended other than my own, a lay person (most likely the scristan) distributed the communion waffers into the individual ciboriums for distribution prior to consecration. At my church, the priest does it. Which is right?
 
I have no trouble with you wanting to play “armchair priest” now that I understand why. It makes me appreciate the wonderfully orthodox priests I have. There are three Catholic churches within three miles on the same street of which one is mine. I wouldn’t think twice about making a left turn instead of a right turn on the way to church if I weren’t happy.
Unfortunately, the church itself is run by the priest and a bunch of less-than-stellar committees; but the school and religious ed. program are run by two of the most orthodox women I’ve ever met! Neither one of them isn’t afraid to look a committee in the eye and say, “That’s not GIRM” or tell Father that Philip and Liz Berrigan are not considered examples of good Catholics (Another group of Father’s current favs).

In order to keep my grandchildren in the school, our envelope has to show up in the collection basket on a regular basis.

Believe me, at least once a month, we find an excuse to go to an early Mass down the road where the priest is holy, orthodox, and yet very down-to-earth (and even the early morning Mass is full up in the pews).
 
Hello:

If you are Catholic and well informed you should know everything about how to celebrate the mass. When my son became an alter boy at 6 he knew the entire order and words of the mass within 6 weeks.

The mass is suppose to be about devotion to God and how best to serve him.

However, when a priest gives a homily that says that when a priest is a sexual abuser or a priest is an alchololic the persons responsible for those things are the lay people and the abused person, not the priest. That then makes me wonder what is going on in the Catholic Church?

God isn’t being worshipped in places where abuses take place, we need to question what the priests are doing and make them stop, unitl things change the church will just get smaller and smaller.

scared
 
Okay, here’s one for you. At the last church I attended other than my own, a lay person (most likely the scristan) distributed the communion waffers into the individual ciboriums for distribution prior to consecration. At my church, the priest does it. Which is right?
One of the sacristan duties is to prepare the “host” and wine prior to the start of the Mass. They are just that - host or bread and wine. Once they are received by the priest during the Offertory, The priest, deacon or instituted acolyte are the only one’s to touch them prior to communion.
 
Scylla,

Thank you for a serious answer.

I’m curious. There seems to be so much criticism of priests who have dedicated the lives to God by lay people. Of those lay people who are male, why didn’t they join the priesthood?
Probably because of all the complainers. 😛

I wonder how many Vocations are lost when a young man reads those threads and decides he doesn’t need to go into a field of endeavor where the lay people will think they know more than he does, and where it will be automatically assumed that he is a congenital idiot.
 
Probably because of all the complainers. 😛

I wonder how many Vocations are lost when a young man reads those threads and decides he doesn’t need to go into a field of endeavor where the lay people will think they know more than he does, and where it will be automatically assumed that he is a congenital idiot.
I have found that many people have no clue about CAF and never read it. I don’t think we have that much power.

Why not ask some of our posters who are becoming priests? Or priests already. They may be able to add something here.
 
How is it that so many people on this forum know so much more about celebrating Mass than 99.9% of the bishops and parish priests in the United States?
In the spirit of Christian charity, is this a serious question or just a need to start a thread or participate in a discussion? People ask their questions for the same reason you posted your question. They think! They know! Or they think they know; however, confirmation is very important to them. Have you noticed how many posts have actually provided the correct Canon Law, General Instruction of the Roman Missal or Redemptionis Sacramentum?
 
Probably because of all the complainers. 😛

I wonder how many Vocations are lost when a young man reads those threads and decides he doesn’t need to go into a field of endeavor where the lay people will think they know more than he does, and where it will be automatically assumed that he is a congenital idiot.
Just an opinion, but any persom who is weak enough in his convictions to let the discussions on this forum or any other sway his opinion, doesn’t have much of a vocation anyway.
 
How is it that so many people on this forum know so much more about celebrating Mass than 99.9% of the bishops and parish priests in the United States?

They probably bury themselves in copies of:​

  • Fortescue & O’Donnell (for what to do at the Old Mass)
  • Slater, Prummer, Grisez or Jone (for Moral Theology)
  • Ott, Tanquerey or Wilhelm & Scannell (for Dogmatics)
  • the GIRM (for the revised Missal)
  • the Tridentine, Baltimore or Penny Catechisms or the CCC (for catechisms)
    or else devour the publications of TAN Books, the Sophia Press, or Ignatius Press; especially anything by -
  • Card. Ratzinger (aka Benedict XVI)
  • Dietrich von Hildebrand
  • Scott Hahn
  • G. K. Chesterton
  • Joseph Pieper
  • St. Thomas Aquinas
    but probably nothing by -
  • Karl Rahner
  • Hans Urs von Balthasar
  • Henri de Lubac
  • Jacques Maritain
  • Louis Bouyer
  • Carlo-Maria Martini
  • Friedrich von Huegel
  • Henri Bremond
    for example. I’m guessing there has been a shift from reading authors of French extraction, to reading Teutons or Germans; though this may well be utterly mistaken. 🙂
One very noticeable change is in the modern tendency to criticise the clergy - this (to judge from older books) was severely frowned on not so long ago. Not now - the taboo seems to have evaporated…

It seems to be no bad thing for one to be well-informed about these things; as long as it doesn’t turn the laity into (so to speak) unordained clerics. It would be disastrous for the laity to try “keeping tabs” on the clergy - equally, the clergy shouldn’t need that. The/a solution ? Proper formation of the clergy, as provided for by Vatican II - with any changes that experience has shown to be necessary since then. It’s not as though there were a great deal of Roman material on the subject - there is. Perhaps even too much; bishops can’t be expected to be bishops properly, if they have to devour hundreds of pages of post-synodal documents. But so far, it looks as though this Pope will be less wordy than his predecessor. ISTM that a lot of problems have to do with that one thing: formation. That, & bureaucracy/paper-work. Anyone with a solution to that, should definitely be advising the Pope ##
 
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