Fr. Heilman: The Depth of My Anger of Decades of Effete Bishops

[graciew]

But yes, there is some limitation to what priests can say from the pulpit on this particular issue because of its lurid nature.

Agree.
And thank you…

 

[Kathleen18]

That was not said with charity. A person can still be stunned by what has been going on.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I’m inclined to think this priest is mostly right, but not totally. I understand about the uncle who apparently became estranged from him. And I do understand his problem with some of the “modernizations” that often seem more like “modernism”. But it seems his main complaint is about what he perceives as weakness in too many bishops. The moral authority and backbone to assert it wasn’t there. I think there have been some very strong bishops, and the vocations in their dioceses seem to reflect that. But I also think there have been some very weak ones who seemed to just let things go as they might and let the world rule them and those who depend on them.

There is no doubt in my mind that some of the corruption in the seminaries was every bit as bad as some think of it. I have had priests tell me that, so I believe it. But I do think that’s clearing up.

I wholeheartedly believe the faithful ought to be every bit as upset as the original poster seems to be. And I think the last thing we should be about it is blasé.

I think the bishops who are going to eventually succeed the weak ones will have a very tough job ahead of them, and they’ll have enemies within who will undercut them at every turn. How do they put it? “The fish rots from the head down”? I think some of the chanceries could use some real reform.

Now, I truly don’t mean to offend. Hope I don’t get flagged. I do get impatient with the “social justice” emphasis that seems so pervasive among the older priests and religious. That’s all fine, and we ought to be charitable to the point of pain (“give from our need”). But if we don’t develop in ourselves a strong moral sense as an individual, we’re not going to be charitable either. The moral development of the individual comes first. And that starts very early in life.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Perhaps I should add that for a long time the bishops in the u.S. essentially selected each other. There was a Vatican commission but it pretty much did what a commission of the U.S.bishops suggested. So there were some elements of a “network” to it. I think Pope Benedict changed that. But I don’t know how it has gone since then.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I do not believe Communism was needed to do this. A celibate life-style by its very nature tends to filter out heterosexuals in favour of homosexuals

I don’t see how this could be true. Homosexuals are no less subject to sexual attraction than are heterosexuals.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Perhaps not. I’ll stipulate that I likely didn’t.

But neither do I see how a celibate lifestyle would filter out heterosexuals in favor of homosexuals UNLESS the environment was a homosexual culture. THEN I could see it.

 

[PetraG]

I don’t see how this could be true. Homosexuals are no less subject to sexual attraction than are heterosexuals.

I take him to mean that, among the faithful who intend to remain virtuous, there is another state in life that is attractive to heterosexuals but would deter those with deep-seated homosexual inclinations. In other words, a good man who had no attraction for women would hesitate to lead a woman to marry him, no matter how much he might want to be a father. Among faithful men, then, fewer of the original number of men attracted to women would be left to consider the priesthood or consecrated life instead of remaining single, compared to men who not only are not attracted to women but who are attracted to men.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

What does your priest brother say on the matter, just out of curiosity?

Also, how do you explain the many good men who managed in the past, and manage today, to be good, even holy, priests without breaking their vows? Surely they all couldn’t have had repressed deviant sexualities.

I know that some of them who were doing mission work or riding around the wilderness of the states around here back when they were a wilderness, likely weren’t living the kind of life conducive to a man trying to look after a wife and children; nor was their life all that much different from a lot of other solitary men in harsh, non-family-oriented parts of the country/ world.

 

[anon64350612]

The next class of problems is the jokey bishop.

Yes. This is a big problem. Let’s bring back reverence to the Holy Mass. I prefer not to discuss specifics, but I have seen lots of this.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Eh, I think there actually are some people who are okay with, or learn to be okay with, living a solitary and celibate life, not out of any repression, perversion or abnormality, but because they simply chose it, and their drives aren’t that strong to begin with.

What percentage of them make up the seminary population (and religious order population) as opposed to other people with “problems”, I do not know, but there are some people who just are not that moved by the idea of sex, at least when they get past their teens and 20s, and society always wants to say they have an illness, a problem, a repression, etc. when it can simply be a matter of other things taking priority.

 

[PetraG]

A call to power and leadership in society on condition of perpetual celibacy (and no return to the world) is not natural, normal or healthy for most men starting at a tender age …not even for the best of men.

So why would someone enter into that way of life in the first place?
And what sorts of males would “naturally” find that way of life attractive and easier compared to other noble walks of life and service…which involves female companionship and emotional intimacy, sex, kids and cohabitation for the vast majority.

Your turn…

I don’t think most boys considering the priesthood are looking for the power of it. Boys do not see their pastors throwing their weight around. They don’t see a lack of intimacy, because sex isn’t on their radar yet. They see how much their fellow parishioners love their pastor and how much he loves them. They see how truly their pastor is a father. They see how he–as they might themselves do even from a tender age–loves the Lord and looks to the Lord for how to live his life.

In other words, the reason that most boys want to be priests is that they see a really good and holy one and they say to themselves, “I want to be like him.” Some even hear from God, “Yes, you. I choose you to be like him…that is, that is how I call you to be like Me. Follow Me.”

It isn’t natural. It is supernatural. That’s what a vocation is. That’s what every call to holiness is. (How else do you explain those fishermen leaving their nets like they did, or being willing to die as they were? You can’t.)

This passage of Luke depicts how Our Lord was as a vocations director:
As they were proceeding on their journey someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.”
Jesus answered him, “Foxes have dens and birds of the sky have nests,
but the Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.”
And to another he said, “Follow me.”
But he replied, “Let me go first and bury my father.”
But he answered him, “Let the dead bury their dead.
But you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
And another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but first let me say farewell to my family at home.”
To him, Jesus said, “No one who sets a hand to the plow and
looks to what was left behind is fit for the kingdom of God.
Luke 9:57-62

 

[PetraG]

Have you ever talked intimately with a boy-man who actually became a priest over a period of 40 years about what led him to the seminary, and better still, what led him to stay or go?

No, I’ve listened to priests who gave vocations talks about how they felt called to become priests. It had nothing to do with power and authority. It had to do with loving people. I think the ones who want to have authority or to get up in the important clothes aren’t usually the ones who make it.

One of my closest childhood friends became a Jesuit after a career. It was about loving the Lord–just throwing off everything and going all in. That was the attraction.

 

[gracepoole]

They don’t see a lack of intimacy, because sex isn’t on their radar yet.

 

[PetraG]

That’s what I thought.

As I amended my post…I do have a friend I have known since, well, since we were born, who is a priest. This is what he says.

 

[PetraG]

When my own boys were very small, they asked if the two priests in our parish were married, because they were always together.

When I was growing up, my pastor said when he was a younger man he felt both a call to be a priest and an attraction to marry his girlfriend and have children. He prayed, “Lord, if you want me to be a priest, you’ll have to do something about this girl.” He said “She joined the convent…that was my answer. Of course, she didn’t stay, but that was my answer.” He said he felt like he was a father of hundreds.

 

[PetraG]

I simply meant that is the nature of the role one is forced into…I didn’t say it was desired, or not, initially.

That is the nature of parenthood, too, as it turns out.

 

[gracepoole]

gracepoole:

When my own boys were very small, they asked if the two priests in our parish were married, because they were always together.

When I was growing up, my pastor said when he was a younger man he felt both a call to be a priest and an attraction to marry his girlfriend and have children. He prayed, “Lord, if you want me to be a priest, you’ll have to do something about this girl.” He said “She joined the convent…that was my answer. Of course, she didn’t stay, but that was my answer.” He said he felt like he was a father of hundreds.

I’m afraid I don’t understand. Are you basing your conclusion that “sex isn’t on their radar yet” on these examples? I ask because there are a ludicrous number of examples that can be used to suggest the opposite…

 

[PetraG]

Indeed, there is so much innocence in this observation I couldn’t even begin to respond!
And even if sex isn’t on the radar intimacy certainly is - this is where it is being formed and could become crystallised in any number of visible directions…not all of them healthy or mature - for life.

The question was “what sorts of males would “naturally” find that way of life attractive and easier compared to other noble walks of life and service,” and I was talking about the first promptings that some (not all) men say they had to first consider the priesthood.

Boys and young men who consider the priesthood tend to be really big-hearted guys. The first time the idea occurs to them, they are sometimes too young to have sex on their radar. Sorry, but that age does exist for quite awhile after a boy learns to talk.

I was NOT saying that the consideration of what they’re giving up never crosses their minds! I was saying that it isn’t as if the priesthood doesn’t present a unique call in its own right.

Honestly, the way you people talk, it is a wonder you can believe that mere friars, monks and religious sisters exist at all. Do you not believe the evangelical counsels have any draw to a mature Catholic sensibility at all?

 

[kainosktisis]

My mom, who is in her 70’s, refuses to believe that this kind of thing was happening when she was young.

Sexual abuse happens across ethnic, religious, and socioeconomic boundaries. Consider that even in the House of David, Tamar was raped. Dinah, the daughter or Jacob, was raped. This isn’t something new in the history of mankind nor of the Scriptures. What is BAD though is that the dysfunction & silence under which these kinds of things can happen are happening in the household of God. THAT is INTOLerable. It should not be. Denial of its reality will only serve to perpetuate it. So that must be excised immediately. The truth will set us free.

So CAF. Was it? Has this been going on for far longer that we want to admit?

Only God knows. However long it’s been hiding & festering, it needs to be cut out. It does not belong in the Household of God.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Good grief, of course it was going on, just like all the other rots and ills and evils that people do, since the beginning of time.

There are stories on bishop-accountability going back to the 1940s…and you can bet it was around before that as well but nobody left written records.

The post-Vatican II generation didn’t invent sin.