Life in the Local Parish

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Greetings in Christ.

I am curious, how a faithful and traditional Roman Catholic, deals with a diversity of teaching and practice within a local diocese. I have dear friends of a very traditional Roman Catholic faith and piety, in our area, who struggle with which local congregation to attend for daily or weekly Mass. It seems they must “shop” around quite a bit, looking for a priest who preaches and teaches faithfully according to his vows toward the Roman teaching authority.

I see this in Lutheran circles quite often, with many congregations in a local area, all with the name “Lutheran” on their shingle, many of which teach and practice differently (everything from rank heresy, to destruction of the historic liturgy of the Mass.) Faithful Lutheran Christians are often prompted to seek out congregations that actually preach, teach, practice and confess, according to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, which are our doctrinal standards.

Are Roman Catholic Christians stuck in this same kind of mess? Even with the benefit of a more centralized teaching office, how do traditional Roman Catholic Christians deal with life in a diocese where some congregations/priests are faithful, and others seem to be off the proverbial reservation? From the outside, it almost appears as if there are “communions within communions” in the Roman Catholic diocese in which I live.

I do submit this humbly, and look forward to your insights. Grace and peace.
 
WorkerPriest: Most of the issues with priests are certain pecularities one has from another.Or a misunderstanding of what the priest is accually saying.Many Catholics have a very firm stance on certain points and feel offended if anyone deviates even in the slightest from their view.That’s why they don’t leave the Church but merely find another more compatible with their view.I look at it as more of a human nature flaw .Even priests can differ minutely on certain passages of scripture and not disagree with a fundamental idea which is trying to be explained.
 
That’s a great question.

I’m a revert and have only been attending at one parish and it just so happens that this 5 year period has also been a transition period for our priests.

Our last priest served 10 years at our parish and he was replaced by a veteran priest (served 20 years already) from our same state. In addition, we have had 2 associate priests from seminary.

This is so odd, but our parish has restarted Stations of the Cross on Friday during Lent after a 10 year absence (the out going priest didn’t have them). 🤷 The incoming priest had them but didn’t celebrate them (a lay person recited them). Finally, this year our associate priest (1st year out of seminary) is leading the Stations.

What’s more Catholic than Stations of the Cross, and a priest decides not to have them?
 
While I wouldn’t deny that there are some problems within the church with questionable teaching even among our priests, I tend to agree with valentino that a lot of this probably deals with style, but even more it probably relates to ones specific spirituality within the broad range of Catholic thought.
Someone in another thread said something I liked a lot… They refered to “Guardrails”…and that is what many church teachings are. Within these guardrails lie a whole range of styles of spirituality.
The Church contains everything from staunch “Charismatics” to staunch “Traditionalists”. Most Catholics lie somewhere in the middle and tend to “go with the flow” of whatever preist is assigned to them. The more “staunch” might choose to move around to match themselves with a particular pastor…
And of course there is the occasional “bad apple” - a priest who teaches things against Church teaching.

Now - the above is speaking in generalities, and in all fairness, it should be noted that some diocese are infected to a greater extent with actual abuse than other diocese. It’s possible that your friends find themselves in such a diocese. Or it could be that they just have a fairly strong and specific view and wish to seek a parish/priest that fits best to where they are spiritually.

So - in short - such “shopping” is not a problem, assuming that they are staying within the guardrails provided by Holy Mother Church.

Peace
James
 
In my territorial parish the teaching is the same as was fifty years ago, so is in the parish what I attend for the reverent Masses. Sin, hell, necessity of confession, obedience to the magisterium is mentioned in both with sufficient emphasis.

The problem is with the liturgical practices, in the territorial parish the emphasis is on the people, in the other the emphasis of the liturgy center around God.
 
WorkerPriest said:
Greetings in Christ.

I am curious, how a faithful and traditional Roman Catholic, deals with a diversity of teaching and practice within a local diocese. I have dear friends of a very traditional Roman Catholic faith and piety, in our area, who struggle with which local congregation to attend for daily or weekly Mass. It seems they must “shop” around quite a bit, looking for a priest who preaches and teaches faithfully according to his vows toward the Roman teaching authority.

I see this in Lutheran circles quite often, with many congregations in a local area, all with the name “Lutheran” on their shingle, many of which teach and practice differently (everything from rank heresy, to destruction of the historic liturgy of the Mass.) Faithful Lutheran Christians are often prompted to seek out congregations that actually preach, teach, practice and confess, according to the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, which are our doctrinal standards.

Are Roman Catholic Christians stuck in this same kind of mess? Even with the benefit of a more centralized teaching office, how do traditional Roman Catholic Christians deal with life in a diocese where some congregations/priests are faithful, and others seem to be off the proverbial reservation? From the outside, it almost appears as if there are “communions within communions” in the Roman Catholic diocese in which I live.

I do submit this humbly, and look forward to your insights. Grace and peace.
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People either shop around or attend a specifically traditional Catholic parish, such as one associated with the FSSP (Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter) or SSPX (Society of St. Pius X). Most parishes that celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass are also doctrinally solid and aren’t afraid to preach on the “hard issues” and to promote traditional devotions.

Some traditionalists become all obsessed with reading about all the problems in the Church, we don’t want to be ignorant or have our head in the sand and not be concerned about it, but we also shouldn’t be obsessed. I just try to ignore the crisis in the Church as much as possible, constantly reading horror stories about liturgical abuse and heretical priests doesn’t do any good and it’s time that you could have spent praying for the Church.
 
The problem doesn’t seem to loom much in my country.
There was a priest in my city who became quite radical and it was a national story, however, in general, our priests seem to be fair dinkum* about Church teachings and procedures, and the people seem to generally be happy and settled in their parishes.
A priest may have some questions in private, as I’'ve known, but in their pastoral work and preaching they seem to be respectful of unity and peace in their parishes, in a general spirit of obedience…and Aussies are probably more relaxed in nature, culturally, (I don’t mean “lax”) than some nationalities may be.
There will always be each end of the spectrum, anywhere, of course, and there may be pockets of folk at either end of the spectrum.
  • Australian slang for ‘true’, ‘genuine’ I generally avoid slang but have to use our iconic slang at least once in this forum.
 
I have a question that I believe fits in this thread and I hope someone could answer or direct me. Am I allowed to join a Catholic Parish outside of my geographical territory? It would be in the same Diocese but not the church that is nearest my home zip code. Does anyone know if that is allowed?
 
suzymckwel said:
I have a question that I believe fits in this thread and I hope someone could answer or direct me. Am I allowed to join a Catholic Parish outside of my geographical territory? It would be in the same Diocese but not the church that is nearest my home zip code. Does anyone know if that is allowed?
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If, by “join” you simply mean “attend always”, then yes it is allowed and you never have to set foot in your territorial parish.

If, by “join” you mean actually officially transfer your parish affiliation, so that the pastor of your territorial parish is not your lawful pastor, and the pastor of your chosen parish is your lawful pastor, then in most dioceses that is also possible. Ask about it at the church office, or just ask the pastor of your chosen parish, if it is small.
 
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