I am a college professor, so I think I understand some of the frustration a priest can have in this area. You simply cannot replace a fully interpersonal relationship as between friends with an authoritative one such as a priest with the congregation or to a different extent a professor with his/her student.
I enjoy working with my students and I have solid relationships with many of them, but the simple truth is that as much as I enjoy it, it is also very draining. You simply cannot treat those students or parishioners the same way as you do a close friend. Leadership often involves being strong even when you feel weak. It means service that goes unappreciated because the focus is rightly not on the leaders but on those they serve. It also means that you cannot talk about matters that are close to your heart but unrelated to your job and possibly controversial. I don’t see how a parish priest can talk to parishioners about politics (that is not directly related to the church) for instance.
But a parish priest has it much worse, because they are alone. Only the lucky few have colleagues such as other priests or religious in their parish. Just as bad, priests are innately outsiders to the parish they serve. All parishes have a good portion of their tradition held by the laity, in particular prominent people and families, who have been in that parish for long before the priest becomes the pastor and will still be there long after he has left.
Which brings us, finally, back on topic. The laity do have a grave responsibility to preserve the Church and her traditions. We are drastically needed to hold a parish together and to provide almost all of the teaching of the next generation. It is a fearsome responsibility and to those of us who have tried to take it up as religious education teachers or as parents it is a responsibility that comes with almost no help from the priest or Bishops. (I would be interested to know how many RE teachers out there have the same experience as me, with priests that have virtually no participation in the RE other than to complain about something being wrong and with having to teach with no formal training or guidance about what a student is suppose to know at a given level.)
Basically, the Pope once again is giving us an ‘unfunded mandate’. It is great that he is acknowledging our responsibility; now he and the Bishops need to give us the resources to fulfill it.
I agree with much about what you are saying about a deep relationship with an authority figure can cause issues, but we still need to realize they need friendship as much as others.
On another note.
Your last statement confused however, why does evangelization need funding?
I might not know a lot, being only 21, but isn’t all he calling us to do is be faithful and preserve the tradition. Growing up Protestant, and living with a United Methodist Church I realized what has been the undoing of my Church, and what has hit the Catholic Church the hardest also,
not keeping the tradition sacred.
You might think it’s something else, but let me tell you it’s exactly what it is.
My generation and the generations that are younger than me are LOST. Horribly lost, and they are starting to cling unto false philosophies, lies of the past, and NOT the holy sacred tradition of the Church. We forgotten it.
So what is Pope Benedict asking us to do? Keep to the tradition, teach it to our children with the resources that have ALWAYS been provided to us, the Catechism of the Catholic Church, prayer, Encyclicals of the Popes, the writings of the Saints, and the Holy Bible. We don’t need to spend millions of dollars of something that tells you to use the things I just listed out.
It’s the
PARENTS job and all of the laity to make our children, and their children’s children understand that God came down in the flesh, died for our sins, and set up the One Truth Holy Apostolic Catholic Church for all to participate in.
We lost our way, and we fell into pride, now it’s time for the laity to do their part and get people back into the dang mass!
). He is a Religious though…
