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Phemie
Guest
Oh but the priests agreed with all this. Questioning any of this usually prompted a ‘Pharisees’ homily.
Priestless parishes: a "Crisis" or an "Emerging Parish Leadership Paradigm"
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a_cermak
Guest
Why not rely more heavily on the permanent deacons? Have one or two at each parish, who administer that parish, and then have a priest, something like the old time circuit rider preachers, whose job is to say mass, hear confessions, deal with funeral, healing, and marriage masses (while the deacon could handle massless marriages and funerals), and do the other strictly priestly duties (leaving everything else to the Deacon) for 3 or 4 parishes? When people needed consoling, non-confession counseling etc. they could seek out the Deacon.
In many parishes this *is *how things work.
But until every parish has one or two permanent deacons it won’t happen on a huge scale. Granted, the bishop could assign deacons from parishes with more than one deacon to work at other parishes but most are reluctant to assign deacons more than about 30 miles from their home parish.
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Lepanto
Guest
That would be turning priests from spiritual fathers, always there for their children, into absentee fathers who only occasionally visit and are little more than functionaries.
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JReducation
Guest
I believe that both have equal value. We do have a crisis, because we do have a shortage of priests in the USA and Europe. However, crises do cause new paradigms to emerge. In one way or another human beings have to respond until the crisis is over. You can’t allow the whole thing to die.
As to lay people being advisors to pastors, one has to be careful. I am a lay person, so I can’t be accused of taking a stance against lay people. I’ll give you an example.
In my parish I run our spiritual direction ministry to relatives of individuals with disabilities and to the individuals themselves. There are two reasons for this.
- We do not have enough friars in our parish to cover more than 100 ministries. Therefore, we depend on lay persons who are trained to cover many ministries. We have seven friars and three of them are priests. Only two of the priests work for the parish and one of the other friars. The remaining friars are involved with their community.
- Secondly, I am the only person thus far who has come up with a graduate degree in Mystical Theology and 35 years of experience in spirituality. When it came to the distriution of labour, it made sense for me to take over this ministry than one of the friars. They have less training and less experience.
In our diocese you must have a graduate degree to be an advisor or director in certain areas: liturgy, spiritual direction, retreat ministry, religious education, marriage counseling, pastoral counseling, parish finances, chaplaincies, liturgical music directors, developmental disabilities, social work, school principals, or instructor in certain programs such as catechists’ training.
The Bishops’ idea is to ensure that the level of expertise that is brought to the table is as professional as the parish deserves. We have a wonderful bishop who is an excellent administrator. He undestands the importance of surrounding his parish priests with good resources. He does the same for himself.
He is a wonderful administrator, but he’s not a gentle soul. He has surrounded himself with two auxilliary bishops who are the most gentle and nurturing souls one can imagine. But they are not the kind of adminsitrator that the Archbishop is.
I guess the emerging paradigm is a juggling act. Put a good priest in a parish and surround him with good lay leaders or religious.
This is going to keep getting worse until the numbers of secular priests rise. Many religious communities are ordaining less men to the priesthood and are not assigning as many priests to parish work. The bishops are short on parish staff. Many religious communities want to get back to their roots, which were never parish work. This was something that they took on when the Europeans began their expansion, to help the bishops and the Kings. It became a detriment to the religious life.
Many religious orders turned into communities of parish priests. They have a mandate from the Church to recover the charism of their founders and their own lay charism. Many were not meant to be communities of priests. They were Brotherhoods.
All of these conditions call us to find new paradigms. This may be a good thing, because it makes the Catholic lay person responsible for his parish. For many years we were spoiled because Father and Sister took care of everything.
The newest thing in our diocese is that the parish has to own itself. The diocese will no longer own parishes. It will finance them, but the parishioners have to buy them back from the diocese. In other words, we have to pay the mortgage for the land and buildings. The deeds are transferred in the name of the parish, not the diocese. If it goes under, it’s the parish’s problem. The diocese fulfilled its obligation by helping it start up and by serving as financial security. Now the parish has to be a good steward.
We also have to pay the salaries of our priests. There is no more salary from the diocese. Each parish can have the number of priests it can afford to hire. If you can’t hire secular priests, then you have to ask a religious order if they will do you the favour of serving in your parish at a reduced cost. If they agree, then it must be approved by the Bishop. That involves a whole series of negotiations and contracts, because the religious will only come if they are allowed to preserve their community life and their charism. Some demand zero intervention of the laity in their religious life or they will leave. I have seen this happen twice. The laity decided to do too much advising, to the point that they wanted the religioius to distinguish among themselves between the ordained religious and the lay religious. The order said NO. The religious packed up and left.
We have a crisis and we have to pray for more secular priests. But we also have to come up with paradigms to live through the crisis. One good sign of the crisis may be a growing number of Catholics again. Othewise, we wouldn’t be short of priests.
Just my two cents.
Fraternally,
JR
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Phemie
Guest
Until all bishops make the diaconate viable in their dioceses we are not likely to see that in my country. There are many dioceses that don’t have even one permanent deacon, forget one or two per parish.
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JReducation
Guest
What about priests who are religious? If you treat them nicely they may come to your parishes. I’m not saying that you’re not nice. I mean that they don’t have any commitment to the diocese, so parishes had better be nice to them or they’ll leave.
We have religous and we love them. Of course, we also treat them very nicely. We do not get involved in their affairs. We run most of the parish ministries. Their superior is a lay brother, not a priest and we’re OK with that. Our pastor is a priest, obviously, but subject to the superior. We don’t get involved in that relationship and the superior doesn’t get involved in the parish, except to assign which Brother Priest is going to work for the parish.
We keep our mouths shut about their religious life. If they have to leave the parish early because they spen the evening in prayer, community meal, community recreation and more prayer, then return for a late evening meeting, the laity covers.
They all go to their motherhouse once a year for a week and they rent a priest who is retired and the laity is fine with that, as long as we have them during the year.
They are not always available in the parish office because they are doing many things, but we are patient about that too.
If you have a group of parishioners who is willing to compromise, you can often find a religious community that you can work with, provided your bishop approves. If he doesn’t approve the deal is dead before it was born.
This is funny, but one thing that we had to promise our religious was never to call them Father. The laid that out from the start. They are Brother. Only three Brothers are priests and only two of them work for the parish. There are seven Brothers total as I said before.
But they are funny, because they can always tell a visitor apart. The first thing the visitors say after mass is “Good morning Father.” They laugh and say, “I’m not Father and you’re a visitor, welcome.”
We have a loving relationship with our religious, but we have a very accomodating group of religious and parishoners. It’s a good team.
JR
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Phemie
Guest
Until the reorganization last year, ours was a missionary diocese served by a missionary Order, all the priests who’ve served our parish since its inception 50 years ago have belonged to that Order. Since the reorganization, they still serve our portion of the new diocese. Unfortunately their numbers are declining and their average age is creeping up steadily.
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BSHoop96
Guest
Uh oh
…how about the Bishop???
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SenorSalsa
Guest
I voted crisis, although i think that may be a little too rough of a word. Most of the cases I have seen at least have a priest that is regularly there(at least once a Sunday, sometimes some days of the week) to say Mass and do other things. In these cases, it is not a crisis, but is definately an unfavorable situation.
However, the situations where the priest can visit once every month or less, and basically must consecrate large amounts of the eucharist so that Communion services can be held between visits, this is indeed a Crisis
However, the situations where the priest can visit once every month or less, and basically must consecrate large amounts of the eucharist so that Communion services can be held between visits, this is indeed a Crisis
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JReducation
Guest
Wouldn’t you agree that crises often cause the emergence of new paradigms or models in order to compensate?
JR
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SenorSalsa
Guest
In some cases yes, but in a situation like this, I can think of nothing I would like less than having it be a normal thing to have a parish run by somebody who is not an ordained minister, and even at that, I would rather it be a Priest than a Deacon.Wouldn’t you agree that crises often cause the emergence of new paradigms or models in order to compensate?
JR
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ethelzguy
Guest
My question to those bemoaning the lack of priests (especially the young generation here) What specifically are you doing to alleviate this problem?
It is easy to sit back and say “we need more priests” while we personally spend our lives pursuing creature comforts and the other “good things” in life.
It is easy to sit back and say “we need more priests” while we personally spend our lives pursuing creature comforts and the other “good things” in life.
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scylla
Guest
Of course Priestless Parishes are a Crisis, you would have to reject Christ and His institution of the Priesthood as something good to see it as otherwise.
The lack of Priests is a result of many things but principally because of a destruction of the Holy Faith.
This Emerging Parish Leadership Paradigm is exactly what we do have but it is most certainly not a solution but a treatment to a problem. Unfortunately this treatment is exactly what many people want, who despise\envy the Priesthood of Christ and see authority as something to be taken.
As an example, if I get into a car accident, the dressing on my wounds are treatment to the situation but are not what everyone wants. Not everyone should be in a crisis situation, it is not the ideal in the same way it is not the ideal to have everyone involved in a car accident. What we should have is healthy people in the same way we should have a healthy Church.
We should seek ways to foster devotion, vocations and a respect for the Priesthood. This could be done by putting Permanent Deacons as Parish Administrators and turning to a more faithful emphasis on the faith instead of the weak, impotent Catholicism we see in many of the Priestless parishes these days.
My own parish is a great example of impotent Catholicism where vocations are forgotten and “new models of the church” are the focus.
When we forget our Faith, it will have to change as there will be no faith to serve. We will not see Priests, Sisters and Religious fervent for the salvation of souls but a watering down and crumbling of the Faith.
In Christ
Scylla
The lack of Priests is a result of many things but principally because of a destruction of the Holy Faith.
This Emerging Parish Leadership Paradigm is exactly what we do have but it is most certainly not a solution but a treatment to a problem. Unfortunately this treatment is exactly what many people want, who despise\envy the Priesthood of Christ and see authority as something to be taken.
As an example, if I get into a car accident, the dressing on my wounds are treatment to the situation but are not what everyone wants. Not everyone should be in a crisis situation, it is not the ideal in the same way it is not the ideal to have everyone involved in a car accident. What we should have is healthy people in the same way we should have a healthy Church.
We should seek ways to foster devotion, vocations and a respect for the Priesthood. This could be done by putting Permanent Deacons as Parish Administrators and turning to a more faithful emphasis on the faith instead of the weak, impotent Catholicism we see in many of the Priestless parishes these days.
My own parish is a great example of impotent Catholicism where vocations are forgotten and “new models of the church” are the focus.
When we forget our Faith, it will have to change as there will be no faith to serve. We will not see Priests, Sisters and Religious fervent for the salvation of souls but a watering down and crumbling of the Faith.
In Christ
Scylla
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JReducation
Guest
Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that a priestess parish is the mode for which we should aspire. That would be insane. I was saying that sometimes, crisis triggers other paradigms as a means to deal with a situation.
I believe there are several factors that convened at the same time.
I use the word trapped, because what we the laity do to priests in parishes is overbearing. They are not perfect, this is true. Bu the new generation of lay people is excusing its invasiveness under the guise of assertiveness. Clerics are human too. They don’t like their toes being stepped on any more than you and I like it.
Just my two cents.
JR
I believe there are several factors that convened at the same time.
- The world has certainly become much more godless and therefore more material and less willing to sacrifice. We see this more clearly in North America and Europe than we do in South America and Africa where they are exporting priests to the USA Even some of the Asian countries are exporting missionaries to the USA, Canada and Europe. They don’t have the strong materialistic mindset that the developed nations do. That’s one cause of the problem.
- Another cause of the problem is the laity itself. Everyone wants to have priests, but how many Catholic men are willing to give the seminary a shot? If we look on CAF, many lay people here take it upon themselves to badmouth priests and bishops. I just came from another thread where posters are saying that the bishops protect the rights of the illegal immigrants because they are interested in the money and that the bishops cannot be trusted. How is that supposed to inspire men to want to join the ranks of the clergy?
- Back to the laity, we do not appreciate the difference between the Sacrament of Holy Orders and Religious Profession of Solemn Vows. How man Catholics even know there is such a thing? Are we aware that orders like Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, Trinitarians, and Benedictines were not founded to run parishes? They were founded for other purposes. They want to leave the parishes and go back to their roots. Since the expansion of Europe they have done the Church the favour of running parishes until the local people produced enough secular clergy to take them back. We have abused their generosity. We expect them to remain there running parishes for us. We expect them to conform tour idea of religious life and the priesthood.
- The Laity has also failed to respect religious vows. A man who belongs to a religious order is a Friar or a Monk first, even if he’s ordained. His fidelity is to his community and its rule. We’ve had conflicts over this in parishes. People actually want the religious who are ordained to be there for them and treat the other religious men who are not priests as second class religious. What has happened is that Religious Orders that were founded to be friars or monks have had General Chapters and have reviewed their rules. They have found that they cannot tolerate having their non ordained friars and monks treated as second class ministers. So the result is that these orders are allowing their parish ministries to die by attrition. Most of the younger members of religious orders who are professed are not sent to parishes. They are sent to ministries where they can live and work as one fraternity without the distinctions of priest and non priest. They have a duty to preserve the unity of their order and their community. Are we, the laity helping them do this? Do we welcome all religious men who work in our parish as equal ministers with their own gifts and dignity or do we put all of the attention on the ordained and treat the other religious with condescension? If that’s the case, there is no surprise that the religious are saying that they will stick with the parishes they have, but will not commit to the future.
- Does the laity understand that a Diocesan priest is a secular priest? He does not have vows as religious do. Do we expect them to be like religious 24/7? Do we constantly comment, criticize, and judge the way they live when they’re not on duty? They become secular priests because they want to serve in the clerical state, but they do not feel the call to live the consecrated life that religious are called to live. They want to be secular men. They work hard to serve the needs of parishes. But they have the right to certain things, such as a good salary, good retirement plan, a nice care, a nice home, time with their family and friends, time to study and become better at what they do and time just to be human and enjoy a good game of golf. Are we too critical of them for these things? If so, how do we expect to attract men to embrace the secular priesthood if they are going to become the target for lay criticism?
I use the word trapped, because what we the laity do to priests in parishes is overbearing. They are not perfect, this is true. Bu the new generation of lay people is excusing its invasiveness under the guise of assertiveness. Clerics are human too. They don’t like their toes being stepped on any more than you and I like it.
Just my two cents.
JR
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ethelzguy
Guest
I wholly agree with you here. (pun intended).
Permanent deacons as “Parish Administrators” would alleviate our priests from some of the more mundane tasks, and much of the secular tasks (like finding a good roofer to fix the leak). In that regard, local deacons would have a good handle on the community and available resources.
I think it would be an improvement, if our priests were more able to concentrate on pastoral and liturgical issues, rather than turning these important tasks to lay parishoners.
TBL
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JReducation
Guest
My concern here is the that deacons are clerics. Administrating is not part of their clerical state. There is a danger of doing to deacons what we did to Brothers. We put them in secular positions and now we have a hard time getting vocations to the Brotherhood, because men can’t see this form of life as equally consecrated as other forms of religious life.
Another concern is that Deacons cannot be pastors. You still need a pastor.
I believe that we have the ideal setting in our parish. Our pastor runs the parish, but the parish is administered by a religious order of Friars. The Pastor’s superior is not a priest, he is a friar theologian. He runs the community. This relieves the pastor from having to deal with the religious on his team. The Superior takes care of that and takes care of everything that has to do with the running of the house. The Pastor only deals with the runnning of the parish buildings and for that he has lay people. The friars use the secular deacons for everything that does not require a priest or friar. In the end, the parish runs very smoothly with seven friars, two priests and one lay brother. The other four friars live in the parish, but do not serve the parish. Their mission is to serve their community.
It’s a good team.
JR
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ethelzguy
Guest
Good point. Hadn’t thought of it in those terms.My concern here is the that deacons are clerics. Administrating is not part of their clerical state. There is a danger of doing to deacons what we did to Brothers. We put them in secular positions and now we have a hard time getting vocations to the Brotherhood, because men can’t see this form of life as equally consecrated as other forms of religious life.
JR
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JReducation
Guest
Unfortunately, American and Canadians have put clerics and religious into situations that were not appropriate for them. This is the fault of Bishops, religious superiors and the demands of the laity.
I believe that we are paying for our mistakes. Now we have a shortage of both. I don’t mean to derail the thread, but to offer an example. How many threads do you see on CAF promoting vocations to the religious life for men? Everyon wants priests. How many Catholics pray for reigious men, who are not priests? Do we realize how many of these men sanctified the Church through their ministry and they life of fidelity to the Gospel?
How many Latin Rite Catholics pray for vocations to the deaconate? Again, we have no idea how important the deaconate is to our Church. In this regard the Eastern Rite Catholics and the Orthodox Christians have us beat. They can’t imagine a Church without deacons. We in the Latin Rite don’t seem to know what to do with deacons.
We have to get our own minds clear on the roles and lifestyles that make up the Church.
My own order, which has a history of 800 years of serving the Church as consecated secular men and women is the best kept secret in the American Catholic Church. We have many good Franciscans who would make very good administrators, relieving clerics to fulfill their roles within the Church.
We have a very narrow vision of parish life. A parish consists of priests running the parish office and celebrating sacraments and sisters running a school. The other gifts that the Holy Spirit has given to the Church are out there somewhere, but we are not even aware of them or of those whom God has called to live according to those vocations.
I sometimes wonder if we really want them around. It’s almost as if we mix a little superstition in with faith. We believe in an ordained priesthood. This is faith. But we throw in a dash of superstition. If it’s not a priest, it’s not good enough, as if priests had the full knowledge of the faith or all the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
We are definitely in need of better catechesis regarding vocations, roles, ministries, and forms of life in the Church.
If we understood this, then we could parcel out the work in a more appropriate manner and in a manner that would reveal the fullness of the Church to the world.
Fraternally,
JR
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scylla
Guest
I understand your concern, and agree that the ideal is a Parish Priest acting as pastor.
Yet I see first hand the danger that lies in putting the laity in the position of Pastor. I am in a Parish where we have a lay parish administrator and can hardly identify with your parishes situation. We have Masses denied from being done because the Lay Parish Administrator does not like the Priest who is always available, and we have to then go with a Liturgy of the Word.
When you have the Priesthood denigrated to the point where we accept the absence as not a Crisis, then we have a big problem.
I would say that, though you used Catholic Answers Forum as an example in another post of “everyone” wanting Priests.
This is not so in the more “progressive” dioceses where Priests are looked at just as Sacrament Machines who are in that place until the Church loosens up and allows the Laity to take over.
“We in the Latin Rite don’t seem to know what to do with deacons.”
I agree, it seems we are still in an experimental stage with Deacons in the Latin Rite.
I do not think that having the laity stand in as “Pastors” is a good idea at all, seeing the results in Protestant groups, and my own parish. We should look back at our traditions to see how we should move forward to the future.
God Bless
Scylla
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