Priests being hurt by Parish Ignorance

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In the last few weeks, our two parish priests have come under heavy criticism by many people in the parish - so much so that the bishop had a listenng session about it. Our two priests are faithful, loyal men whose preaching is completely loyal to the magisterium - and that’s the problem. They’re criticized because they actually have the audacity to tell people that purposely missing mass is a mortal sin, that contraception is a mortal sin, that you shouldn’t go to cummunion with unconfessed mortal sin, etc. I think you get the picture.

Because so many people in the parish are ignorant of church teaching, they think that the changes that the priests have put into place are somewhow radical when in fact they are soundly grounded in traditional church teaching. At this point the bishop seems to be supporting the priests.

I have written the bishop a lengthy letter extolling the virtues of these two young, holy and faithful priests. Does anyone have any ideas about how to combat widespread parish ignorance on church teaching? I would also ask that you pray for these two holy, faithful priests.
 
they are in my prayers.

how about a ‘town hall meeting’ or a lecture given by a Catholic Appologist?
 
Pray! Pray! Pray! And let these priests know that you support them!!! I am glad you said that the bishop is supporting them too; unfortunately, that is not always the case.

I think it’s our responsibility to back up those faithful priests, bishops, etc. who stand up for the Truth! They get hammered for it, so those of us who agree with them should let them know that there are just as many of us who support them as there are who don’t. Maybe that will help give them courage to continue down a road that is not easy, and will maybe lead others to do the same.
 
JPII_the_Great said:
In the last few weeks, our two parish priests have come under heavy criticism by many people in the parish - so much so that the bishop had a listenng session about it. Our two priests are faithful, loyal men whose preaching is completely loyal to the magisterium - and that’s the problem. They’re criticized because they actually have the audacity to tell people that purposely missing mass is a mortal sin, that contraception is a mortal sin, that you shouldn’t go to cummunion with unconfessed mortal sin, etc. I think you get the picture.

Because so many people in the parish are ignorant of church teaching, they think that the changes that the priests have put into place are somewhow radical when in fact they are soundly grounded in traditional church teaching. At this point the bishop seems to be supporting the priests.

I have written the bishop a lengthy letter extolling the virtues of these two young, holy and faithful priests. Does anyone have any ideas about how to combat widespread parish ignorance on church teaching? I would also ask that you pray for these two holy, faithful priests.
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How incredibly sad that liberalism and poor catechesis should have the effect of persecuting faithful priests. I’ve seen it happen in other parishes. These kinds of priests deserve and need our prayers and support.
 
First, let me say that is sounds like you have some wonderful priests. Courageous men who know what evangelization really means. They seem to be well deserving of our prayers of support and our prayers of thanksgiving.

Now, to your question.

Consider working with your priests to do what my parish has has done. Establish a separate Adult Faith Formation board, staff it with people hand-picked by these priests, and charge this group with creating classes and organizing various activities aimed specifically at adults. These would include organizing video series such as Christopher West’s “Created and Redeemed: Theology of the Body”, various Bible studies and so on.

Lighthouse Media also has some excellent recources and actually pays for itself. lighthousecatholicmedia.com/FLASH.php My parish got this and we recouped our investment in less than 3 months.

But no matter what you do, you must be prepared for a couple of things.

Educating people will take time. Partly because it seems their Catholic instruction was lacking, and partly because what you are really doing is educating their conscience, always a slow process.

The other thing is that some people will never accept it. These would be the cultural catholics (“catholics” in this context is intentianally not capitalized.). Or people who think follow the heresy of Americanism, thinking they can create their own set of beliefs and still call themselves Catholics.

The last thing to get ready for is an influx of new members. Your parish will
become a magnet for those other Catholic at nearby parishes who crave good holies from faithful priests. You may also need to upgrade your RCIA efforts! 👍

Whatever you end up doing, may God bless you.
 
rpp said:
The other thing is that some people will never accept it. These would be the cultural catholics (“catholics” in this context is intentianally not capitalized.). Or people who think follow the heresy of Americanism, thinking they can create their own set of beliefs and still call themselves Catholics.
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This is so true. In the meeting a person mentioned the fact that these priests were ignorant of the ways of the “American Catholic Church” and that they had to make an effort to adapt themselves to the general feelings of the people. Another person answered this issue: "I am a member of the Roman Catholic Church, not the “American Church.”

There was a lot of ignorance; it is true. But there was also in many people a desire to live a Catholicism according to their own set of beliefs. Another large group appealed to the ever present “spirit of Vatican II,” to ask for a lot of people around the altar and more participation of lay ministry, even though this parish has enough consecrated ministers to distribute communion and visit the sick and homebound. BTW, in most cases these people have never even read a document of the Vatican II.
 
JPII_the_Great said:
They’re criticized because they actually have the audacity to tell people that purposely missing mass is a mortal sin, that contraception is a mortal sin, that you shouldn’t go to cummunion with unconfessed mortal sin, etc. I think you get the picture.

Because so many people in the parish are ignorant of church teaching. . .
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Personally I think many parish Priests need to have a 5 minute segment added to each week’s mass titled “Why do Catholics Do That” and use it as a time to teach Catholics what they don’t know about the Church!

At Easter mass our priest relayed a story about a parish member who came up to him and asked*** “As Catholics, do we still believe that the ‘Host’ is actually the transformed body of Christ?” :eek:

***I think many Catholics suffer from lack of knowledge of what the Church actually stands for; that lack of knowledge may be why so many people have left the church. Not sure who’s job it is to teach people what they should already know, but it strikes me that the Priest has a golden opportunity and can take 5 minutes each week to touch on one topic.
 
rpp said:
Consider working with your priests to do what my parish has has done. Establish a separate Adult Faith Formation board, staff it with people hand-picked by these priests, and charge this group with creating classes and organizing various activities aimed specifically at adults. These would include organizing video series such as Christopher West’s “Created and Redeemed: Theology of the Body”, various Bible studies and so on.
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The problem with this concept is you will not get many people to participate. Think about the reality of these classes, they appeal to the people who are curious and want to learn. They do not appeal to the type of Catholic who complains about the Priest and consequently I don’t believe those people will ever show up for one of those classes.

Heck I’m friends with our Priest, have him over for dinner and parties, have served on a few committees, participated in some group events, volunteer at the parish school, and I have never attended any adult class at our parish. I think I am more involved than 75% of our parishioners, so if I am more involved and I have never attended, then how will you get any of the lesser involved people to show up? Those are the people that need to be reached.
 
The Priests have my prayers.

In preaching the Truth Priests must also remember to be merciful and kind to the sinner. The Truth always goes down better with a spoon full of honey as does any medicine!
 
The good news…God is in charge. People will come to recognize that eventually even if it is painful. Pray always for your priests and let them know that are. Our priests need to be supported and others should be made aware of it as well.

I sense that truth will win…the truth of Jesus. Keep praying.
 
I wouldn’t discount the value of offering different kinds of classes teaching Catholicism in your church too soon. Even if the only people you initially attract are a couple of curious individuals, if it convinces some of them then they might well tell their friends. Start little if it’s the only way you can start to get traction.

And of course, be sure to pray and be an excellent witness to the faith yourself!
 
Aquinate said:
This is so true. In the meeting a person mentioned the fact that these priests were ignorant of the ways of the “American Catholic Church” and that they had to make an effort to adapt themselves to the general feelings of the people. Another person answered this issue: "I am a member of the Roman Catholic Church, not the “American Church.”
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I was flipping past EWTN and caught a talk given by either Dr. Ray or Scott Hahn (I saw both of them over the span of a couple of days). He mentioned that a new form of atheism is that there IS a God, but by golly, he thinks just like me!

Sounds like this is something going on in your parish right in front of you.

I wish you and your priests the best!
 
melensdad said:
The problem with this concept is you will not get many people to participate. Think about the reality of these classes, they appeal to the people who are curious and want to learn. They do not appeal to the type of Catholic who complains about the Priest and consequently I don’t believe those people will ever show up for one of those classes.

Heck I’m friends with our Priest, have him over for dinner and parties, have served on a few committees, participated in some group events, volunteer at the parish school, and I have never attended any adult class at our parish. I think I am more involved than 75% of our parishioners, so if I am more involved and I have never attended, then how will you get any of the lesser involved people to show up? Those are the people that need to be reached.
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Taking your point to its logical conclusion would lead people to do nothing. That is foolish.

Just because not everyone will attend does not mean that others will not. You must try to feed those willing to eat.
 
Yeah I have an idea…send your priests to my parish I’d love to have’em.😃
 
I would love to know the bishop’s response to this. I think I would suggest to him that maybe these people who are complaining should be offered an Adult education class. Do you know what the bishop said to them? How did the bishop end up getting involved anyway? Did the people complain straight to him without going through their parish priest first?
 
rpp said:
Taking your point to its logical conclusion would lead people to do nothing. That is foolish.
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First, very few people would ever consider me foolish and I resent your comment. However, what I wrote is realistic. The logical conclusion of what I wrote is that only interested people will participate. Nothing is foolish about that. However, it will not attract the NON-interested people to participate. That is the challenge we all face, trying to get the non-interested people to learn about our Church.
rpp said:
Just because not everyone will attend does not mean that others will not. You must try to feed those willing to eat.
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You obviously misunderstood what I wrote. I said people who want to learn will learn when I wrote: “they appeal to the people who are curious and want to learn.” That is what you also indicate.

Perhaps instead of calling me foolish, you could learn to more carefully read what people write, think about it, and then write a reasoned reply?
 
melensdad said:
First, very few people would ever consider me foolish and I resent your comment. However, what I wrote is realistic. The logical conclusion of what I wrote is that only interested people will participate. Nothing is foolish about that. However, it will not attract the NON-interested people to participate. That is the challenge we all face, trying to get the non-interested people to learn about our Church.

You obviously misunderstood what I wrote. I said people who want to learn will learn when I wrote: “they appeal to the people who are curious and want to learn.” That is what you also indicate.

Perhaps instead of calling me foolish, you could learn to more carefully read what people write, think about it, and then write a reasoned reply?
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You complain and naysay, but offer no suggestions. You only say things will not work, then complain when someone calls you on it.

If you have something constructive to offer, then please offer it. If you just want to shoot down ideas, then you are not contributing.
 
rpp said:
You complain and naysay, but offer no suggestions. You only say things will not work, then complain when someone calls you on it.

If you have something constructive to offer, then please offer it. If you just want to shoot down ideas, then you are not contributing.
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First, I offered an objective observation that one plan would probably not work. For you to suggest that that is not part of the constructive process is in error. Further, if people expend effort on tasks that do not yield the desired results, they have wasted much of their efforts and not achieved the outreach that they desired.

I have offered ways to evangalize to those who do not hear our word in a few other forums here on CA. However, those topics do not apply to this thread, I didn’t see the need to repeat them here when they are non-applicable.

I didn’t complain when you ‘called me on it’ I simply stated that you were rude to call someone foolish. I also implied your logic was faulty.

I’m curious, how is it that your posts have “contributed” to this discussion in any meaningful way? Hurling insults is positive? Talking down to people is positive? Telling people that if they don’t have something that is positive (in your opinion) then they should not post is constructive?

I stand by my initial answer. If you want to reach out to those who complain and misunderstand our beliefs, and if they are the folks who are not involved, then forming classes that they will not join is not going to accomplish the goal. Those folks need to be reached out to in alternate ways, but if they are 1 hour a week Catholics, they will not start joining committees or Bible study groups. They must be brought into the fold through extraordinary and non-traditional means.

Perhaps instead of “calling me” out on something you mistakingly claim, you could learn to more carefully read what people write, think about it, and then write a reasoned reply?
 
Thank you for all of the wonderful feedback. Now for an update. Apparently the bishop got involved because of some letters that some parishioners sent him. I don’t know what the letters said but I would imagine that many of them were based on gossip, half truths, misunderstandings, ignorance, etc. In addition, some parishioners were threatening to shut off their financial support of the parish if some changes were not made. Father addressed this after weekend masses several weeks ago and announced a parish-wide meeting concerning this between himself/his brother priest (we have two priests) and parishioners. The priests were going to do this on their own w/out the bishop. At the last minute the bishop asked that the meeting be postponed so that he could attend (he was in Rome)

What complicated this a bit is that there are legitimate financial issues surrounding the parish school. That coupled with the fact that (I think) people were fearful that the religious curriculum was going to be made more orthodox (Oh, the horror!) is what got the bishop involved.

The bishop apparently had no idea when he arrived that over 300 people were going to be there (I guess that he was shocked). He thought maybe 50 or 100. He also didn’t expect that so many people in the audience would be so mean spirited - and they were. He told everybody that he was there only to listen

As the evening progressed, it became clear what the main gripe was (too much Catholic orthodoxy, too much preaching about what the church actually teaches). Only once did the bishop get mildly testy.

According to Father, the bishop backs him completely (although he has not said this publically - yet.) This was one battle in a long process. Thank God that we have a bishop that will stand up for the truth and for his priests when they are faithfully carying out their duties.

A footnote. At he end of the meeting, the second priest addressed the audience and said that the two of them were not going to change anything that thley were doing. Immediately, 1/3 of the audience gave him a standing ovation. I guess that there is hope!
 
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