Saturday 21 March 2015

Seminaries, Clergy and Today’s Church: Let Truth & Charity prevail...

I encourage readers to visit Torch of the Faith for Friday, 20th March, go to a post entitled


It includes a sad experience of Ushaw seminary which is, I suspect, familiar to not a few. (I know one young man who was on a ‘taster weekend’ at Ushaw [not a Selection Conference] whose experience was for him and his sensibilities, rather scandalous). It is a charitable piece which mentions no names and ruins no one, but very honest in its presentation of today’s crisis.

I have to say that when we become disheartened at the state of the Church today we should remember that the seminary staff and Curias who sought to make the changes from which we now suffer were simply holding a mistaken understanding of what Vatican II sought from the laity when it spoke of lay mission: such seminary staff and Curias were not deliberately wicked. It is simply that after Vatican II (and somewhere very early on along the line) the word ‘mission’ was replaced with ‘ministry’ -and from this, all the trouble began. What was being promoted was not what Vatican II sought (Mission to the world) as clarified by John Paul II in Christifideles Laici, but something Vatican II never spoke of: Lay Ministry. 

I am not saying that none of those who sought to engineer a new-style Church were not devious or not actively seeking to dismantle the Church -some may well have been- but my experience of my brother priests is that they are sincere men who believed and believe they are doing what is right and good; that they are truly listening to the Holy Spirit. I think those who were devious or actively seeking to dismantle the Church of the Ages were few and few between –but sadly, also very influential. It was their ideologies that formed priests (of both presbyteral and episcopal rank) over the 50 years which have followed Vatican II; the dismantlers gave today’s priests a tool kit that was deficient; fit only for dismantling, not building. Since one works from what one has in one’s tool kit, today’s priests can only work with the toolkit the dismantlers gave them. So remember to criticise opinions and plans, not people. While we can and must be honest (transparent) when seeking to correct directions and to provide new tools, we must retain charity and respect for persons and their good name. Let Truth & Charity prevail. 

10 comments:

  1. ATLANTIC
    AURORA

    Jewel of the west
    On eastern coast
    Atlantic aurora
    Our Mother's boast

    The proud are scattered
    In conceits of their heart
    Blind to Melchisedech's
    Priests thou art

    Jewel of the west
    On eastern coast
    Atlantic aurora
    Our Mother's boast

    A light to the Revelation
    Of faithful Gentiles
    Angels sing canticles
    Simeon smiles

    Jewel of the west
    On eastern coast
    Atlantic aurora
    Our Mother's boast

    Root of Jesse
    Gate of morn
    Unworldly womb
    The skulkers scorn

    Jewel of the west
    On eastern coast
    Atlantic aurora
    Our Mother's boast

    And we your daughters
    Comely and fair
    A terrible army
    Birthing His heir

    Jewel of the west
    On eastern coast
    Atlantic aurora
    Our Mother's boast

    For our sons' inheritance
    Roman men toil
    A Cathedral of cassocks--
    Catholic priesthood all Royal!

    He has never left us orphaned! Deo Gratias!!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Longskirts.
      "The proud are scattered In conceit of their heart, Blind to Melchisedech's Priests thou art" would sum up nicely the ,loss of faith in the very nature of the priesthood.
      God Bless

      Delete
  2. Contraception has decimated some countries ability to generate the new life needed to sustain their societies, as a 2003 New York Times article on Russia stated. The Church is experiencing the same phenomenon - the lack of priestly/religious vocations emanating from VII's "new springtime" now requires it to make up for this deficit through more laymen/laywomen taking on greater responsibilities. The apparent emphasis then on emotions rather than theology/orthodoxy is now quite telling, is that not so?

    It should have been apparent after the first decade or two of declining vocations that something was amiss and a re-boot/re-think was in order. Instead, a constant tweaking of the modern message was initiated, with the same result. It is only where the more Tradition-oriented priestly formation exists - whether with the OF or EF - that many vocations are being realized... the SSPX, FSSP, ICK and Lincoln, NE Diocese are good examples. The cure is already in place...it just takes a universal acknowledgement that it is and the courage to implement it in the Universal Church.

    Why is it so hard for those in authority to find the same academic or sourced articles that denote the above as I have, and not want to affect a change for the better? How, then, can they set and remain lethargic about a vocation crisis and not want to implement the proven remedy? I do not understand - even Coca-Cola reverted back to the tried and true "formation" when the "New Coke" debuted and failed. Nor did it take them a half-century of tweaking the "New" to do so.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, david.
      Indeed, we have contracepted and aborted our congregations and priests out of existence over the last forty years because priests had no confidence or respect for that prophetic document 'Humanae Vitae'. and yes, the emphasis on emotions destroys theology and good pastoral care.
      The cure is indeed what is done in Lincoln: devotion to the Blessed sacrament in all parishes; a respect for the presbyteral priesthood, and orthodox theology and praxis. Too many have gone too far down the road of people-pleasing to the point where they are now afraid to speak the truth for losing those we have left in the pews.
      God Bless.

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  3. Dear Father Gary, I visited Torch of the Faith and read the post as you suggested. I could, literally, identify with every word from beginning to end. And, as a 'resister', after twenty years of battling the liberal and modernist bishops, priests, religious and laity, I find myself banned as a Catholic educator in Australia, sacked and kicked out of Morwell Parish in the Diocese of Sale as a pastoral associate of Fr John Speekman, who was removed for being a faithful and orthodox parish priest really, by two liberal bishops. One is deceased(bishop Jeremiah Coffey) and the other, bishop Christopher Prowse, is currently the Archbishop of Canberra. Into the Deep is the faithful orthodox publication which has not only documented the battle for the last 13 years, but has been the weapon to publicly, without fear or favor, take on these dissenters. And we are still going strong, thanks to the grace of the living Eucharistic Presence of Christ in Adoration and Mass. You could probably Google the names I've mentioned to corroborate what I've said and to find out more. To me it is not a question of new church or True Church. No, there is only one divinely willed Church, and it is the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. Everything else is refuse to me.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Greg.
      The situation you describe and TOTH described in his post is very much par for the course. Indeed there is only one Church, and it is not to be put aside when it came Divinely Instituted and approved by God over the last 2000 years.
      God Bless

      Delete
  4. I attended a vocation's some years ago and was struck by the following:-

    Discusting food (it bordered on the sinful)
    Lack of humour and laughter (utterly joyless)
    The intellectual sloth of the retreat master (since made a bishop)

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    Replies
    1. Thanks Steve.
      Its good that we do not know what seminary you went to for that weekend!
      The food could be good in the seminary where I was formed, and it was quite a happy place (because of its lack of discipline and orthodoxy which challenged no one?) and the food was good when I was there.
      I presume your weekend was Vocations Discernment rather than a Selection Conference, since the latter are composed of Interviews rather than retreat, which is more likely to be the format of a taster or discernment weekend.
      God Bless.

      Delete
  5. The seminaries' leadership and gatekeeper positions were actively targeted by enemies of the Church who sought to destroy Her by destroying the priesthood. Hence, the flooding with those who practised and promoted sodomitical perversion, and attacked the Deposit of Faith and morals on a continual basis, and the refusal or exclusion or persecution of those who upheld the Faith and morals.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you Lynda.
      There are reports of Communists having infiltrated the Church from forrmer Communist infiltrators see http://www.christianorder.com/editorials/editorials_2000/editorials_nov00.html
      so comments such as yours cannot be easily dismissed by those who wish to deny it.
      God Bless.

      Delete

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