Today's commentary: The future of the Church/The future of the priesthood (Main Forum)

by Brian Coyne , LINDEN, NSW, Saturday, March 10, 2012, 02:55 (439 days ago)

Thanks, John, for that review — both for its insights into the approach Richard Schoenherr takes in his studies and also for your own perspectives. My own more journalistic assessment is that what I sense people are looking for in "priests" today, if they ever stop to think about the question, are men and women who have insight into "the Way of Jesus" — men and women who have insight, like Jesus, about how to navigate this fraught journey we all have to make called "Life". Most people are over this idea of "priest" who goes up to the altar to offer sacrifice to God on our behalf to make our crops grow and give us "happy families". They don't believe any longer that priests are qualified to be "forgiving sins" on behalf of God as in some "magic formula" performed in a confessional. The drop off in sacramental Reconciliation is far deeper even than the drop off in participation in the Eucharist. People seek "spiritual guides" who can demonstrate they have the wisdom, and practical experience, to advise us when we screw up in life and who can show us some pathway back to psychological and spiritual equilibrium. So often, and especially through the abuse scandal, we increasingly see that priests and hierarchs provide some of the worst behaviour in responding to sins of trespass and bringing about reconciliation and some kind of return to equilibrium in a community. Most people I meet these days do not believe in "ontological difference" — and that is confirmed by discussions with many former ordained priests. In my experience the best "spiritual guides" are actually people who have walked in the sandals of Jesus — not parading around in churches in fancy vestments and who are almost totally isolated from the ordinary lives lived by most in their flocks.

I sense people at large still seek "liturgy" in their lives. There has been phenomenal growth in what I call "secular liturgies" as the influence of the churches and church attendance has waned in society. We still need people capable of "presenting liturgy" or facilitating it on behalf of their communities. The role of the liturgist is like the role of a musician, a play- or script-writer or a story-teller in society, helping a community articulate it's deepest spiritual yearnings and finding the symbols that speak to, and from, the heart of the ordinary person. Liturgy is not something that can be "imposed from above" but it has to come from, and speak to, the heart of the ordinary people. It is true that most ordinary people cannot do that and so they rely on "experts" like musicians, artists, film-makers, novelists, theatrical directors and so on to articulate "the community story, and yearnings". I'm not sure that the term "priest" itself is fashionable any longer — the abuse scandal has probably done enormous damage — but whatever term is applied to the person who performs this role of providing spiritual guidance, they need to be able to bridge across a lot of those skill categories. Above all though they need to be able to interpret life from lived experiences similar to the people they are called upon to serve. We (society) have done ourselves, and those who serve in the role, a deep disservice by placing priests on pedestals.

Link to the commentary this is referring to:
www.catholica.com.au/gc2/occ2/090_occ2_100312.php

Brian Coyne
[Editor & Publisher]