Catholica Editor, Brian Coyne, has been noticing a new assertiveness on the part of mainstream priests to speak out about the crisis institutional Catholicism is in today. In this commentary he directs your attention to a number of places where this new, more assertive voice might be found. Will it be enough to save the institution from sinking below the waves under the assault perpetrated on it by this small remnant minority who seem capable of only dealing with their insecurities in one way — a craving need for certitude and authority figures?

Have the mainstream priests of the world begun to find their voices again?

The great silent majority of priests seem to be finding a new, more confident and increasingly public voice. The recent editions of The Swag, the journal of the National Council of Priests of Australia, are increasingly meaty carrying articles that not too long ago would have probably only been found in the pages of Catholica or some of the other independent Catholic media around the world. The Tablet this week carries an address given to the first Annual General Meeting of the newly formed Irish Associaton of Priests which challenges the raw deal many priests feel they have been dealt in that country in recent times. We hardly need mention the "rebellion" that Cardinal Christoph Schönborn has been trying to tame amongst his priests in Austria.

The myriad of "we are so faithful to the magisterium" websites around the world seem to be going into some sort of meltdown over some of the developments. Benedict seems to be heading the right way to splitting the Catholic Church like it has never been split in its history before. In fact in the latest edition of The Swag, Peter Keightley, asks just that question: Is there a schism in the Church today?

Is it not reasonable to claim that the reigns of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI have seen the church led into its greatest schism since the Reformation? On what basis can such a claim be made?

Some 90% of people in the developed or western world, who identify themselves as “Catholic” have left, or take little part in the life of the church.

The tragic polarisation between the small percentage of the remaining 10% who support the current policies of taking the church back to Trent, and the balance of this remaining 10% who struggle to revive the practices instituted at Vatican II. This majority of those still practising are unable to even have their voices heard within the institution, because of authoritarian processes.

Peter, who is a lay member of the Mt Martha parish in Victoria, then goes on:

In contrast, the voice of the conservative minority who deem themselves "true catholics" seems, not only to be heard, but to have open access to the highest levels in the Vatican — no doubt this access comes through some of our local hierarchy.

I highly recommend the latest edition of The Swag. It literally is a swag filled to overflowing with wonderful, encouraging articles that seem to reflect a growing confidence in priests "to tell it as it is". You can read it online or download a pdf version from theswag.org.au.

I can only recommend to all readers of Catholica to read Peter Keightley's article in full and also at least peruse the latest edition of The Swag and see for yourself the growing confidence that our mainstream priests seem to be developing to counter the strident voices of the tiny minority who have literally been drowning Catholicism for decades in their own hangups and personal insecurities. That the priests of Australia have chosen to feature a provocative article by an articulate lay person like Peter Keightley in their journal is an indicator that something is happening — a tide seems to be turning.

Of particular note in the Spring 2011 Edition of The Swag is Bishop Geoffrey's Robinson's homily delivered at St Mary's Cathedral recently in tribute to the late Fr Chris Sheehy, and Good Samaritan Sister Patty Kawkner's article, "Towards an Adult Church". Let me quote just one paragraph from Sr Patty:

I recall that the Church came to birth amidst the unfolding tensions between, paradoxically, the conservative Peter and the liberal, boundary-pushing Paul. Without a liberal component, life petrifies; without a conservative component, the centre doesn’t hold. We need both preservation and transformation.

Fr Kevin Hegarty's address to the Irish priests...

In this week's Tablet there is also a copy of the lengthy keynote address given by Fr Kevin Hegarty on 4 October 2011 in Dublin at the first annual general meeting of Ireland's Association of Catholic Priests. Let me just quote four paragraphs to whet your appetite to read the full address:

There is torpidity about the Catholic Church in Ireland today. Take the preparations for the forthcoming Eucharistic Congress. Whatever else can be said about the Dublin Congress of 1932, and much can be said, it was a festive fusion of triumphant Catholicism and Irish nationalism that engaged hearts and minds. Now earnest emissaries from the Congress office are travelling throughout the countryside valiantly trying to drum up some enthusiasm. I am reminded of the observation made of Willie Whitelaw, when he was making a tour of constituencies as deputy leader of the Tory Party that he was going around "stirring up apathy". Or the exhortation of a now deceased Bishop of Meath, who in advance of the canonisation of Oliver Plunkett in 1975 asked the prosaic priests of his diocese "to horse up some piety" for the event.

The Church's official theology of sexuality fails to resonate with the actual experience of human intimacy. Most Catholic couples ignore Humanae Vitae's prohibition on contraception. I believe that Dr Garrett Fitzgerald was right when he claimed that this encyclical was crucial in the undermining of the Church's authority. People began to lose confidence in an institution whose teaching on this matter was so out of sync with their experience. Its insistence on compulsory celibacy for clerics is of the same ilk. Its teaching on homosexuality has been heavily criticised, understandably, I suggest, for its insensitivity. And then there have been the scandals of the sexual abuse of children by priests and religious, followed by obfuscations, cover-up, and carefully worded apologies. Howard Bleichner wrote in A View from the Altar: "By any measure the sexual abuse scandals have struck the Catholic Church in the US with the force of a tsunami, dealing the Church the worst blow in living memory."

Click the banner above or HERE to read the full text of Fr Kevin Hegarty's address.Equally so in Ireland. The Ferns, Ryan, Murphy and Cloyne reports, in their cumulative and compelling detail, highlight the acute level of dysfunction in the Church. I don't sense that the majority of Catholic leaders in Ireland have actually got the extent of the breakdown in trust that these reports have engendered. The reports may not now dominate the daily headlines, but their effect has not gone away. I reckon that if Irish Catholics had a democratic way of reflecting their feelings on the subject, Church leaders would suffer a defeat as cataclysmic as that administered to Fianna Fail in the recent general election. Church leadership now seems divided and rudderless. Not since the nineteenth century has there been such public disagreement among the bishops. Cardinal Cullen's Tridentine temple has come tumbling down. For those of us whose lives were shaped by the influence of free speech, democracy, accountability and respectful academic dialogue, the Church has been a cold house for the last 30 years. For those of us who believed in the Vatican II-style Church - and its prospects influenced my decision to study for the priesthood - there has been lots of disillusion.

It seems to me that there are two kinds of Catholic Churches in Ireland — the parish community where I work and find fulfilment, and the institutional Church from which I often feel alienated. As a priest in a parish I am part of the biggest number of clerics. We go about our work quietly in the way evoked by Seamus Heaney "drinking tea and praising homemade bread". We rarely make the headlines beyond the community notices buried at the back of the local paper. At a time when the institutional Church is in crisis we have held on to some shreds of credulity for it. As Bishop Willie Walsh has written: "People distinguish between image and reality. The reality for them is the priest they see on Sunday, the priest who visited mother in hospital, the priest who cried with us when we lost our child, the priest who didn't pass our door even though we were not married in church".

While this new development seems most heartening I am not confident that it will be enough. What I believe is most needed is firm leadership from the very top of the institution that instead of constantly trying to appease the insecurities of the small remnant elements in both the priesthood and the lay church starts to lay down the law a bit and show them where the line in the sand is drawn beyond which they dare not spill their inescurities and paranoia. The trouble is the top leadership of the institution has been decimated in recent decades by the promotion of this curious alliance of bullies, politicians and mummy's boys who don't seem to know which way is "up" in the world. There is simply nobody left at the top capable of standing up to the bullies or the mummy's boys in the lower ranks of the church. Perhaps the new-found confidence that mainstream priests are exhibiting to "speak out" — as Dr Hans Küng urged them, and bishops, to do from his interview played at the recent American Catholic Council — might offer some late reprieve for the institution before the remnant element succeed in sinking the institutional church completely below the waves?

Brian Coyne, 14 October 2011

[Index of Commentaries by Brian Coyne]