It seems that the Archdiocese of Los Angeles ordained only seven men in 2017 for well over 4 million Catholics. That reminded me of the kind of vocation data that have plagued the large archdioceses of South America for centuries. So I looked into our other large archdioceses, and I must say the picture is rather stunning.
Take the five largest: Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York, and Houston. In 2017, these five ordained a total of 33 men to serve a combined population of 12.5 million Catholics. (Again, like what we have long seen in South America where the vocations were so few that most priests come from outside that continent.) Here too, a significant number of those being ordained were born outside the United States. Indeed, in one of these local churches not a single ordained priest was born in the United States. A half-century ago those 33 ordained would have been fairly common in a single large archdiocese. Obviously, those days are gone.
Keep in mind that in a system where grace is dependent upon sacraments, which can only be performed by sacerdotal priests (and only those priests where the ever more loosely-defined form of “succession” is available), priests are the coin of the realm.
This current lack of coin reflects the bankruptcy of the system. Perhaps the system will look toward “inflationary measures” – the kind of money-printing you would find in a third world government – enabling married men or women to become priests. This type of discussion IS occurring. But such a move would be both highly unlikely (admitting “developments” that would be very painful admissions), as well as the end of the sacerdotal and Medieval Roman Catholic system as the world has known it from, say, the year 400 till 2000.
This writer is looking to the future through smaller Roman Catholic dioceses such as Wichita Kansas, and Lincoln, Nebraska, where the numbers are less lopsided. But they are still highly strained.
Clearly the church of Rome needs to automate. Have confessionals in which a computer, with Vatican software, listens to stock confessions, then issues absolution. Vending machines that dispense consecrated wine and wafers.
ReplyDeleteSteve, LOL!
DeleteJohn,
ReplyDeleteI had read that mandatory celibacy was a relatively recent invention, circa the year 1000. What do you know?
Ben, it's not really a "recent invention" -- it's kind of a voluntary relic from the early monasticism. It became mandatory during "the Gregorian Reform", Pope Gregory VII (1077), one of the first popes following the Greek/Rome split in 1054. Here's the "official" explanation:
DeleteThe Gregorian Reform, enthusiastically encouraged by the monasteries, was a systematic effort to strike at the roots of abuses in the Church. It was directed against simony, ‘Nicolaitism’ (priests living in marriage) and also lay investiture. The success of the Reform was largely due to the uninhibited exercise of papal authority, by Gregory VII and his successors, over the bishops who had allowed traditional discipline to be ignored or forgotten. This period is also characterized by the appearance of theoretical attacks on priestly celibacy, with corresponding counter-arguments: the libelli de lite. One argument used by the opponents to the reform was the story of Paphnutius at the Council of Nicaea. Gregory VII condemned this at the Roman Synod of 1077 as a falsification of history.
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cclergy/documents/rc_con_cclergy_doc_01011993_chisto_en.html
When the Temple was destroyed rabbinic Judaism had to come up with a system that replaced the sacrificial system. Good works, repentance, etc. will save from sins. No blood atonement is necessary.
ReplyDeleteIn the same way, Rome will need to come up with something similar since most people won't have access to the sacramental system.
In theory, Steve's solution works ("Vending machines that dispense consecrated wine and wafers") -- it just takes one priest -- he could say a Mass over a whole warehouse-full of wafers, and then just deploy FedEx or maybe some new Amazon-based distribution system, and they're in business. ;-) They lose some of the "liturgical" feel of it at the grass roots, but they've got their sacrament!
DeleteIn all fairness, I think liberalism within the RC church is partly responsible for the vocation crisis. Good guys who really believe all that Catholic stuff don't want to go into the priesthood because they'll be hounded by the leftists in seminary with their ordination held hostage to their saying "shibboleth," and once they are ordained they usually can't count on their bishops to back them up if the screaming harpies of tolerance come after them. Who wants to enter that kind of situation? If you're a sincere enough Catholic even to think about becoming a priest, taking a vow of celibacy, etc., you want to be able to at least get the spiritual satisfactions of it, not to be dogged at every turn by people who have authority over you or the power to ruin your life and who don't really believe. But try being a conservative priest and refusing the Sacrament to a person living in open sin, especially a fashionable sin like homosexuality, and see how fast the bishop rebukes the priest. Pretty fast. But why become a priest if you don't believe in the Roman Catholic sacrament in the first place?
ReplyDeleteIf the RC church would get serious about what they themselves believe and would stop harassing their best and brightest and most serious young men, they would do a lot to stem the vocations crisis.
Well, of course liberalism is significantly responsible, but it's not like that's a hidden characteristic. The pope and large numbers of bishops at this point are showing their colors. "Liberalism" was implemented at Vatican II (you may want to check out this thread http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2013/09/romes-divided-mind.html). It looks as if "Pope Francis" is single-handedly going to do what the gates of hell supposedly couldn't do to the church of Rome.
Delete///why become a priest if you don't believe in the Roman Catholic sacrament in the first place?///
DeleteHmmm...
The thing is, I'm sufficiently ecumenical (I hope in a conservative sense) that I can't look on the decline of the RC church as unequivocally a good thing.
ReplyDeleteImagine a hypothetical orthodox Catholic named Bob who ceases to be an orthodox Catholic. Is that a good thing or a bad thing in the grand scheme? It obviously depends on what Bob becomes instead. If he becomes an atheist and goes to hell, whereas he would have ended up in heaven if he'd been an orthodox Catholic, it's a bad thing. If he becomes an atheist and goes to hell and converts a lot of other people to atheism as well, it's an even worse thing, etc.
What if Bob becomes a Prosperity Gospel, uncontrolled, kooky type of Pentecostal? Well, maybe it would have been better in the grand scheme for him to have stayed an orthodox Catholic.
It's not as though, if the RC church keeps hemorrhaging members, a serious Protestant watching the situation has any good reason to think that everyone who leaves Catholicism is going to become a doctrinally sound, committed Protestant prepared to bring his children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord! And that's *whatever* one's own definition is of "doctrinal soundness." I can think of lots of things that are worse than being an orthodox Catholic.
Of course, there are all sorts of countervailing factors in the other direction. Maybe Bob would have a really liberal priest and be led into atheism by a wolf in sheep's clothing within Catholicism, so if he gets out now, he has a better chance of ending up a real Christian in the long run. Or maybe Bob's kids, if he remains a Catholic, would be cradle Catholics who think they are going to heaven because they have gone through the motions and have no understanding of a real commitment to Christ, so they would be better off if Bob went through a temporarily agnostic phase and then got serious about Protestant Christianity and taught them about true commitment to the Lord Jesus later on.
There are infinite variations. But it's extremely hard to tell if the upshot of all of this is good or bad, consequentially, unless one has some really rigid view such as, "All Catholics go to hell."
If one is a sacramentalist, as I am, it's even more complicated, because there's *no way* everybody who leaves Catholicism is going to become a conservative Lutheran or Anglican and have even a partially sacramental theology, so that's a partial theological loss even if they become serious, salt-of-the-earth memorialist Baptists. Or they could end up like some neo-Puritan friends of mine who insist that they will celebrate Christmas *only* if they make it clear that it's a secular, American holiday, because otherwise they might be endorsing the notion of a "Holy Day," and that would be "too much like Catholicism." Good grief. I can't help feeling they might be in some ways better off if they were devout Catholics who taught their children that Baby Jesus brings them presents on Christmas Eve! (Okay, I'm exaggerating, but only a little.) It's all too complex for me to dance on the grave of the Catholic Church. I grieve for my serious Catholic friends in the Francis papacy. It must be agonizing for them.
///The thing is, I'm sufficiently ecumenical (I hope in a conservative sense) that I can't look on the decline of the RC church as unequivocally a good thing.///
DeleteWell, in the sense of an “institution” failing – and one with whom we may have some cultural agreements with the people who are part of it (and not the hierarchy), then no. We should not give any deference to the hierarchy (when they are teaching or behaving as such). It is the uniquely “Roman Catholic” things – the holdovers from ancient Rome, such as (and beginning with) the notion of a powerful papacy, a “first among equals” who wants to really be in charge of everyone else – medieval sacraments, the screechy, bombastic pronouncements of Trent and Vatican I and almost everything in between – if we care about “orthodox Christianity” more than we care about “orthodox Catholicism”, then we should be wanting to point those out everywhere and helping to bury them ourselves.
“Bob” is a hypothetical, and I know his situations are based on real life situations that we’ve seen in the past, but we can’t manage what all of the individual “Bob”’s do. What we can do is outline the history of things as best as we can, as honestly as we can, and disseminate that as widely as possible,
Steve pointed out this lecture to me, with which you may be familiar:
https://sda.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/media/courses/deist-controversy/lecture-04/
If “Bob” knows about the history of the Jesuits that are discussed in this video, then “Bob” will have a much better foundation and will be far less likely to come out of it as a thinking orthodox Christian rather than gravitate toward some of the scenarios you painted.
It is a complicated issue for sure. But we have the means to understand what was going on, what IS going on, as honestly as we possibly can, and also (via the Internet) the means to spread that truthful and honest stuff far and wide.
/// I can think of lots of things that are worse than being an orthodox Catholic.///
Again, this depends on where the “orthodox Catholicism” exists. If it’s a strong institution, and it captures people to believe that “orthodox Catholicism” somehow coheres with the truth of Biblical Christianity, then that’s a false belief and we should, again, root for the “institution” to fail.
"Again, this depends on where the “orthodox Catholicism” exists. If it’s a strong institution, and it captures people to believe that “orthodox Catholicism” somehow coheres with the truth of Biblical Christianity, then that’s a false belief and we should, again, root for the “institution” to fail."
ReplyDeleteBut aren't some false beliefs worse to hold than others? Remember, I said "unequivocally a good thing." I'm not deferring to the hierarchy in any way, of course. One could say that I'm sitting on the sidelines watching what is going to happen. But from the perspective of eternal consequences, *which* falsehoods a man believes can make all the difference to his eternal destiny, and the same is true of large numbers of people taken in the aggregate.
///But aren't some false beliefs worse to hold than others? ///
DeleteSure, but how do you rate them on a scale? And then, how do you separate off the chaff from the wheat? In some respects, this is the Lord's job, not ours. However, we can't fail to be discerning either. That which is "uniquely Roman" has for the most part shaped our western culture. Some of that is good. However, that which is more closely associated with "uniquely Roman religion" has a bad grip on some of the "uniquely Roman" cultural things, which were good.
(And by "good" I'm talking about things like law, civil discourse, etc.) It's true that the early Roman Christians dramatically improved the overall morality of the Roman empire (fetching up the infant daughters that had been thrown out in the trash, and whatnot), but that's not what I mean by "uniquely Roman". That was "uniquely Christian". There is a difference.
///I'm not deferring to the hierarchy in any way, of course. ///
Insofar as your arguments enable them to maintain the illusion (for themselves in the hierarchy and for the "orthodox Catholics" -- as well as for the unorthodox Catholics -- those "Bobs" of the world) -- then you ARE deferring to the hierarchy.
///One could say that I'm sitting on the sidelines watching what is going to happen. ///
Mostly we all are. But we also can see what is happening, and trying to locate it within a specific Protestant worldview, and then articulating that -- which is why I posted this original piece.
///But from the perspective of eternal consequences, *which* falsehoods a man believes can make all the difference to his eternal destiny, and the same is true of large numbers of people taken in the aggregate.///
As the authors of "Roman but Not Catholic" argue, "from the perspective of eternal consequences", either Heaven will be one big Roman Catholic catechism class -- lectures on "here's the infallible stuff you got wrong in your lives" -- or all of the stuff about "papal primacy" and "papal infallibility" and as I said above, all the medieval sacraments, the screechy, bombastic pronouncements of Trent and Vatican I and almost everything in between -- all of that will be forgotten, and the emphasis placed upon it in THIS life will be seen to have been, precisely how harmful? Quite harmful, I would think, in a lot of people's lives.
I still root for the institution that maintains those things to fail.
I read that 20 percent of Hispanics in the US have "no religion." So it's not the case that they are becoming particularly Protestant.
ReplyDeleteLydia, "I grieve for my serious Catholic friends in the Francis papacy. It must be agonizing for them." Well, did they get agonized when 2 popes appointed Raymond Brown to the Pontifical Biblical Academy, when John Paul 2 kissed the Koran, when Georgetown opened a Muslim prayer chapel, etc. "Serious Catholics" have been silent about these things for decades. It's only the intricacies of marriage such as "Amoris Laetitia" (which you have to be an expert on canon law to understand) that the "serious Cathlics" get worked up over.
I can't take "serious catholics" seriously when they all but worshipped the Koran-kissing John Paul 2.
-Steve Jackson
My point is that this has been happening for a long time, particularly starting with John Paul II. He opened the flood gates of liberalism by teaching higher critical views of the Bible, evolution and universalism.
ReplyDeleteI believe that my article puts the nail into the coffin of Roman Catholic priestly celibacy. See here:
ReplyDeletehttps://rationalchristiandiscernment.blogspot.com/2017/02/catholic-authorities-and-celibacy.html
Any comments should be directed to the blog article. Thanks a million!