www.byzcath.org Forums News & Events Church News Priest shortage..crisis of faith, not celibacy

To ease the burden on our priest, we as members of the church should do our job.
Our priest should be in the confessional, instead of figuring out how to raise enough money to pay the bills. The Pastors should know that many of our members are college educated and have their own business, and are able to assist in the finances of the church. Many of us want to help, but we ( priest & lay people )should know it is a two way street.
Trust in the Holy Spirit.

What you don't know won't hurt you. Those who know don't even try it.

Joe

Sadly, it is true that there are some very angry older clergy (and perhaps younger ones) around, and one of the means by which they express that anger is strongly discouraging any and all potential candidates for the priesthood. This is not a new development by any means. But there is little or no effort to gather data on it and analyze that data dispassionately, let alone do anything about it.

A sad but hopeful quote: almost 40 years ago such a priest told me that he advised any boy interested in the priesthood to get lost. Well, nearly 4 decades later the Church is still here.

Incognitus

Thought this article was appropriate for this discussion..
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1239682

Bishops vote to continue celibcy rules by wide margin.

Daniel:

You posted:
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But priests I know seem to have more discretionary income than middle class family men; many of them are collectors of various things; antiquities, icons, rosaries, etc. I think when you factor in the car allowance [normal for diocesan priests I believe] free housing, the many gifts they receive from parishoners, both stipends and presents, they are living pretty well. Probably, from what I have seen [including some on-site experience living in a rectory when I was a seminarian] they are living too well and could use a little more of the spirit of holy poverty.
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With all due respect, what a man does with his income is no one's business but his own. What a priest does with his income is, also, none of anyone else's business. We all have choices that we make with income. Some are generous in giving to the poor and others are not. Some collect "stuff" while others save and invest. To say that one who collects has more than he needs or deserves hints of a mean spirit of jealousy IMHO.

By the same reasoning, a man who has raised his children, has paid off his mortgage, and has risen to the upper reaches of his field should also "use a little more of the spirit of poverty." He ought not to travel or allow himself a little ease after years of struggle. He ought to be pushed to the bottom of the pay scale so that others can have more. Seems to me that "from each according to his ability and to each according to his need" is what Karl Marx preached and many on this board know the suffering caused in trying to put this utopian attitude into practice.

Remember that clergy who are not monastic are not vowed to live in poverty. The have vowed to live as single, celibate men. It seems to me that they deserve to live as well as any parishioner. Simple justice demands of us that we pay a priest the same way a man with a similar education is paid. While I step back from some sort of "comparable worth" stance, I do not believe that every priest should be forced to live in poverty. It might be that we have paid our priests what we think that they are worth and, if that be the case, Judgment Day "ain't gonna be a party." Somehow the idea that Christian clergy should be poverty stricken in order to be humble enough to qualify is deep rooted. It sure isn't the measure in Judaism, as the example above shows.

It might be that you assume that every priest comes out of his 8 years of education with no loans for his education and a wealthy family behind him. Alternatively, the past saw young priests taken in by a wealthy family in the community who would serve as his patron during the time of his assignment: at least that was the case in my hometown. That, however, seems to be a thing of the past. Many of my own acquaintances come out of the seminary with double the debt of recent undergraduates and have a long payback period for their loans. One who comes rapidly to mind had $10 a month left of his income once he paid his loans, car payment, and insurances. And that went on for some years until he had a parish of his own.

Trouble today is that stories like this are no longer secret. They have a way of getting out into parishes and all the way to families whose sons might be considering the priesthood.

In Christ,

BOB

I studied for 9 years and I live at or below poverty level -- because student loans kill you! Actually, my debt is so outrageous that even thinking about seminary makes my head spin. How would I pay for seminary? How would I then pay all the loans? Believe it or not, my debt has seriously hindered my vocation.

I'm trying to win at Publisher's Clearing House though, so please pray for me.

Bob- I don't wish for priests to be "poverty stricken"; obviously their needs should be met. My comments about priests with expensive hobbies was meant to show that in my experience they have enough money to cultivate these things.
You apparently know priests who are poor; that has not been my experience by a long shot.
I know diocesan priests are not vowed to poverty, but simplicity of living is a good thing in any Christian.
Heck, even members of religious orders who are vowed to poverty live pretty soft lives, for the most part [I am not counting the reform movements that are popping up]. I have visited monasteries where life was pretty cushy, with servants doing all the hard work and cooks preparing excellent fare, and an open bar every night. The attitude seemed to be "well we are poor because we don't own any of this." Oh really? That just means you don't have to pay the bills; all of the affluence, none of the responsibility.
But even in diocesan life, for a priest to be living better than most of his parishoners is something of a scandal.
And I don't know the customs of Eastern bishops but there are some Roman dioceses that pay for seminary training for their men...
-Daniel

Daniel,

I was in a Latin seminary for a year after high school. They didn't pay. I think they WILL pay if there is just no other way, but with grants and loans available, they encourage you to pursue those avenues. That was for college seminary. Maybe they pay for theologate? I should ask.

Maybe they should make you pay for it all, then reimburse you if you "make it"...

Daniel:

I don't know of any dioceses that pay for their seminarians' education. My experience has been here in PA where it doesn't seem to be the custom.

In any event, even if that were the universal case, my argument is still that no one has the right to tell another what he may or may not do with his income. It's even worse to think that one ought to base a man's wage on what he has accumulated.

Christian simplicity is enjoined on us all. That we can agree on. However, it should not be enforced on anyone, least of all the clergy. Each one of us must answer for every thought, word, and deed on Judgment Day. If a man is a priest and causes scandal, he must answer for it. But I don't think that a priest having collections of anything or having a living wage rises to the level of scandal. If one thinks that it might, one ought to take a long look at one's own conscience formation and see if there is some false assumption therein.

If a priest--or anyone else for that matter--collects "stuff" and lives near a place where there is human suffering in the form of the poor who cannot get a meal at a soup kitchen and does nothing, Scripture is full of the answer to that situation--objectively. But to say that a priest who collects, say, Hummel figurines, should be criticized any more than the parishioner next door is unjust.

Men in religious houses who live high on the hog will always be with us. They give monasticism a bad name in every age. I've heard of archimandrites who have to have silk as the fabric for their habits. I know of Latin monastics who drive expensive cars. So what!?!?! I have to answer for myself, just as you do. If I give to the support of the Church according to my means, donate as a sacrifice to help feed and clothe the poor, the Lord will look at that when I am before Him answering for my life and the stewardship of the treasure He havs given me. I don't have to answer for anyone in the clergy who takes those funds and uses them in a way that the Lord may find objectionable. But who am I to try to predict what His judgments will be? He tells us that His ways are not our own and His judgments are not our own. Remember that it is His judgment that we need to be concerned with, not our own and not that of others. It seems to me that in this area of looking so closely at the clergy we have to ask if the "green eyes" of jealousy are coloring our vision if we think that a priest who collects things should somehow be "brought down a few pegs"--as I have heard it phrased.

Of course, my own commitment to support priests unreservedly and unconditonally might just be coloring my responses here.

In Christ,

BOB

This is not the most edifying of discussions, but what the heck.

I do know of some US dioceses who are prepared to fund the education of the clergy - and they are a minority, obviously.

As an inadequate and quick standard of reference, there are two things to take into account:

a) we are unfortunately living in a society which evaluates a man's "worth" by the amount of money he is paid. This is outrageous, but it is that way.

b) it is not easy to estimate the priest's legitimate expenses (he needs a car for obvious reasons, and it may well be the case, though I'm no expert, that what looks like a higher-priced car will last longer and require less repair work. This is not, please note, an argument in favor of fire-engine red Cadillac convertibles!). He certainly needs lots of books, which are expensive, and subscriptions to theological journals (which are expensive).

I could go on, but this really is a depressing topic.

Incognitus

This was reported on CNN this morning: CNN Synod report [edition.cnn.com]

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

I am not attacking the messenger, but I do want to attack the message.

I also used to think that the Eastern Catholic Churches in America were going to wither away. Due to assimilation, I used to think that most Eastern Catholics in the U.S. would either become Roman Catholics or Orthodox.

Now, I have changed my mind. That is because I have experienced a simple, powerful fact by attending a local Eastern Catholic parish.

The Eastern Catholic Church is people. It is people who are living in union with the Trinity according to the Tradition of the Eastern Church and in communion with Rome.

The people --in union with Jesus Christ-- are the Church. And in this land of genuine religious freedom, there is no external threat to the Eastern Catholic Churches. Hence, it is the people who shall decide if the Eastern Catholic Churches shall die or thrive. Thus, the only way the Eastern Catholic Churches will die out in America is if the people decide to let them die out. And if the people want their churches to survive, they will make them survive: by being present and active and holy.

I have come to the opposite conclusion which I used to hold. I now think --based upon what I have witnessed-- that the Eastern Catholic Churches in America have a potentially vibrant life ahead of them. The grace of Christ our God is there. All we need to do is use it.

-- John

Sadly, many of those people are voting with their feet. This is happening in Orthodox parishes as well, the younger generations are drifting away by varying degrees from parish to parish.

Thankfully there are parishes that buck the trend, perhaps yours is one of them. Unfortunately some of these are relying much too heavily on Latin rite Catholics drifting over, and they are not aggressively enough evangelizing among the average non-Catholic.

The second problem is that these latin rite Catholics are not always adopting the Eastern theology, they simply are Roman Catholics on the inside. This in itself is an indicator of trouble for the Eastern Catholic churches in the future.

There is nothing like an RCIA or catechumenate for the Latin rite Catholics who transit to the Eastern churches. They would benefit mightily from such training.
I agree, it is a potentially vibrant future.

+T+
Michael