Articles

Priests for Tomorrow - Fritz Lobinger & Paul Zulehner

An possible theme for discussion at NCP Conference September 2004 submitted by Charles Rue, Columban Peace Ecology and Justice Centre, North Turramurra charlesdrue@netscape.net

Parishes Need to Celebrate the Eucharistic

In its hundred year history my home parish of Canowindra has ordained some twenty priests. Now, an eighty year old Vincentian fills in while looking after two other parishes. In the diocese where our Mission Institute is located, over a third of the diocesan priests have recently been brought in from India, Poland and elsewhere to fill gaps. While local Catholics are grateful, both cases are but stop-gap measures with no realistic plans by church authorities to have the sacraments celebrated by local Australian diocesan priests.

The situation in mission countries is often no better. The Columbans have worked in the Philippines for more than seventy years and put major efforts into cultivating a local celibate male clergy. Yet Bishop Imus, speaking as Chair of the Doctrinal Committee of RP 2004, stated that the Philippines needs 25,000 priests but there are only 8,700. Similarly, the Columbans and priest associates are still running parishes in Latin America after more than fifty years of mission presence. Is it time we took another approach to forming communities served by their own priests instead of continuing to import foreigners?

In the context of this sad and unjust situation I made an appeal that our Columban Society be active in the October 2005 Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist and lobby for the ordination of local people to serve their parish communities. I make the same plea to members of NCC.

Bishops at the 2005 Synod are directed to discuss The Eucharist: Source And Summit Of The Life And Mission Of The Church and a list of questions ( http://www.vatican . va/roman_curia/synod/index.htm click on XI Ordinary General Assembly, 2004: Lineamenta). To prepare "episcopal conferences, the Eastern Churches sui iuris, the Dicasteries of the Roman Curia and the Union of Superiors General [are] to invite the participation of all in the Church. … Responses should arrive at the General Secretariat before 31 December 2004."

The Synod is to survey the pastoral implications of the Eucharist with the aim "that the Eucharist maintain its central place in the eyes of the Church, at the universal and local levels—especially in parishes and communities" and it will "contribute to the renewal program in the life and Christian mission of individuals and communities."(No 3)

These stated and worthy aims are soon belied:

•  a new text on the Eucharist by the Curia is presented in spite of the Pope's 2003 encyclical The Church and the Eucharist (EC), a more nuanced document even when it speaks of abuses (No 10). http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG 0 821/_INDEX.HTM

•  by number 4 in the new curia text there is a rebuke to those who might speak of a "fraternal meal", and the rest of the new text is likewise slanted to reinforce supposedly correct interpretations of the Eucharist and ridicule other opinions, ultimately distorting the tradition;

•  the list of questions proposed to the bishops are insulting and try to turn them into policemen of "shadows" [evils] which do not conform with the narrow view of the Eucharist promoted by the slant of the questions;

•  regarding mission issues: the questions worry about mistaken inculturation, about the connections of sects to inter-faith dialogue and the like. In this way the questions distort mission work turning it into the formation of followers more perverted than the people who set the questions (Mk 7:7).

Question 20 asks "What other aspects of the Sacrament of the Eucharist, not contained in the preceding questions, should be considered?" My simple answer is this, the right of Catholic communities to have an ordained priest from their own culture. The Pope wants a non-temporary solution to the shortage of priests (EC Nos 32-33).

Some may object that ordaining married male priests is not an answer. I agree. Let us stretch our imaginations. Some writers in southern Africa propose a team of ordained priests in every community, each with a specialty in leading or preaching or reconciling or whatever is required, and drawn for both men and women. Judging by the mood of committed Catholics I find in Australian parishes, most would be delighted.

Well functioning parishes will die without priests. As a mater of justice, can the NCP as a group, not just as individuals, lobby bishop conferences and curia officials to address a structural form of sin in the Church which denies Catholic communities the Eucharist? Support our local bishop in any effort to face up to church authorities who might try to silence them. Let the rich corporate knowledge of the pastoral needs of Catholics held by NCP members argue for and support a change in church laws. Let NCP contact with other priests councils add weight to the argument. The 2005 Synod invites a wide participation.