As We See The New Dark Ages On The Horizon

I had dinner Saturday evening with an old friend from graduate school along with her husband and two sons.  The older son is a student in the pre-theology program of Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall University in South Orange, New Jersey.  In the course of dinner he told me that “many” of his colleagues in the college seminary program do not accept Pope Francis as the legitimate pope, claiming that “their pope” is Pope Benedict.  The objections are that Pope Francis is too liberal, he is a Jesuit and not a diocesan priest, that he favors liberation theology, that he is not strong enough against homosexuality and/or abortion, that he has “abandoned” Summorum Pontificum and the (alleged) program of Pope Benedict to re-institute the Tridentine Mass as the official Liturgy of the Catholic Church.  There are some also, the young man told us, who believe that Pope Benedict was coerced into abdicating and thus is resignation is not valid. 

Now this could just be the wild imagination of a 20 year old.  The young man himself doesn’t—or at least didn’t in the conversation—dispute the authority of Pope Francis.  His family are pretty middle-of-the-road Catholics, somewhat more conservative in their piety than I, but who attend Mass in English. Their father teaches CCD in their parish.  I have been to their parish for Mass and it is a pretty typical middle of the road parish.  They are very involved in social outreach to the poor and in particular with immigrants from Latin America.  Their faith is important to them and while the parents were encouraging their son to tell me about this submarine culture in the seminary, they themselves seemed pretty unnerved by it. 

And Immaculate Conception Seminary at Seton Hall is one of the better seminaries today.  I mean this is no Mount Saint Mary’s, or Immaculate Heart or Holy Trinity (Irving). The Archdiocese of Newark has had its ups and downs regarding its archbishops, but it has a fine presbyterate.  There are many first-rate parishes served by priests of the Archdiocese.  The Church of the Presentation in Upper Saddle River has long had an excellent reputation way beyond the Archdiocese of Newark for a “Vatican II” style parish.  Fathers Thomas Ivory and Tom Kleissler of the Archdiocee of Newark was responsible for the RENEW program that swept American parishes in the ‘80’s.  Father Frank McNulty of the Archdiocese of Newark was the priest chosen to address Pope John Paul on behalf of all the priests of the United States during the Pontiff’s 1987 visit to the United States.  The late Monsignor John Osterreicher (d. 1993) was a theological consultant for the Second Vatican Council and was on the team of theologians who drafted the decree Nostra Aetate, the Declaration on non-Christian religions that changed so much in the world of inter-religious dialogue and which especially cleared the Jews of complicity in the death of Jesus. 

“Submarine Seminarians” are not a rarity these days but they bode ill for the Church.  They go through the system saying everything they are supposed to say, concealing their true thoughts and beliefs, impervious to the sound theology being given them in their classes.  They are able to parrot back what their professors say but they have developed their own particular Catholicism, unique to them and their clique, and keep it under wraps until they are ordained.  All one has to do is look at the Diocese of Madison or the Diocese of Lincoln or the Diocese of Arlington and see the damage to the faith of the People of God these crypto-schismatics can wreak. 

Now the good news—such as it is—is that this problem is manifest at the College level and hopefully is discovered and weeded out before these burgeoning schismatics and sedevacantists advance to public ministry.  Immaculate Conception has some fine professors on its theological faculty and hopefully as these young enthusiasts are exposed to the authentic teaching of the Church their intellects—and their faith—will mature.  But if not, the road looks even rockier ahead and the threat of schism grows darker.

On a somewhat related note of seminarian dysfunction, the famous blogging priest, Father Z (Father John Zuhlsdorf) was appalled when attending a recent “Pontifical Mass at the Throne” in his adopted diocese of Madison WI (you would have to go to Madison, or through the Looking Glass, to find a Pontifical Mass at the Throne these days) the seminarians appeared “nude.”  Well it is not nearly as interesting as it sounds.  What Father Z meant by “nude” was uncovered in as that they lacked birettas.  You may not remember birettas.  They are the snappy little headpieces worn by the clergy of yester-year (and prelates of today).  They consist of a somewhat squared cap topped by three  or (in the case of some religious) four “horns” or raised ridges and centered by (except for those same religious and members of the Sacred College) a pom-pom or tassel.  The origins of the biretta is the academic hat for university scholars but it crept into church use in the sixteenth century.  Father Z is just appalled, beside himself with indignation, at the lack of proper headgear for these seminarians and has started a fund provide the young men with the old hat.  Good grief.  It looks like sanity no longer has critical mass in our seminaries.  

Good Shepherds and Bad--Mostly Bad

I referred to trouble brewing in the Diocese of Madison in a recent post and I want to look at that issue because it is a harbinger of trouble to come.   At Vatican II the bishops told us “to read the signs of the times” and that advice is never better taken than right now—and the word “Trouble” is in bright lights these days on the Madison Marquee. 

Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison—like a lot of American bishops—has had to face declining numbers of clergy to serve his diocese, and like many American bishops he has looked overseas for ready-made vocations.  Bishop Morlino, a former Jesuit who became disaffected with the Society during the years of Pedro Arrupe’s leadership and at age 37 left the Society of Jesus to become a secular priest in the diocese of Kalamazoo, brought in a community of priests from Spain to take over a cluster of parishes in southwestern Wisconsin.  This community—the Society of Jesus the Priest (not to be confused with the community of prelates known as the Institute of Jesus Christ Sovereign Priest) regularly celebrates the Catholic Liturgy in both the Tridentine and current Rites, but even in the “new mass” does not permit girls to serve at the altar, laity to serve as ministers of the Eucharist (even to bring the Eucharist to the homebound), insists on the faithful receiving communion on the tongue and kneeling.  It is not simply a matter of liturgical back-pedaling  but essentially a question of the relationship of priests and laity. The Midwest has long been among the most progressive sections of the Catholic Church in the United States and Wisconsin, in particular, was quick to embrace the changes at Vatican II. I think this openness has had to do with a long tradition of progressive archbishops in Milwaukee but also the combination of Lutheran and Catholic populations—groups similar enough to have been able to learn from one another in matters liturgical and ecumenical.  In any event, the laity in the parishes “served” by the priests of the Society of Jesus the Priest have not been happy with the direction things are taking and complained bitterly about these practices being foisted on them but the priests show no openness to listening to the legitimate complaints of their people.  Their model of Church is one where “Father” holds all decision making to himself.  The Church belongs to the clergy and the laity are granted the privilege of paying for it.

Well, many of these parishioners are not paying for it.   One Monsignor in the Diocese of Madison told me that “all hell is breaking loose.”  Faithful Catholics are driving fifty and seventy miles to attend Mass elsewhere—some even crossing State lines as they are “fed up” not only with the priests of the Society of Jesus the Priest, but with Bishop Morlino who has shown himself to be utterly unsympathetic to their grievances.  (And to think, last Sunday was Good Shepherd Sunday with the Gospel speaking to us of the wise and compassionate Shepherd.)  Others have begun attending the local Methodist and Lutheran churches.  Still others have simply stopped attending Mass.  One man was in tears telling me that his 87 year old mother, bedridden from a stroke, had been receiving Holy Communion twice a week from a Eucharistic Minister but now was told that “Father would bring her Communion on first Fridays.”  They told “Father” he could stay home.  A generous parishioner has offered instead to drive 35 miles to a town where the priest will give him the Eucharist to bring to this homebound woman who says a rosary every day for vocations and a second one for “the Pope and our bishop.” 

Collections have fallen drastically as parishioners have deserted the parishes in and around Platteville WI where these priest are “serving.”   In Platteville, a parish that had been thriving under its previous pastor, the parish school will close this June because collections are down at least 40%.  As if this wasn’t bad enough, the Bishop had threatened parishioners who complain with ecclesiastical censures including being refused Holy Communion and Christian burial.  What is going on? 

I have several reasons for saying this is a sign of the times.

1.     There is an increasing number of clergy, both American-born and foreign, who have taken a sharp “turn to the right” in terms of undoing the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council.  Moreover the liturgical abuses they propagate are not simply idiosyncratic aberrations but bespeak a view of authority that is entirely “top down” and without accountability to the Church—that is to the people whom they are ordained to serve.  There is no dialogue here—it’s Father’s way or the highway. 

2.     The shortage of vocations to the priesthood has caused bishops both to look overseas for supplemental clergy and to lower the standards—intellectually and psychologically (which means morally)   of the candidates they are willing to accept.  (Check back and read the blog entry for May 20, 2011.) 

3.     There has been a drastic shift in our hierarchy with an increasing proportion of bishops who see the Church primarily in institutional terms and do not consider themselves responsible for and to the faithful.  This episcopal arrogance is typified by Cardinal Law who, in his days as Archbishop of Boston, considered himself totally unaccountable to anyone and even to the Laws of the State of Massachusetts, in dealing with pedophile priests.  Law’s mistake was huge and not only cost him his see but turned the sex-abuse issue into a national crisis as the Cardinal became the poster-boy for protecting sex-abusers.   This sort of episcopal arrogance also led to Raymond Burke being relieved of his duties as Archbishop of Saint Louis, though it gained him a red-hatted desk job in Rome.  (And doesn’t that say something?) This hierarchical presumption that the Church consists pretty much in men in red dresses nicely accented by the appropriate jewelry has led to Archbishop Lori’s attack on the American nuns.   Any view of Church that consists of the community of the Body of Christ is definitely relegated to the dust bin of Vatican II enthusiasm. 

4.     All of this is an indication that the future of the Second Vatican Council, at least for the American Church, is very much in question.  Ecumenism is dead in the water, the liturgical advances are being dismantled in favor of a neo-traditionalism, parish advisory boards and Diocesan finance councils are reduced to being rubber stamps, open and honest discussion whether of diocesan policy or serious theological issues is a thing of the past. 

The signs of the times are ominous for those who drank the Vatican II Kool-Aid.