Two-thirds of the priests in Austria see a “dangerous stalling out of reform” in the Catholic Church and a “dramatic gulf” between the Church and modern culture. More than 70 percent of them have a fundamentally positive view of the priests’ initiative for disobedience initiated by Fr. Helmut Schüller and see it as a stimulus for necessary reform. This is the main outcome of a recent study of over 500 priests in Austria.

Worldwide Interest

Since the middle of June, the “Appeal to Disobedience” of the Austrian “Pastors’ Initiative” has enjoyed great interest in the media. The priests no longer address “desires for reform” to the Church leadership, but rather announce that they themselves will implement reforms by immediate action. They will practice “disobedience” like this: not to deny Communion to divorced and remarried, to allow laity to preach as Sunday Mass, and in effect to transfer leadership of communities to laity. The rebellious priests wish to utilize “every opportunity” to speak up publicly for the admission of women and married men to ordained ministry – despite the Vatican prohibition.

Priests Think like the Wider Population

… Because the 500 priests are a representative sample of 3,500 Austrian priests, the survey results give trustworthy information on how Austrian clergymen view the “Appeal to Disobedience.” …  When [another study] showed already at the end of August that over 70 percent of the Austrian population as a whole share the concerns of the Pastors’ Initiative, it was a clear sign of majority support for the demands of the rebellious priests. It will certainly give the bishops much to talk about at their plenary assembly that the attitude of the entire clergy obviously mirrors the earlier survey. Because of this study, one will no longer be able to write off the initiative as the project of just a few people.

72% Are “Reformers”

Project director Fr. Paul M. Zulehner, in his book about the study to appear in January, places 72% of the priests in the category of “reformers.” 31% of these are so-called “radical reformers” who agree with the Pastor’s Initiative with virtually no reservations. 41% are moderate reformers or, as Zulehner labels them, “unpackers” who sympathize fundamentally with the appeal, but wish to discuss each demand separately. Only 28% of those polled spoke out against the “Appeal to Disobedience.”

“Gulf” between Contemporary Life and Gospel/Church

… 39% of the priests are of the opinion that “there is a dramatically deep gulf between the contemporary life situation of people today and the Gospel.” Significantly more (67%) feel that “there is a dramatic gulf between the contemporary life situation of people today and the Catholic Church.” Zulehner takes this to mean “that, in the viewpoint of priests, the Gospel is closer to modern people than the Catholic Church is.” In the analysis of priests, some of the gap between the Catholic Church and modern life seems not to be justified by the Gospel. In conversation with the religion department of Austrian Public Radio the project director explained, “Obviously the Church is perceived as being removed from the Gospel. The reform demands could thus be understood as an effort to reform the Church on the basis of the Gospel and to lead the Church back to the Gospel.”

Big Difference between Celibacy and Women’s Ordination

Regarding individual demands of the Pastors’ Initiative, the call for admission of divorced and remarried to the sacraments experienced the broadest support. 76% are fundamentally in favor, and even 86% in individual cases. The two most-discussed reform demands, abolishment of mandatory celibacy and ordination of women, are evaluated very differently by the priests. While 71% would see “married fellow priests with their own family as an enrichment,” only 55% are of the opinion that “the demand to admit women to ordained ministry is in harmony with the Gospel.”

Striking Age Differences

Among the many results offered by the study, the age differentiation stands out as a common theme running through the responses. Older priests are much more open to reform than their younger colleagues. While only 17 percent of those in their 60s are opponents, the number of opponents among those under 40 reaches 51 percent. Zulehner sees two reasons for this. On the one hand, “celibacy functions as a filter.” Only those who already have a certain aversion to liberal position would even consider the priesthood today, he believes. On the other hand, Zulehner views young, conservative priests within a larger societal context: a general rightward movement among youth, their increased attachment to authoritarianism and subordination, is also widely represented among young priests.

Source: Austrian Public Radio (ORF), tr. awr.

These priests have taken a constructive step. They have decided to support one another. They also hope to exercise leadership. They want to “have a voice” on the national level.

Their most highly-favored objective was named in this way:

Full implementation of the vision and teachings of the Second Vatican Council with special emphasis on the primacy of the individual conscience, the status and participation of all the baptized, and the task of establishing a church where all believers will be treated as equals.

They have announced a plan which sounds promising—to spend the next four years celebrating the Second Vatican Council. They also plan to host a “major convocation” to be held next June at St. Leo University in Tampa, Florida, in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

The subject of the convocation will be—you guessed it—the liturgy.

No one has asked me for advice. But if they did, I’d suggest that they consider using the seven “essential themes” of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, which I developed in my book, Liturgy: Sacrosanctum Concilium (Paulist Press, 2007), as a framework. They are:

1. Paschal Mystery
2. Liturgy as “Summit and Source” of the Church’s Life
3. Full, Active, Conscious Participation
4. Ecclesiology
5. Inculturation
6. Renewal of the Books, Music, Art, and Artifacts of the Liturgy
7. Education and Formation for Liturgy

In my experience, #3 and 5 are generally the source of the liveliest discussion today, with 6 being the focus of the most practical work and painful disagreements. The presence of Christ in the liturgy is key to #2. The theological items on this list, #1 and 4, are very interesting in my view, but #4 is frequently ignored in favor of other sources of commentary on the nature of the Church, specifically Lumen Gentium and Gaudium et Spes. #1 is an oft-affirmed theme which nonetheless could benefit from deeper exploration. In a way, the move toward mystagogy in the area of catechesis on liturgy (or from liturgy) — part of #7 — nods to #1. But I think the centrality of the paschal mystery to liturgy is a great topic. Education and formation issues are very important, and an area of considerable interest today I think.

What I really hope they won’t do is to focus the whole gathering around contentious issues. These focus attention, but they can also drain energy and prove discouraging. Some time spent focussing on problems and controversies is necessary and important, but the liturgy is more than the sum of its controversies.

If you could have input into the agenda, what would you suggest?

I wish them well… And I’d love to be a fly on the wall for that meeting!

I am among those who criticize celebrants who feel compelled to adopt a folksy/chatty demeanor, complete with jokes and instructional monologues that offer penetrating glances into the blindingly obvious. But this weekend, particularly as I sought to guide the assembly through the rich and rather complex symbolic vocabulary of the rite of baptism, I found myself tempted to blather on at length so that they would have some idea of why we began at the church door, moved to the nave for the liturgy of the word, then to the font, and finally to the altar; or why we use two sorts of oil, what the role of godparents is, and how water symbolizes both purification and dying and rising with Christ. I grouped a lot of this commentary into the homily, but some of it did bleed into other parts of the liturgy, since I didn’t want to over-burden the homily.

I might have been able to presume that the parents had been previously instructed in all this, but clearly this was not the case with everyone present, so it seemed incumbent upon me to offer some commentary if they were to be a worshiping assembly and not simply baffled spectators. And, at least as I read the documents of Vatican II, one of the goals of the reform was precisely to effect that shift from spectators to assembly (which is simply the English translation of ekklesia).

The wedding was a bit easier, in part because the rite of marriage is very simple (even if weddings are not). But even here I felt a temptation to deviate from the authorized text when addressing the couple, since they were former students whom I knew fairly well and it seemed strange to read a script to them rather than speak to them as I normally would. For the most part I resisted this — keeping my more personal remarks for the homily — but I felt the temptation. Should I adopt a tone of voice that was “natural” or one that conveys the supernatural significance of the occasion? There is a lot of spontaneous natural joy at a wedding. How can I best channel this into the supernatural joy that should also accompany the sacrament?

Sometimes I hear the liturgical reforms described as “simplifying” our rites. In a sense, of course, this is true. In addition to the simplification of the rites themselves, it will always be easier to pray in one’s native tongue. But in another sense the reforms have made the role of presiders more complicated, more demanding. The very fact of the use of the vernacular seems to presume that those who preside at liturgies will engage the congregation in a way that one could not be expected to do in Latin. Indeed, the simplification of the rites implies that the various ritual elements should stand out with a certain clarity and not simply appear as an undifferentiated mass of “sacrality.” They seem to be there in order to signify clearly. But in a culture that has grown symbolically tone deaf, particularly to Christian symbols, how much help do we need to give them?

The difficult challenge is to pursue this engagement and to make the rite comprehensible without losing a sense of transcendence and mystery. It struck me this weekend that this is a lot to ask. So it is not surprising that some chose either the path of complete disengagement — celebrating the rites as if they had never been reformed — or the path of an über-folksy style that engages people, but at the cost of turning the liturgy into (to quote Aidan Kavanagh) a Kiwanas Club meeting with hymns.

So while I am not ready to concede that Father Talk-Show-Host has the right solution, I will say that he has the right problem. That is, given the nature of the liturgical reforms, we are called to do justice to both the natural and the supernatural, nature and grace, the ordinary and the extraordinary.The task then is to meet people on the level of the natural and draw them into the mystery of God’s grace. This is a lot to ask, and it is inevitable that we will all fail to some degree. At that point I take comfort in knowing that I am merely an instrumental cause of grace, firmly grasped in the steady hand of God.

He had never really thought about the question before, and he wasn’t aware of the magisterium’s statements on the question. Now he has, and is. On the impossibility of women’s ordination, he is in full communion with the Pope.

awr

Here is the bishops’ newspaper column on the letter.

Story summarizing the letter, a brochure for parishes, and the bishop’s audio message – all here.

Pray Tell comment: As the priesthood shortage becomes quite dire in coming years, it will be interesting to observe the effects upon the permanent diaconate. Of course, the permanent diaconate is an order in its own right, not a stop-gap because of the shortage or priests. But as the shortage worsens, I’m sure the guys in the diaconate will be ready to serve any way they can.  -  awr

H/T: Deacon’s Bench.

National Public Radio, “Female priests defy Catholic church at altar.”

This looks like a very unfortunate misunderstanding.

Does anyone out there know what the Catholic Church’s ecumenical directives say about such services?

awr