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<\/a> Looking at today\u2019s Church I notice three things: in many parts of the world, the Church is growing faster than priests can be trained; in places like the United States the faithful population is growing faster than vocations to the priesthood; and we\u2019re expecting all priests to study like Dominicans, at least during their seminary formation.<\/p>\nSt. Dominic\u2019s notions were shocking to the bishops of the time.\u00a0 He wanted to found an order of preaching brothers, but at that time, 800 years ago, priests normally didn\u2019t preach\u2026or if they did, they preached sermons written by others, notably their own bishops.\u00a0 It was the bishops who had the responsibility for teaching the faith, while the priests were for the administration of the sacraments to the faithful.\u00a0 But preaching was what the Church needed, said St. Dominic, and he won his case.<\/p>\n
Study has consequently played an enormous part in the Dominican life,\u00a0 because you can\u2019t (usually) preach well if you don\u2019t know anything.\u00a0 When someone objected that the Apostles preached without benefit of study, Humbert of Romans remarked that they had other advantages; for our part, he said, we can benefit from a little study.<\/p>\n
Over time St. Dominic\u2019s ideas caught on; and now to become a priest you undergo seminary training that is the equivalent of a graduate degree in philosophy and theology, and the notion of a priest as simply a minister of the sacraments is obsolete.<\/p>\n
And yet, we seem to be growing ever shorter on priests to administer the sacraments.<\/p>\n
In my historical reading about the Church I\u2019ve noticed that as Church has gotten bigger it has gotten more complex, organizationally.\u00a0 In the earliest days, so I understand, there was a single church in each city, centered on the bishop; the deacons were the bishop\u2019s hands and feet in administering charity, and the presbyters were his advisors.\u00a0 Over time, as dioceses got bigger the presbyters, or \u201cpriests\u201d in English, took on more and more responsibility.\u00a0 And then dioceses got even bigger and required auxiliary bishops.\u00a0 My own archdiocese is enormous, and has an archbishop and a bunch of auxiliary bishops for different regions.<\/p>\n
It makes me wonder: perhaps it is time for something similar to happen at the parish level.<\/p>\n
Today we expect our priests to be Chief Executives of the parish; the buck stops on their desk.\u00a0 We expect them to visit the sick, and administer the sacraments, and preach the gospels, and run the parish, and be our liaison with the bishop, and all manner of things.\u00a0 Perhaps our priests need \u201cauxiliary priests\u201d to help them out: men ordained from among those in the parish to administer the sacraments, but without an explicit teaching role except as delegated by the pastor.<\/p>\n
I would expect such auxiliary priests to be self-supporting, having a day job or living in retirement, as many deacons do; to be disciples of Jesus; to have a practical\u00a0layman\u2019s education in theology and Christian living; and to serve at the altar and hear confessions as deacons cannot.\u00a0 Auxiliary priests would owe obedience to the bishop through their pastor, who would be responsible for overseeing their work. \u00a0They would probably have a continuing education requirement, so that their deepest study would come\u00a0after<\/em> their ordination rather than before it.<\/p>\nAuxiliary priests would differ from permanent deacons in another way.\u00a0 While deacons may serve in their parish in various ways, they are called to be the bishop\u2019s hands and feet, visiting the poor, sick, and imprisoned.\u00a0 They are not primarily parish<\/i> ministers.\u00a0 Auxiliary priests, on the other hand, would be ordained for parish service and licensed to their particular parish, and would probably require letters dimissory from their pastor to serve in other parishes.<\/p>\n
And then, should the Church decide to experiment with allowing a married priesthood this would be a logical way to introduce it.\u00a0 The average parish cannot support a priest with a large family; but as auxiliary priests would be self-supporting the problem does not arise.\u00a0 Pastors would be expected to be celibate.<\/p>\n
I expect the Church to continue to grow, and the need for vocations to the priesthood to increase.\u00a0 I\u2019m confident that by God\u2019s grace we\u2019ll end up with enough priests to get the job done, and that without changing established doctrine as to what it means to be a priest.\u00a0 But the Church has frequently modified practice to meet changing conditions, and it seems to me that new structures and practices might be required to meet the demand.<\/p>\n
Note: I\u2019m not actually advocating this notion; it\u2019s just an idea I\u2019ve been kicking around.\u00a0 It might be a good idea; it might be a horrible idea.\u00a0 And in particular I\u2019m not advocating a married priesthood; I\u2019ve no particular feelings one way or another on the issue, which is one of Church practice rather than Church doctrine.\u00a0 But if the notion of auxiliary priests were to catch on, I suspect that the vast majority of candidates in any given parish would be\u00a0likely to be married.<\/p>\n
____<\/p>\n
photo credit: Eucharist Window 1<\/a> via photopin<\/a> (license)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Looking at today\u2019s Church I notice three things: in many parts of the world, the Church is growing faster than priests can be trained; in places like the United States the faithful population is growing faster than vocations to the priesthood; and we\u2019re expecting all priests to study like Dominicans, at least during their seminary […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":4301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[772,771,773],"class_list":["post-4299","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-deep-thoughts-from-the-doghouse","tag-priest-shortage","tag-priesthood","tag-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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<\/a> Looking at today\u2019s Church I notice three things: in many parts of the world, the Church is growing faster than priests can be trained; in places like the United States the faithful population is growing faster than vocations to the priesthood; and we\u2019re expecting all priests to study like Dominicans, at least during their seminary formation.<\/p>\n