{"id":458,"date":"2011-06-22T15:27:17","date_gmt":"2011-06-22T15:27:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/community\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/?p=458"},"modified":"2015-03-13T15:04:47","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T21:04:47","slug":"deacon-checks-corapis-math","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/diaryofawimpycatholic\/2011\/06\/deacon-checks-corapis-math\/","title":{"rendered":"Deacon Checks Corapi’s Math"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Deacon Greg Kandra does a splendid of of explaining why John Corapi\u2019s attitude toward the priesthood could stand a little fine-tuning.<\/strong><\/a> (He quotes Herman Melville, too, which I think is pretty cool):<\/p>\n

Of all the bizarre comments contained in John Corapi\u2019s rambling speech on Monday, there was one that struck me as especially strange, and particularly sad.<\/p>\n

Near the beginning, when he makes clear that he\u2019s not actually leaving the priesthood, but only suspending his public work as a priest (and dropping the title \u201cFather\u201d), he shrugs off the impact this will have on his life. Nothing much will change, he says, explaining that he really had little to do with the sacraments, anyway\u2014saying mass, hearing confession, anointing the sick.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t do very much of that quite honestly in the twenty years that I did minister,\u201d he says, adding, \u201c90 percent of what I did in the past did not require ordination. Speaking through social communication\u2014radio, TV, so forth\u2014that\u2019s not ministry, strictly speaking. My particular mission was speaking, writing, and teaching\u2014not so much in the sacraments, but outside of them, in conjunction with them. So what I\u2019m going to be doing in the future is pretty much the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well. I have to appreciate his candor. But off the top of my head, I can\u2019t think of any priest I know who has so effectively and completely marginalized\u2014even minimized\u2014the most transcendent aspect of his priesthood: celebrating the sacraments. Any one who has been given the great gift of Holy Orders knows that ordination is not strictly about what we do, but about what we are, and what we become. And yet, a priest becomes, by sacred ordination, alter Christus, another Christ. Fundamental to that is grace\u2014the grace to Nwreconcile the penitent, anoint the sick, baptize new Catholics and, most humbling and overwhelming of all, transform bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ in the sacrifice of the mass.<\/p>\n

Corapi was far from the only priest who devoted the better part of his career to non-sacramental duties. Benedict was a scholar, Pius XII a diplomat. Even John XXIII, whose most ardent admirers praise his pastoral qualities, got most of his pastoral experience in posts where administrative and diplomatic matters would have preoccupied him. Nevertheless, Corapi\u2019s mathematical separation of the strictly sacramental and non-sacramental aspects of his ministry would seem to require an unusally pragmatic turn of mind. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A couple of years ago, when I caught my own case of collar fever, I made an appointment to see my pastor. His religious order, the Order of Preachers, happened to be the order I imagined myself joining. Knowing of the vocations crisis, I expected the man to slip chloral hydrate into my coffee and spirit me off to the seminary, or at least block the door until I\u2019d signed the enlistment papers. To my surprise, he received the news of my vocation with a bland lack of enthusiasm. After accepting that no congratulations from him would be forthcoming, I got down to business and asked what qualities the province vocations director might be looking for.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell,\u201d he answered. \u201che\u2019ll probably want to know your attitude toward the Mass.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was like hearing a joke and not getting the punch line. The Mass? I\u2019d prepared a presentation of what I considered my most sacerdotal qualities: some published writing, some facility with foreign languages, and some overseas teaching experience. What on earth could my attitude toward the Mass have to do with anything? How many attitudes was it possible to take, anyway? He had a bumper sticker on the wall of his office, reading: \u201cWHO WOULD JESUS BOMB?\u201d so I didn\u2019t think he meant for me to froth at the mouth over the Novus Ordo.<\/p>\n

My bafflement must have been showing, because the pastor added, \u201cHe\u2019ll want to know if you go every day, for example.\u201d<\/p>\n

It now occurs to me that he was offering an unrecognizably dumbed-down version of the lesson Deacon Greg teaches: as long as a priest has a proper appreciation for his sacramental role, then there\u2019s a good chance he\u2019ll be able to survive burnout, dead-end assignments, episcopal displeasure, and whatever other occupational hazards his kind faces as a matter of course. If reminding yourself, \u201cHey, at least I get to say Mass\u201d can turn a bad day bearable, than you might have a calling after all.<\/p>\n

Now, I don\u2019t mean to suggest that Corapi\u2019s anywhere near as clueless as I was \u2014 and probably remain \u2014 on the subject of the Mass and its centrality to a well-balanced priestly life. It seems more likely to me that he\u2019s trying to console himself in the manner of a man who\u2019s just been served with divorce papers: \u201cI only lost 10% of my job\u201d; \u201cThat hag only put out 10% of the time.\u201d Like the best bullets, both men would appear to have a hollow point.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Deacon Greg Kandra does a splendid of of explaining why John Corapi\u2019s attitude toward the priesthood could stand a little fine-tuning. (He quotes Herman Melville, too, which I think is pretty cool): Of all the bizarre comments contained in John Corapi\u2019s rambling speech on Monday, there was one that struck me as especially strange, and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":192,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[70,99,197],"class_list":["post-458","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-deacon-greg-kandra","tag-fr-john-corapi","tag-priests"],"yoast_head":"\nDeacon Checks Corapi's Math<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Deacon Greg Kandra does a splendid of of explaining why John Corapi's attitude toward the priesthood could stand a little fine-tuning. 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