(We liked Pope Francis even when he was Jorge Bergoglio. This is the only story that ever brought down the whole website. People flocked to it after Cardinal Bergoglio was elected. - Ed. 2024)

Almost apologising for the actions of some priests, Bergoglio recalled the story of a young unmarried mother who had the courage to bring her child into the world and who then "found herself on a pilgrimage, going from parish to parish, trying to find someone who would baptise her child."

Vatican Insider reports that in his homily at the end of a Buenos Aires convention on urban pastoral care, Bergoglio called for an end to "sacramental blackmail" saying that "hijacking" of the sacraments is an expression of rigorous and hypocritical neo-clericalism.

"Sacraments are not a way for priests to affirm their own supremacy", said the Cardinal.

Rubbing the fragility and wounds of the faithful in their faces, or dampening the hopes and expectations of those who supposedly do not fulfil the 'requirements' in terms of doctrinal preparation, or moral status, is a pastorally misleading model which rejects the dynamics of Christ's incarnation.

"Jesus did not preach his own politics: he accompanied others", said Bergoglio.

Priests who deny the sacraments to people because of their life circumstances are the "hypocrites of today", and the "followers of the Pharisees", the ones Jesus turned his back on.

Emphasising that the Church is not an NGO or a proselyte of some multinational company", Bergoglio said denying baptism to children born out of wedlock is a form of "pharisaic Gnosticism" that "drives people away from salvation".

Sources

• Vatican Insider
• The Tablet
• Image: m24digital

Our parish priest tells us that relieving priests are more difficult to find.

These are all striking moments in church life.

Yet the biggest shock has been to learn of the seemingly inevitable decline of the National Council of Priests (NCP).

Clergy central to Church

In any likely version of a future Church the clergy will play a central role.

They will do this either as the traditional church's clerical workforce in a largely unchanged hierarchical church or as equal partners with lay Catholics and religious in a newly reformed and co-responsible synodal church.

Pope Francis certainly recognises this fact and often gives the impression, when he condemns clericalism, that he frets about whether the modern church's male priesthood is fit for the task and committed to his synodal agenda.

As part of the consultation for the second assembly of the Synod of Bishops he called 300 parish priests from around the world to Rome to learn more about their views.

Within Australia church lay reformers have always been conscious of the role of parish priests as reform leaders and allies or stumbling blocks and adversaries.

Reform couldn't have proceeded without many priests and former priests playing their part.

Where parish priests were indifferent or opposed to reform the going was very tough indeed because of their role as gatekeepers.

This was the case in mundane matters such as communication with parishioners through access to parish newsletters and church noticeboards and in more serious matters such as the role of priests as spiritual and liturgical guides.

Clearly the priesthood in the church in Australia has been undergoing radical change.

Attention often focuses on the quantitative decline in the numbers of vocations to the priesthood and on the dramatic upsurge in the recruitment of foreign-born priests.

Attention also focuses on the character and values of younger priests coming up the traditional route through Australian seminaries who often hold different values to their predecessors.

This has led to frequent dissonance when a new priest takes over an established parish and overturns established practices. Parishioners are often outraged at the abrupt return by more conservative young priests to the old pre-Vatican II ways.

Polarisation and cultural conflict within the church has certainly contributed to parishioners ‘shopping around' for a ‘compatible' parish priest. Generational change among clergy is one important part of this story.

Such generational change is not new; it is inevitable.

Changing times

Many older Catholics grew up with Irish-born parish priests and have seen them disappear. But as the church in Australia fights for its very survival there is something new about this more recent cultural change.

The current dilemma of the National Council of Priests (NCP) is a striking example of the impact of such cultural and generational change.

It is sketched in the current issue of The Swag, the newsletter of the NCP, by its chairman, Rev John Conway, committee member Rev Bill Burt SVD, and editor, Rev Peter Matheson.

The NCP, an Australia-wide organisation of Catholic priests and Associate Members (Lay, Religious and Seminarians), was founded in 1970 ‘in the spirit of Vatican II'.

It is ‘committed to the fraternity and further education of clergy and to representing clergy in the public forum'. Its national conventions, the next one is planned for March 2025, have served as important gatherings open to issues of church reform.

Its members and friends have included some bishops, although it has also been disdained by some others. In the current edition of The Swag the main feature article is written by the late Emeritus Bishop Peter Ingham.

The spirit of Vatican II was and is central to NCP.

As Peter Matheson points out, its motto, ‘Sign of Unity. Instrument of Peace', is taken from the first paragraph of Vatican II's The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church (Lumen Gentium).

At its peak, perhaps about 1800 members, the NCP attracted large number of priests to its ranks. But now, in the words of its chairman Conway, it is ‘floundering' and diminished.

Its future is uncertain. Bill Burt describes the current membership as in a ‘dire state'.

Of the current c.3,000 priests in Australia, c.780, only about a quarter, are NCP members and their average age is about 80 years old. As Burt says, ‘By far the majority of these are senior citizens, mainly from Anglo-Irish/Caucasian backgrounds.'

Clearly, the trajectory of the ageing membership is heading downwards.

Examining the membership, Burt concludes, ‘Very few priests from other ethnicities are current NCP members and almost no younger clergy from overseas in recent years have indicated any interest in joining the NCP.

"Quite frankly, we do not represent the body of active Catholic clergy today'.

This decline may not be irreversible, even though it looks likely. The NCP executive and The Swag team are trying to attract those who are presently choosing not to join.

Why the decline?

There are several possible contributing factors to this decline, most of which the NCP leadership has considered. NCP is not alone in its decline.

Interestingly, the possible explanations mirror those found in the discussion of the future of other declining organisations.

Some of these organisations are mainstream like trade unions, and others within the church like religious orders and certain lay organisations, which have also failed so far to find solutions.

The most disappointing explanation would be that it signifies an active rejection of the Vatican II ethos represented by the NCP. If that is the case it endangers the success of synodality, an idea which draws heavily on Vatican II.

Alternatively, it could reflect the individualism of younger priests who see no attraction in the idea of collective effort and networking.

Perhaps they prefer to ‘bowl alone', the term of the American social scientist Robert Putnam, like an increasing number of the wider community.

It could be that the NCP itself has failed to reach out effectively to newcomers.

It could be that new immigrant priests find their support networks within their own ethnic communities or that new religious order priests increasingly find no need for networks other than their own order.

Perhaps NCP membership is actively discouraged by church leaders during seminary priestly formation, itself a subject of synodal discussion.

There is probably some truth in all these explanations.

The NCP leadership is seeking feedback.

Hopefully remedies will be found to enable some revitalisation. If not, it will pass away and the church in Australia will have lost something extremely valuable.

Church reform will become less likely without this Vatican II-inspired generation of priests.

• First published in Eureka Street
• John Warhurst is an Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the Australian National University.

It's also in second place in terms of financial support for missionary activity.

Such a commitment is obviously to the honor of the Spanish church, which over the centuries has been among the great motor forces of Catholic evangelisation.

The bad news, however, is that the average age of those Spanish missionaries is 75, meaning their ranks are in steady decline as current personnel age and aren't being replaced by younger clergy and religious.

Indeed, if you visit any of the traditional centers of Spanish Catholicism these days, you're likely to find what most observers now call the "reverse mission."

Reverse mission

Places which not so long ago were exporting missionaries are now net importers, increasingly reliant on personnel from former mission territories to keep their own pastoral operations afloat.

Go to a typical parish in, say, Toledo, or Granada, or Burgos, and the odds are good that the priest who says Mass will hail from Peru, or Colombia, or Mexico, or anyplace other than the country in which he's actually working.

It's hardly just Spain.

On June 6, Pope Francis made a surprise visit to St. Bridget of Sweden Church on the northwestern corner of Rome, located in the city's Palmarola neighborhood, a classic working-class district made up almost entirely of native Italians.

Yet the pastor and associate pastor who staff the parish are Congolese and Cameroonian, respectively, both missionary priests who belong to the Spiritan Fathers, formally known as the Congregation of the Holy Spirit.

Like Spain, Italy was once among the great providers of missionaries around the world.

Today, however, the situation is reversed: According to data from the Italian bishops' conference, for every one Italian priest serving abroad, there are five foreign-born priests with assignments in Italy.

The total number of foreign priests in Italy today comes to 2,812, which is almost 10% of all the Catholic priests in the country.

In the small Roman parish where my wife and I worship, our associate pastor, Father Don Alberto, is from Benin, and I can testify from personal experience that without him, it's not at all clear how the community would keep going.

The same pattern holds in the United States, of course.

According to the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University, as many as 38 percent of priests in recent U.S. ordination classes were born outside the U.S.

Even in middle American venues such as the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City, nearly 25 percent of the presbyterate comes from India, Kenya, and several Latin American nations.

At one level, this is a great success story:

For centuries missionaries from the cradle of Christendom in the West spread the faith around the world, and today the churches they planted are returning the favor, offering the sometimes aging and moribund churches of the West a new lease on life.

On the other hand, from a strategic planning point of view, this trend of redistributing clergy from the global south to the north is not without controversy.

In fact, there's a powerful case to be made that it's in fact an exploitative pattern, in which affluent churches in the West are poaching clergy from financially strapped churches in the developing world, without regard to where those personnel are most needed.

In Europe, for instance, there's currently one priest for every 1,700 Catholics, but in Africa that ratio is 1 to 5,700, meaning the "priest shortage" in Africa is roughly five times worse.

That contradicts impressions of Africa as booming with vocations, and it's true that seminaries across the continent tend to be full.

Yet when a church is growing, as Africa has throughout the latter half of the 20th century and the early part of the 21st, disparities between faithful and clergy widen, because frankly Catholicism can baptize people much more rapidly than it can ordain them.

In other words, there is no "surplus" of priests in the developing world, and so every one of them who serves in a setting such as Spain, Italy, or the United States, is one fewer priest available to minister to congregations back home.

Two decades ago, Cardinal John Onaiyekan of Nigeria warned of where all this might be heading. Read more

• John L. Allen Jr. is the editor of Crux, specializing in coverage of the Vatican and the Catholic Church.

The International Meeting "Parish Priests for the Synod", and the dialogue with all of you who have taken part, provide me with the opportunity to pray for the parish priests the world over.

To all of you, I address these words with great affection.

It is so obvious as to sound almost banal, but that does not make it less true: the Church could not go on without your dedication and your pastoral service.

So before all else, I would like to express my gratitude and appreciation for the generous work that you do each day, sowing seeds of the Gospel in every kind of soil (cf.Mk4:1-25).

Parish priests and synodality

As you have experienced in these days of sharing, the parishes in which you carry out your ministry vary widely.

These range from those on the outskirts of great cities - as I know personally from Buenos Aires - to those in sparsely populated areas that are the size of vast provinces.

They range from those in town centres in many European countries, where ancient basilicas house dwindling and aging communities, to other quite different environments.

There, celebrations are held beneath the branches of great trees and the songs of birds mix with the voices of small children.

Parish priests are well aware of this, since they know from within the life of God's People their joys and hardships, their resources and their needs.

For this reason, a synodal Church needs its parish priests.

Without priests, we will never be able to learn how to walk together and to set out on the path of synodality, "the path which God expects of the Church of the third millennium".[1]

Synodal and missionary

We will never become a synodal and missionary Church unless parish communities are distinguished by the sharing of all the baptized in the one mission of proclaiming the Gospel.

If parishes are not synodal and missionary, neither will the Church be.

The Synthesis Report of the First Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops is very clear in this regard.

Parishes, beginning with their structures and the organisation of parish life, are called to think of themselves:

"primarily as being of service to the mission that the faithful carry out in society, in family life and the workplace, without concentrating exclusively on their own activities and their organizational needs" (8.1).

Parish communities increasingly need to become places from which the baptized set out as missionary disciples and to which they return, full of joy, in order to share the wonders worked by the Lord through their witness (cf.Lk10:17).

Accompanying communities

As pastors, we are called to accompany in this process the communities that we serve.

At the same time, we are called to commit ourselves with prayer, discernment and apostolic zeal in ensuring that our ministry is suited to the needs of a synodal and missionary Church.

This challenge is set before the Pope, the bishops and the Roman Curia, and it is also set before you, as parish priests.

The Lord who has called us and consecrated us asks us today to listen to the voice of his Spirit and to advance in the direction that he points out to us.

Of one thing we can be sure: he will never leave us without his grace.

Along the way, we will discover how to set our ministry free from the things that wear us down and rediscover its most authentic core, the proclamation of God's word and the gathering of the community for the breaking of bread.

I encourage you, then, to accept this, the Lord's call to be, as parish priests, builders of a synodal and missionary Church and to devote yourselves enthusiastically to achieving this goal.

To this end, I would like to offer three suggestions that can help to inspire your lifestyle and activity as pastors.

Suggestions

1. I ask you first to live out your specific ministerial charism in ever greater service to the varied gifts that the Spirit sows in the People of God.

It is urgent to "discover with faith, the many and varied charismatic gifts of the laity, be they of a humble or more exalted form" (Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests Presbyterorum Ordinis, 9), which are indispensable for evangelizing any number of human situations and contexts.

I am convinced that in this way you will bring to light many hidden treasures and feel less alone in the demanding task of evangelization.

You will experience the joy of being true fathers, who do not dominate others but rather bring out in them, men and women alike, great and precious possibilities.

2. With all my heart, I suggest that you learn to practise the art of communal discernment, employing for this purpose the method of "conversation in the Spirit", which has proved so helpful in the synodal journey and in the proceedings of the synodal Assembly itself.

I am certain that you will reap from it many good fruits, not only in structures of communion such as parish councils, but in many other fields as well.

As the Synthesis Report makes clear, discernment is a key element in the pastoral activity of a synodal Church:

"It is important that the practice of discernment be exercised also in pastoral settings, in a way adapted to differing contexts, in order to illumine the concreteness of ecclesial life.

"This will help to recognise better the charisms present within the community, to distribute wisely different responsibilities and ministries, and to plan in the light of the Spirit pastoral projects that go beyond the mere programming of activities" (2.1).

3. Finally, I would like to urge you to base everything you do in a spirit of sharing and fraternity among yourselves and with your bishops..

This is something that emerged forcefully from the International Conference for the Permanent Formation of Priests, on the theme, "Fan into Flame the Gift of God that You Possess" (2 Tim1:6).

The conference took place last February here in Rome, with over 800 bishops, priests, lay and consecrated men and women, engaged in this area and representing some 18 countries.

We cannot be authentic fathers unless we are first sons and brothers.

And we cannot foster communion and participation in the communities entrusted to our care unless, before all else, we live out those realities among ourselves.

I am quite aware that, amid the constant call of our pastoral responsibilities, this commitment may seem burdensome, even a waste of time, but the opposite is true.

Indeed, only in this way will we be credible and our activity not end up scattering what others have already gathered.

Missionaries of synodality

It is not only the synodal and missionary Church that needs parish priests, but also the ongoing process of the 2021-2024 Synod "For a Synodal Church: Communion, Participation, Mission".

We are currently looking forward to the Second Session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will take place in the coming month of October.

In order to prepare for it, we need to hear your voice.

For this reason, I invite those who have taken part in the International Meeting "Parish Priests for the Synod" to be missionaries of synodality, among yourselves and, once you return home, with your fellow parish priests.

I ask you to encourage reflection, with a synodal and missionary mindset, on the renewal of the ministry of parish priests.

I also ask you to enable the General Secretariat of the Synod to gather your distinctive contributions in view of the preparation of the Instrumentum Laboris.

The purpose of the present International Meeting was to listen to parish priests, but that cannot finish today: we need to continue to hear from you.

Entrust ourselves to Our Lady

Dear brothers, I am at your side in this process, in which I myself am taking part.

I bless all of you from the heart, and in turn, I need to feel your closeness and the support of your prayers.

Let us entrust ourselves to the Blessed Virgin MaryHodegetria, Our Lady of the Way.

She shows us the way; she leads us to Jesus, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

FRANCIS

Saint John Lateran,
Rome

2 May 2024

__________________________________

[1]Address for the Commemoration of the Fifteth Anniversary of the Establishment of the Synod of Bishops, 17 October 2015.

[00737-EN.01] [Original text: Italian]

Source

• Vatican Press

He wants more synodality in the universal church. He wants clericalism replaced with pastoral care and equality, a katholisch.de article says.

That has led the Pope to rethink his ways too.

Francis has decided not to admonish or exhort priests any more. Those aren't synodal ways.

Pope demonstrates synodality

To enact the synodal reforms Francis himself has set in motion, he is modelling a new way of relating to priests.

It involves participation instead of exhortation, katholische.de says.

The news outlet reports that, since November, Francis has had regular meetings with the priests of his own diocese.

Last Friday, he spoke for two hours with about 100 priests in a basilica in central Rome.

The participants were "very satisfied" a priest later told the Vatican News portal.

Pope's pastoral tips

During last Friday's meeting, Francis gave the priests "useful advice" for pastoral care.

The priests say his attitude was "fatherly" and the atmosphere "cordial". They discussed city centre parishes' potential rather than problems.

"The mood of this meeting immediately turned into gratitude and prayer for the Pope" one priest says, adding that it was a great moment of community.

It was "a journey that we have travelled side by side. That gives us new impetus for our service not only to the Catholics of the historic centre, but to the whole world that we encounter here every day in the faces of tourists and pilgrims".

Vatican demonstrates synodality

The quest for synodality is also influencing the way the Vatican listens to the world's 400,000 priests.

To set the ball rolling, the synod secretariat recently invited over 200 priests from across the world to attend a Rome-based conference.

The conference aimed to discuss everyday pastoral life and to gather new ideas about synodality. The discussions would then be incorporated into the working paper for the Synod on Synodality in October.

The "Pastors for the Synod" initiative follows indications from last October's first Synod on Synodality, the secretariat says.

Parish priests were not represented at that synod and their voices were needed "more clearly and more loudly".

Global improvement

The priests said they were satisfied with the gathering, which included a meeting with the Pope.

Many said they felt privileged, encouraged in their parish life and that their outlook about being Catholic had been broadened.

Unity is the centrepiece of the synod, one commented. "We can't move forward if we are divided."

The greatest challenge will be to win the faithful over to the synodality project despite their initial reservations, another noted.

"This is what it means to be missionaries of synodality: sharing projects to build better communities" one priest said.

Another added that "a new way of being pastors that frees us from clericalisation" is necessary.

Source

• katholisch.de

The priests at the April 29-May 2 Rome-based meeting will reflect on the theme "How to Be a Synodal Local Church in Mission".

The invitation

The synod's General Secretariat has invited several parish priests to attend the second and last session of the XVI Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops.

The number of participants was determined according to a criterion similar to that which bishops' conferences used for electing members of the Synod Assembly (about 200).

In selecting participants, bishops' conferences and Eastern Catholic Churches were asked to take into account, as far as possible, those "who have significant experience with the perspective of a synodal Church".

They were also asked to "favour a certain variety of pastoral contexts of rural or urban origin or specific sociocultural contexts".

Listening, prayer and discernment

The Ordinary General Assembly's second and last session will be held at the Vatican next October.

Bishop Luis Marín de San Martín from the Sybod's General Secretariat says the meeting will involve "listening, prayer and discernment".

The meeting has strong Vatican support from the General Secretariat of the Synod and from the Dicasteries for the Clergy, for Evangelisation and for the Eastern Churches, Martin says.

The meeting will also respond "to the recommendations of the participants in the first session of the Synod of Synodality who suggested listening more to the voice of the parish priests".

The objectives

Marín says the objectives are to "listen to and enhance the synodal experience that they are having in their respective parishes and dioceses" and "enable dialogue ... experiences and ideas".

Another objective is for the meeting to "provide materials that will be used in the drafting of the Instrumentum Laboris (working document) for the Synod's second session.

These will add to the consultation summaries which the bishops' conferences coordinated and to the results of theological-canonical studies carried out under the auspices of the Synod's General Secretariat.

On the last day of the gathering, May 2, the parish priests will meet with Pope Francis at the Vatican, finishing with a Mass in St. Peter's Basilica.

Source

• Catholic News Agency

Indeed, programs like ChatGPT, that can produce a sermon in seconds, might seem attractive to busy clergy.

But several religious leaders, including rabbis serving Jewish congregations as well as Christian Protestant pastors, have conflicting feelings about utilising chatbots in preparing sermons.

There may be several reasons for being cautious.

From my perspective, as a specialist in Catholic liturgy and ritual, the most important critique has to do with true intent of preaching - to offer insight and inspiration on the human experience of faith.

Historical practice

In the early centuries of Christianity, preaching was largely reserved for bishops, considered to be the successors to Jesus' apostles.

During the Middle Ages, priests were also allowed to preach, although their chief responsibility was to say the Mass - ritually consecrating the offerings of bread and wine - especially on Sundays.

In some religious orders, priests became famous traveling preachers, although much of the time they were preaching in other settings, not during Mass.

The Franciscan and Dominican orders, for example, would send priests to preach on the streets and in city centers, traveling from town to town in fulfillment of this ministry.

During the next few centuries, preaching brief sermons or homilies became increasingly important during the celebration of Sunday Mass.

The Second Vatican Council, convened in 1962, took a fresh look at all the Church's rituals and stressed the role of preaching at worship, especially at Mass.

These principles have been reaffirmed in more recent documents that guide Catholic preachers when writing a sermon. In essence, preaching was always believed to be a human activity grounded in faith.

Insight and inspiration

Preaching as a human activity has a special meaning for Catholics - and most Christians.

This is because they believe that Jesus Christ is the incarnate Son of God, who came into human life to save all of humanity from their sins and gave his apostles the commandment to preach the Gospel about this "good news" to people of all nations.

In the decades since Vatican II ended in 1965, preaching in the Catholic tradition has been emphasised as a "primary duty" of all priests.

The sermon is meant to inspire people in their ordinary lives of faith.

The preacher must spend time in preparing the sermon, but this does not just mean compiling theological quotes or doing research on the history of the Bible.

A good sermon is not just a classroom lecture. In fact, several contemporary popes have stressed that the language of sermons should avoid technical or obscure terminology.

In 1975, Pope Paul VI wrote that the language of preaching should be "simple, clear, direct, well-adapted" for the congregation in the pews.

And in 2013, Pope Francis echoed these same words in his observation that "simplicity has to do with the language we use."

But preaching is not just about offering pious mottoes or generic religious formulas. The preacher's experience, insights and emotions all come into play when composing the homiletic text.

The preacher is not simply offering good advice, but speaking out of personal reflection in a way that will inspire the members of the congregation, not just please them.

It must also be shaped by an awareness of the needs and lived experience of the worshipping community in the pews.

Use with caution

In practice, chatbots might help clergy save time by finding sources and compiling relevant facts, but the results would need to be checked for errors.

Chatbots have been known to make some factual blunders or invent sources completely.

Above all, I believe chatbots, as of now, are not capable of preparing a text suitable for being offered as a sermon. From what we know about chatbots, they cannot know what it means to be human, to experience love or be inspired by a sacred text.

Perhaps Baptist pastor Hershael York, Dean of the School of Theology at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has put it best.

He has noted that the ultimate failure of a chatbot's sermon lies in the fact that it "lacks a soul."

Without that empathetic consciousness, a chatbot-composed sermon cannot include genuine insights based on personal spiritual experience. And without that essential element of embodied human awareness, true preaching is simply not possible.

• Joanne M. Pierce is a Professor Emerita of Religious Studies, College of the Holy Cross
• First published in The Conversation. Republished with permission.

The captivating comment that shed light on the role of priests within the Church was made on Saturday, by Monsignor Gerard Burns, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Wellington, during the installation ceremony of Catholic Archbishop Paul Martin at St Teresa's pro-Cathedral.

Speaking on behalf of the clergy, particularly priests of the archdiocese, Burns utilised a metaphorical approach, comparing the clergy to an 'Ensalada Mixta' or mixed salad.

"We've got some fresh green lettuce among us.

"We've got some salty olives.

"We've got some crunchy carrots, some tomatoes.

"And as I look around, quite a bit of shredded chicken.

"But we're not the main course.

"We (priests) are here to help bring savour to the main course."

Standing near the Baptismal font, Burns emphasised the significance of baptism as the starting point for all believers.

He stated, "So it was right that we started with a welcome from those living their baptismal vocation as laity and as religious. And all of us gathered here.

"We all start with baptism.

"So I'm so delighted to be standing here saying these words close to the baptismal font because that, as disciples of Christ, is where we all officially begin."

Burns highlighted the shared mission of followers and disciples of Christ.

"We're all in this together.

"Followers of Christ, disciples of Christ, sent to carry that light as is entrusted to us at our baptism, to others," he said.

In his welcoming speech, Burns also highlighted that the Archdiocese of Wellington has developed as a synodal archdiocese with successive archbishops and over several decades.

He referenced the Second Vatican Councilbwhere, rather than the other way around, the Council's focus initially centred on the community of the Church, eventually leading to a deepened understanding of the collegiality between bishops and the pope.

Furthermore, Burns noted the archdiocese's appreciation for Lectio Divina prayer as a cherished method of discerning the ways of God.

He also mentioned the archdiocese's commitment to caring for the environment and fostering encounters with others, aligning with the teachings of Pope Francis in his encyclical "Fratelli Tutti."

Burns spoke on behalf of the clergy, particularly the priests of the archdiocese, at Martin's installation as the Catholic Archbishop of Wellington.

Martin recently reappointed Burns as Vicar General of the Archdiocese.

Source

• Archdiocese of Wellington

According to figures from the national bishops' conference, the Church in France was ordained 122 new priests this summer - 77 diocesan and 45 from religious congregations.

One can spend a long time discussing these numbers.

Catholics who are more or less resigned will deplore the decline in vocations. Others will see the figures as a reason to abolish mandatory celibacy or ordain women.

And still others will urge the bishops to follow the example of those dioceses or communities that are attracting vocations.

What these three seemingly different attitudes have in common is that they focus on numbers - numbers that should be increased one way or another. But perhaps this is the wrong way of looking at the problem.

To put it provocatively, we do not "need" priests who will be available to everyone to provide various spiritual services. We must place ourselves on another level.

The priest is first of all a sign of God's concern for his people. The priest is a gift that God gives to his Church to guide it and help each of its members to advance on the path of holiness, through listening to the Word of God, sacramental life, fraternal service, and so forth.

But are we aware that God wants to make us a holy people, a people of saints?

The vocation crisis is perhaps above all a crisis of the desire for holiness, an issue that is apparently absent from the synodal consultation's feedback.

It's a desire to live more and more in the grace with which God fills us and which transforms us interiorly, to the point of making us new beings.

What use are priests to us if we have no desire to be made holy?

And how can we desire to become saints if there is no longer anyone to remind us, through a choice of life totally dedicated to the building up of the Church, that God calls each one of us to holiness (cf. Lev 19, 2) and sustains us on this path by his grace?

That is why we need priests. But not just any priests, especially after revelations of various types of abuse committed by the clergy.

We need priests who will not be puffed up by pride, but who are fully dedicated to the sanctification of those entrusted to them.

Hence the fundamental role of Christian communities in the discernment of vocations.

• Dominique Greiner is a senior editor at La Croix, as well as a moral theologian and Assumptionist priest.

Father Michael Pulickal of the Kerala Catholic Bishops' Council says the perceived increase in defamatory comments has seen priests and nuns lodge over 160 police complaints.

All the complaints have been against certain Kerala online, mainstream and social media platforms for portraying Catholic priests and nuns in a poor light.

Catholic religious men and women (pictured going about their work in Kerala) are no longer going to be mere spectators to the deliberate attempts to denigrate their image before the public by publishing lies, half-truths and misleading facts, he says.

However, Pulickal says in some cases Kerala police are refusing to register nuns' and priests' complaints.

The bishops' council and other church bodies will "not succumb to pressure" and intend to continue their campaign for legal action against media until we get justice, he says.

As the government won't take disciplinary action against media making defamatory comments, Pulickal says a plan of action has been decided.

This involves nuns and priests lodging as many complaints as possible until the authorities initiate action against those trying to destroy Catholic religious life.

Among the objectionable posts Pulickal mentions are those posted by photographer Yaami on social media.

Her pictures of women in Catholic nuns' religious habits went viral. Asianet, a local news portal, quoted the Yaami saying:

"Two young women in nuns' clothes hug warmly, walk together hand in hand, and laugh together. The issue is how people look at these photographs".

Church officials complained the photos portrayed Catholic nuns as lesbians.

"We cannot tolerate this anymore. We want the government to act against those tarnishing our image as priests and nuns" Pulickal says.

Yaami has responded to his complaint, saying women do not cease to be women just because they live inside a nunnery.

She also noted she did not mean to denigrate Catholic religion or its systems.

"People looked at their clothes [habit], but I looked at the funny side of it" she says.

At the same time, Yaami asserts her right to take photographs according to her creative urges.

Source

• UCA News
  
• Image: Archdiocese of St Louis

Stuff reports, a team of five immigration officials - including one in Europe and another in North America -are still promoting "investor interest in New Zealand" so high net-worth investors can enter the country as soon as the borders re-open.

However, according to the New Zealand Government, priests and religious workers are considered unnecessary to New Zealand.

As well as the courted wealthy, exemptions to COVID border restrictions see fishing guides, beauticians, knitting machine operators, insurance investigators, industrial spray painters, bicycle mechanics and tour guides as exempt border occupations.

The list of exempted occupations also includes civil celebrants.

Immigration Minister Kris Faafoi says he is considering a revamp of the skilled migrant category.

"Decisions around the scope and timing of any such review are currently under consideration. No decisions on settings or planning range have been made at this stage."

Nor have any decisions been made on re-starting the selection of expressions of interest for skilled workers. This will be looked at again by the end of next month, Faafoi says.

Immigration lawyer Elly Fleming has some suggestions for the skilled migrant category review. As an example, it could look at adjusting settings, such as minimum remuneration limits for lower-level skilled jobs, she says.

"It's really difficult to predict what the government's priorities are.

"I think it all depends on what their goal is. If their goal is to make it harder for migrants to get residence, if that's the goal then there are several ways they can go about doing this," she says.

"Or if the goal is to actually fill gaps in the labour market, they can say 'yes, we know there are these shortages, we can't get enough registered nurses, we can't get enough doctors or engineers, let's make it easier for them to get residence'."

Fleming says Australia had been more strategic than New Zealand in assessing its skills needs and getting workers it needed into the country.

Source

• RNZ
• Stuff
• Immigration New Zealand
• Immigration New Zealand
• Archdiocese of Wellington
• Image: Woburn International

Bishop Marc Stenger of Troyes in north-central France expressed his doubts on Twitter shortly after two priests in other dioceses within the country took their own lives on August 21 and 23.

These were two very different situations.

In the first case, Father Jacques Amouzou of the Diocese of Langres had been accused, two years earlier, of inappropriate behaviour with a woman who was going to him for spiritual direction.

In the other case, Father Thierry Min of the Diocese of Metz, was a dynamic 50-year-old.

Bishop Stenger, who knew him well, said the priest was "very sociable, but felt too lonely where he was".

The fellow priests with whom he had gone hiking in July said they hadn't perceived anything which would have foreshadowed such a tragedy.

There are many reasons why priests fall into depression or malaise, including overwork, spiritual dryness and the disconnect between their idealistic view of the priesthood and daily reality.

Priests often suffer from feeling unappreciated, experience intimacy difficulties linked to celibacy and are afflicted by the negative image that sexual scandals have given to the priesthood.

No matter what the cause, most priests tend to deal with their unhappiness through silence and isolation. And this is sometimes deadly.

Powerless witnesses

"It gnawed at me, I shut myself off," says Father Raymond, a priest from Monts du Lyonnais who experienced burnout in 2015.

"I had a very friendly relationship with my parishioners, many of whom simply called me 'Raymond,' but I realized that they were not close friends. I felt more attuned to their problems than the other way around," he says.

The same goes for another priest, who went through a serious illness in 2016 and now feels that "the trap for a priest is to give more than he receives".

It is difficult to know whether this is due to the attitude of the laity, the position of the priest in general or the temperament of a few.

"I tried to help him, but he had a strong personality and didn't like to be taken care of," says Marie (not her real name), who a few years ago was the "helpless" witness of a long crisis in her parish priest's life in eastern France.

"I pointed out to him that he was drowning in work, but only as a joke, because it wasn't my job to give him instructions," explains the 72-year-old former parish secretary.

Later, when the priest in question went to rest for several months, Marie updated the community on news about him, but always "while remaining vague".

This importance attached to "discretion" still holds true in the Church of France, as evidenced by the difficulty of gathering information on these delicate issues.

"Making public his discomfort is not the best way to help a priest get back on his feet," argues Father René Pennetier, who counsels priests in the Diocese of Nantes.

"When it's a question of depression, we'll talk about fatigue, to remain prudent," he says. Continue reading

Americans no longer hold clergy in such high regard, according to a recent poll, and even regular churchgoers are seeking counsel elsewhere.

A NORC/AP poll of 1,137 adults released this month shows that doctors, teachers, members of the military — even scientists — are viewed more positively than clergy.

The less frequently people attend church, the more negative their views.

Among those who attend less than once a month, only 42% said they had a positive view of clergy members — a rate comparable to that of lawyers, who rank near the bottom of the list of professions.

While frequent church attenders still hold clergy in high regard — about 75% viewed them positively — they give them only passing grades on a number of personal attributes.

Only 52% of monthly churchgoers consider clergy trustworthy (that number drops to 23% among those who attend less than once a month) and 57% said they were honest and intelligent (compared with 27% and 30% among infrequent attenders).

"If you buy into the religious worldview, then the religious leader looks completely different than if you don't buy into the religious worldview," said Scott Thumma, professor of the sociology of religion at Hartford Seminary.

"The perception from the outside is pretty bleak."

The survey confirms previous studies.

A 2018 Gallup survey of the public's views of the honesty and ethical standards of a variety of occupations found that only 37% of Americans viewed clergy "very highly" (with 43% having an "average" view of clergy).

It was the lowest Gallup recorded since it began examining occupations in 1977.

Historians say public attitudes about clergy have been waning since the 1970s, in tandem with the loss of trust in institutions after the Vietnam War and the Watergate scandal.

The rise of the religious right and evangelical involvement in politics, beginning in 1979 with the creation of the Moral Majority, also played a role.

"What that did was create a certain polarization of views of the clergy," said E. Brooks Holifield, professor emeritus of American church history at Emory University's Candler School of Theology.

"The televangelist scandals contributed to that. The sexual abuse among Catholics. All that created suspicion of the clergy."

Perhaps as troubling, the NORC/AP poll, conducted May 17-20, showed that even monthly churchgoers don't want clergy influence in their lives on a number of issues.

Americans across the board said they didn't want clergy input when it came to family planning, child rearing, sex, careers, financial decision-making, medical decision-making or voting.

Clergy, the poll suggests, are growing irrelevant.

Asked more generally, "When making important decisions, how often have you consulted a clergy member or religious leader?," 13% of monthly churchgoers said they did so "often," and 31% said "sometimes."

By contrast, 56% said "rarely" or "never."

Among less-frequent churchgoers, 88% said "rarely" or "never." (Two areas where clergy are still sought out by frequent attenders: marriage and divorce, and advice on charitable giving.)

One reason may be the growing educational ranks of people in the pews.

"There was a time when the clergyperson was the most educated person in the community," said Mark Chaves, professor of sociology, religion and divinity at Duke University.

"They had access to resources and knowledge. With increasing education in the general population, the role of clergy as experts might be decreasing."

Society, too, has become more specialized. People will seek out professional therapists — a psychologist or a psychiatrist — rather than going to their pastor.

They'll seek out a financial planner if they're they're in debt or need investment advice.

"There are people who are smarter, more competent, more equipped in certain fields, and that's where we go for those sorts of answers," said Kurt N. Fredrickson, associate professor of pastoral ministry at Fuller Theological Seminary.

Clergy, Fredrickson said, must recognize that churches today are often seen as fire stations — places to go when all else falls apart.

"I help younger pastors, pre-service, flip the power structure upside down; rather than seeing pastors as the top of the triangle I want to help pastors become servant leaders."

While a pastor may not be the person to turn to for medical or financial advice, he or she may "walk alongside" the churchgoer who needs help and help point that person toward transcendent values, Fredrickson said.

To achieve that goal, he mentors pastors to have "humble convictions" and to be of good character.

The poll also showed that the majority of frequent and less-frequent churchgoers approve of women clergy and divorced clergy.

Opinions on gay men as clergy were mixed.

Only 40% of monthly churchgoers said they would welcome a gay man as their clergyperson, but 69% of less-than-monthly attenders said they would welcome such a person.

The NORC/AP poll has a margin of sampling error for all respondents of plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.

• Yonat Shimron is an RNS National Reporter and Senior Editor. Republished with permission.
• Image: Catholic Philly.com

After calling the country's Catholic bishops "useless fools" who should be "killed," Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has now warned anyone against harming priests and prelates.

The president made the warning after being told that people close to his family have threatened bishops and priests critical of his administration's policies. Read more

These services are "not consistent with the Instructions from the Holy See," he told Catholics in his diocese.

He pointed to an Instruction from the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments issued in 2004.

The Instruction says diocesan bishops "should not easily grant permission" for Communion Services without a priest to be held on weekdays "especially in places where it was possible or would be possible to have the celebration of Mass on the preceding or the following Sunday." Read more
http://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/08/08/us-bishop-orders-halt-to-communion-services-without-a-priest/

The priests came from from 144 dioceses and 25 countries and were about a third of the camp's total population.

Of the around 2,700 clergy imprisoned at Dachau, about 2,400 were Catholic priests, Dianne Traflet explained to conference attendees.

"It [the Dachau clergy] was the largest religious community living together in the history of the Catholic Church," she said.

Traflet, who is an assistant professor of pastoral theology and the associate dean of graduate studies at Seton Hall University in South Orange, said faith and hope flickered and often flourished in Dachau's Cell Block 26 where the priests were held.

This was despite the camp's routine of hunger, torture, medical experimentation and mass executions.

The priests held theological conversations, Bible studies, conducted baptisms, heard confessions and wrote a multi-lingual dictionary of basic phrases so they could comfort the sick and dying in their native tongues.

A deacon was even ordained to the priesthood, while escaping detection, Traflet said.

Traflet told the conference the priests would also talk and pray about how to help the Church, "wracked by the loss of so many clergy."

They started thinking of restoring the permanent diaconate to help multiply the numbers "of ordained men who could bring comfort and news of salvation to the afflicted in this era of priestly attrition."

The priests also thought married men could more easily blend in while doing their work in mission countries and in times of religious persecution, whereas priests were more visible targets because of their more public lives and manner of dress, Traflet told the conference.

Source

• Crux Now
• Image: Fr John Peck

The priests are responding to South Australia's decision to join the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) to create laws to force Catholic priests to break the seal of confession, to report paedophiles to police.

The new laws, which will come into effect in South Australia in October, will see priests who fail to report child abuse to Police facing fines of up to A$10,000 (£5,600).

Bishop Greg O'Kelly, Acting Adelaide Archbishop, says while politicians can change the law, "we can't change the nature of the confessional, which is a sacred encounter between a penitent and someone seeking forgiveness and a priest representing Christ."

Changing the law doesn't affect priests who have "an understanding of the seal of confession that is in the area of the sacred," he says.

"Canon law lays down that 'it is absolutely forbidden for a confessor to betray in any way a penitent in words or in any manner and for any reason'"

O'Kelly says the church was not made aware of the change, which was legislated last year, until last Thursday.

The new law forms part of the South Australian government's response to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse.

The New South Wales Government says it will respond later this month about whether priests would be legally obliged to report confessions of child sex abuse.

"The state will be requiring us as Catholic priests to commit what we regard as the most serious crime and I'm not willing to do that," says Father Michael Whelan, the parish priest in St Patrick's Church Hill in Sydney.

"I expect every jurisdiction in Australia now will follow that recommendation and I expect the Church throughout will simply not observe it."

Whelan says while the Church is not above the law, if the state intervenes on religious freedom and undermines "the essence of what it means to be a Catholic, we will resist.

"The only way they [the state] would be able to see whether the law was being observed or not is to try and entrap priests," he says.

Source

• ABC
• The Tablet
• Image: Catholic Herald

God only knows how many seminaries, monasteries, convents and churches will close because fewer people are being called to lives of religious service, he says. Read more

These assemblies, an initiative of the New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference, happen every five years. The three previous national assemblies were in Blenheim (twice) and in Rotorua. Continue reading