Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I am sometimes surprised how much, in Catholicism, the priest both matters and does not matter. Protestants, on the one hand, have significantly less formal need for a minister. There can be entire lay congregations, and most functions of an ordained leader can be done by a layperson in extremis. The priest is an essential part of the ecclesial machinery in Catholicism in a way that he is not really for Protestants. On the other hand, Protestants listen to their pastors much more than Catholics listen to their priests. Protestants seem to take pastors and ministers seriously as a source of moral guidance more than Catholics take priests seriously.
(For example, here is a survey about role models in faith from a 2016 Australian survey. The main difference that stands out to me is that Catholics are much more likely to say that their parents are their role models, and to a lesser extent school teachers are more important to them, while Protestants are significantly more likely to say their pastor/minister/priest, as well as other Christian leaders like speakers or authors. I think that does reflect a difference in attitudes toward church leaders. There may be a lot of reasons for this - the Catholic school system exists while Protestant schools are much rarer, but also adult converts are much more common for Protestants than for Catholics, which I imagine brings down the family numbers.)
What I find anecdotally is that Catholics are more likely to think of the priest as something like a technician. The priest is a kind of 'sacrament dispenser' - he the person trained and authorised to provide a specific, limited service for the community, and outside of that service you do not particularly care what he thinks. Meanwhile I think Protestants seem to want to have more of a relationship with their pastor, seeing the pastor as a friend as well as a teacher.
Thus even the way you present it here - the sacrament is what matters, and the priest as a person is a kind of adjunct to that.
That sounds plausible to me. The anecdotal figure I hear from priests is that they expect maybe 10-20% of the children they baptise to be anything more than Christmas-and-Easter Catholics when they grow up. And of that number, people who go to confession more often than the mandatory once a year are an even smaller minority.
I think that's true. I worry a lot about how I preach about sin. If you come on very strongly with it, you can provoke too much resistance and people will stop listening, or adopt a hostile position to you and close their hearts. But the alternative to preaching about sin is to adopt a purely therapeutic position, and then people forget about it entirely. That way is the broad and easy path that leads to the fire; sleepwalking into hell.
The gospel convicts us. It makes us aware of our own failings and limitations. The Christian life is one of constant repentance. There's an extent to which the churches have forgotten how to speak about sin, but an even greater extent to which the people have forgotten how to hear words about sin.
Sorry for the double response, thought about editing the first comment but this is turning into a proper thought:
I think part of it is also that there is a centralized authority in the Catholic Church. My priest is teaching under the authority of our diocesan bishop, who receives his authority through his Holy Orders but maintains his authority by remaining in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
My local priest either is teaching what the Catholic Church teaches or is not. If he is preaching what the Catholic Church preaches, then it's redundant in the Information Age. Everyone who cares will have already looked it up, everyone who doesn't care about doctrine has already tuned the priest out if they were ever tuning in at all. If he's good, he'll be able to synthesize something from the readings and the present age and pull together some kind of advice or insight.
If a priest is not preaching what the Catholic Church preaches, then ignore him. If he is in heresy, try to be charitable, correct him in private, write a letter to his bishop if he persists. But there are lots of various mediocre steps between "teaching in lockstep with the Church" and "outright heresy." And when that happens you just kind of grin and bear it.
My pastor is just one person in a network of people with teaching authority I have regular access to. 100 years ago, or even just 50 years ago, I think Catholics did take their parish priests more seriously and have to trust them a lot more, just because of technology.
I'm skirting around The Scandal, but that has a lot to do with it, too. Lots of devout Catholics told God, "I'll take The Church, You can keep Your priests" because that was the only way to resolve the angst there.
More options
Context Copy link
Catholics tend to move priests around every few years so that no one priest gets a "cult of personality" around them. A priest is hopefully knowledgeable about matters of faith, might be able to dispense good advice, might be well read enough to give a decent homily, but the essential thing is that they live out their ministry in obedience and love.
I wouldn't say that a priest is only supposed to be a technician. Ideally he is someone who can guide the people in a parish towards a better relationship with God through his words, actions, and prayers. It is a creative vocation, requiring thinking on your feet about how God is calling you to be here for a wide variety of people, often strangers.
But, if the priest isn't very quick witted, isn't a master theologian, maybe commits more than the average amount of sin, is a drunkard like the Whisky Priest of Graham Greene, or has even lost his faith entirely... he's still a priest. To a Catholic that means he can still say Mass, hear confessions, anoint the sick, provide a blessing. That's infinitely better than going to a church where none of that happens, even if there's a preacher down the street with sermons that box your soul. (I've always said that a homily should be like a punch to the face - fast, it came out of nowhere, and it's all you can think about for the next hour. And the punch connects, of course. Alas, my current pastor is one of those who likes to put three sermons in one and thinks he's really clever doing it.) Because Jesus is the best, and His power is made perfect in weakness.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link