January 10th , 2010
The next decade
What can we say for sure about the church in the next decade? It’s hard to be really sure about anything, but I’m going to prognosticate that in ten years none of the priests who currently serve the parish will still be here. I’ll also suggest that the number of priests who serve the parish will be considerably reduced.
Each year more priests in our diocese retire and die than the number of priests who are ordained. As a pastor retires or dies, his place is filled either by moving a pastor from another parish or by replacing him with an associate pastor. No one replaces the associate pastors.
We are greatly helped by international priests who are often not recognized for the heros they are. They give up their own culture (including their families, friends, language, food, etc.) to live in this American culture which is incredibly different from their own. They are expected to understand life here from the moment they move into a parish. (I keep thinking about how difficult it would be if I had to start functioning as a priest on the day I arrived in a parish in another country.) As I said, they are often not well appreciated --sometimes because their accents are hard to understand or people have a natural preference for “local” priests.
Lots of people have suggested to me that if priests were allowed to marry, more people would consider this form of ministry. I too believe this. In the history of the church a married priesthood existed for hundreds of years and it continues to exist in the Eastern Rites of the Roman Catholic Church. And some married Protestant priests who become Catholic are able to be married priests in the Latin Rite. So a married priesthood is nothing new. But it’s not the norm. Unless a pope changes the rules -- and I have no inside information on whether this is being considered -- the current rule still will be the norm. So is there any chance that more people would consider becoming priests (without the rule change) as was the case several decades ago?
Society has changed over these decades and in the past, families would ask their sons to consider serving God and the church as priests. When I ask today’s families if they’ve ever suggested this to their sons, the vast majority tell me that they never thought to do this. How about in your family?
