RITE AND REASON: Roman Catholics - bishops, priests, religious and laypeople - are asking as never before, what is becoming of our Church? says Father Eamonn Clarke
Yesterday, February 18th, I celebrated my 60th birthday. Born on Ash Wednesday, 1942, and with six priest-relatives still alive on my father's side, as well as an Archbishop and a canon of the Dublin archdiocese part of my mother's family tree, was it any wonder that priesthood seemed a natural path to follow?
After Clonliffe and UCD I was sent to study theology in Rome. There my Alma Mater was the International Missions Seminary, Collegio Urbano de Propaganda Fide.
Leaving the somewhat stulti- fying regime of Clonliffe and joining this "League of Nations" that was Propaganda was truly liberating.
And what an exciting time to be a seminarian in Rome. In 1962 the then Holy Father was the unforgettable John XXIII. He celebrated Mass at our college, with the students, shortly before his death.
Witnessing a papal funeral and the conclave which elected Paul VI were highlights of my time in Rome. Most important was living and breathing the momentous events of the second Vatican Council.
In early December 1965, as we made final preparations for ordination, a papal intervention put all our plans on hold. Pope Paul indicated he wished to ordain our group, to highlight the priesthood and the missions post- Vatican II.
It was to be the first papal ordination of priests for hundreds of years.
On January 6th 1966, the feast of the Epiphany, 62 young deacons from 22 countries, were ordained priests by Pope Paul VI in St Peter's Basilica. I was privileged to be the sole European in the group.
Filled with youthful enthusiasm and missionary zeal, we hoped to make a difference. We firmly believed that the message of love, hope, justice and peace, that is the Good News, was and is applicable to the whole world. Our motto - Lumen ad revelationem gentium - the essence of Epiphany, underlined our goal. Naively, as alter Christi, we hoped to bring light and new understanding to our world.
Talk of shattered dreams. Alas. Thirty-six years later that phrase - shattered dreams - best sums up how I feel as a priest today. The inspiring teachings of the second Vatican Council were never allowed to develop. Progressive thinking, both pastoral and theological, was and is frowned upon.
Conservative forces are in the ascendant. Collegiality, or shared authority, has been abandoned in favour of an all-embracing Vatican centralisation. Theology is discouraged. Ecumenism and religious pluralism is stifled.
Millions of Catholics are being marginalised by the climate of official intransigence on matters of sexual morality and marriage. Rigid rules apropos priesthood are decimating vocations and depriving many of the Eucharist.
This somewhat sweeping critique of where our Church is at, can be validated as follows:
1. Where progressive thinking is concerned - reflect on the fate of Hans Kung, Edward Schille- beeckx, Leonardo Boff, Charles Curran, Bishop Jacques Guillot, Ernesto Cardenal, many feminist theologians.
2. As to those conservative forces. One need only list movements such as Opus Dei, Communione et Liberatione, the Neocatecumenato, Divine Mercy, the Blue Army and other Marian sects. All seem to have the Vatican seal of approval.
3. Vatican centralisation - ponder the manner of episcopal appointments.
4. Ecumenical and religious pluralism - the preserve of well-meaning eccentrics discussing the esoteric.
5. Sexual morality, to use Vatican-speak, a rethink ex toto genere suo of human sexuality is long overdue. Natural law morality seems increasingly unnatural.
6. Priesthood and Eucharist - insistence on a male celibate priesthood will inevitably mean very few priests and millions deprived of the Eucharist.
Some will dispute the above critique and invoke the Italian phrase: "Si cara, non critica". However, it is love of the Church that makes me speak out.
Catholic people - bishops, priests, religious and laypeople - all are asking, as never before, what is becoming of our Church?
Pope John Paul's successor will face a herculean task. Schism is a real possibility. It is not just the current decline in practice, but our relationship to God and to the world that is in question.
Rival camps, conservatives and progressives, are increasingly engaging in acrimonious debate that is becoming more indignant, angry, and despairing. A hardline conservatism is not an appropriate response to the signs of the times.
Sadly, that, in fact, is the direction many, Church officials in particular, seem to be choosing. The despair of shattered dreams.
There is an alternative vision. What if we had a pastoral approach that believed that those with broken lives, broken relationships, broken faith, are in the greatest need of inclusion and love?
This approach would concen- trate on the lost sheep; would cease to speak of their supposed sinful- ness, of their "culture of death" sexual mores, their secularism, indifference and selfishness.
Only by reaching out to the marginalised, the dissident, the discouraged, can there be a future for the Roman, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. Then, in my old age, like Martin Luther King, I may proclaim "I have a dream", the dream of my youth.
And may all who read these thoughts be guided by the old Patristic maxim: "In certioribus unitas, in dubiis libertas, sed in omnibus caritas."
Pax vobiscum!
•Eamonn Clarke is a priest of the Dublin archdiocese serving in Kilquade, Co Wicklow