The Church is not taking good enough care of its priests, says Fr Ray Blake on his blog. Part of the role of a bishop should be to look out for his priests, he notes.
“Many bishops seem to treat their clergy as a possible source of problems, who are best avoided,” he writes. Considering the enormous expense to train a priest and their rarity nowadays, one would expect a bishop to spend most of their time ‘‘strengthening’’ their priests. In some dioceses the opposite can happen, bishops undermine their clergy.”
“We clergy, too, are often very poor at supporting one another. Clergy can be sick, depressed or even dying and be ignored by their brethren; they can lose their faith or begin preaching heresy or fall into serious sin or addiction and be left to themselves. It is certainly one of my faults, we tend to imagine greater resilience in our brothers than there actually is, or simply not want to be bothered by their problems.”
Little attention is given to the career development of young priests, he writes, “and often their talents, skills and enthusiasm [are] left to stagnate or wither”. He concludes: “The Church should not be a less caring employer than
business or industry.”
An embarrassing game
The Church is getting it wrong in the way it appoints bishops, says Joseph F O’Callaghan, professor emeritus of history at Fordham University, on the National Catholic Reporter website. Papal appointment of bishops “is contrary to the Church’s centuries-long tradition of the election of bishops by the clergy and people of the diocese”, he writes. He quotes Pope Leo I: “The one who is to preside over all should be elected by all … No one who is unwanted and unasked for should be ordained, lest the city despise or hate a bishop whom they did not choose.”
Prof O’Callaghan also criticises the transfer of bishops, “so common that it seems like an
embarrassing game of musical chairs. Bishops are seldom chosen to govern a diocese where they served as priests and thus are strangers to the priests and people committed to their care.”
Francis and the Devil
Pope Francis seems obsessed with the Devil, says Fr Thomas Rosica at CNN.com. “His tweets and homilies about the Devil, Satan, the Accuser, the Evil One, the Father of Lies, the Ancient Serpent, the Tempter, the Seducer, the Great Dragon, the Enemy and just plain ‘‘Demon’’ are now legion,” he writes. “For Francis, the Devil is not a myth, but a real person. Francis’s seeming preoccupation with the Devil is not a theological or eschatological question as much as a call to arms, an invitation to immediate action, offering very concrete steps to do combat with the Devil and the reign of evil in the world.”
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