Page 36 - The Priest, Summer 2015

to each other, and nds its highest expres- sion in the sharing of the Eucharistic Body of Christ which nourishes the divine life in us and so builds the communion of all the faithful.
At a practical level, it seems to me that we can’t afford to indulge in luxuries such as proclaiming from pulpits our personal theological opinions. We may espouse them and expound them, but we have always to remember that they are merely opinions. What is essential is that the Faith “which has been once and for all en- trusted to the saints” should be expound- ed (Jude 3). At times of serious con icts of opinions, unity in the faith must be stressed above all by the priest. It seems to me that St Augustine’s maxim is very prac- tical advice for the current troubled times: in necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in om- nibus caritas [in necessary things, unity; in doubtful things, liberty; in all things, charity].
Because in our parishes and dioceses we are sure to meet people with a wide va- riety of points of view on theology in gen- eral and ecclesiology in particular, it is es- sential that we have the wit to distinguish what is necessary from what is optional – and the tolerance to permit people to dif- fer from us in non-essentials. We should no doubt always have been like that and many of the doubts and confusions that people suffered after the Council, and some still suffer, derived from a mistaken impression that some non-essential was in fact essential.
The unity of Catholic communion has a special meaning when one speaks of the presbyterate gathered around the bishop. Here we are dealing not only with a shar- ing of the life of Christ among Christians – although that is the primary focus of unity among them – but also with the additional bond deriving from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. This Sacrament unites those who receive it and carries with it a special responsibility for Church unity. Just as the Bishop of Rome is a sign of unity in the local Church, so also the priest should be a sign of unity at the parish level. This should be found both in his unity with his bishop which unites his parish with others in the diocese, and also found by his unity
with those to whom he ministers and in the exercise of pastoral charity to those in whom he nds one of the main sources of nourishment for his spiritual life. This leads to my third point of focus: the priest and pastoral care.
The priest and pastoral care
It is sometimes asserted that one of the reasons why vocations to the priest- hood have declined is that there are fewer people attending Sunday Mass. I would want to suggest that it may be the other way around, or at least there is a kind of symbiotic relationship between the two sets of statistics. Be that as it may, there is no doubt that the people’s expecta- tions of priests have changed and, if our ministry is to be effective, we have to take account of these expectations. In earlier times Catholics approached a priest sim- ply because he was a clerk in Holy Orders and they knew he was able to provide for their sacramental and related needs. Now they seem to want to be identi ed by their priest, known by him and knowing him. It all has something to do with their identity as Catholics.
When the sense of Irishness was as strong among the Irish immigrants and their children as the sense of, say, Italian- ness is among the post-war migrants and their children, there was no problem with religious identity – it was part of the cul- tural and racial identity.
Similarly, when Catholics faced a hos- tile and bigoted world that discriminated against them, they were welded into a uni- ty. This unity was reinforced by external indicators, such as St Patrick’s Day march- es, Corpus Christi processions, Friday ab- stinence, medals, scapulars, rosary beads, and so forth. Now the wider Australian society is largely unbiased in regard to re- ligion, the external pressure has relaxed at the same time as the internal tribal co- hesive sense has evaporated. The mobility of people has increased so that the old sense of community has grown less. More and more people are like the children of bankers and policemen, having no town or suburb from which they can say that they come.
In these circumstances, people look to
the priest to build the religious communi- ty. It always was the case that Mass attend- ance was better in the parishes where the priest knew his ock and could call them by name. Now I believe it is even more so. Many people will come to Mass because they believe they have an obligation to worship God and they don’t care much as to who is the priest. Others will not come unless they perceive that they are part of a community whose leader recognises them and is seen as a man who likes them and wants to do what he can for them. The community they wish to belong to is one in which they can have an active role.
The Relatio Finalis speaks of the “new style of collaboration between laity and clerics [that] has happily developed from Vatican II. The spirit of willingness with which so many lay persons put themselves at the service of the Church is to be num- bered among the best fruits of the Coun- cil. In this is experienced the fact that we are the Church.” (II, C, 6)
The second element in our pastoral concern should obviously be a focus on families. Recent research has con rmed the primacy of family in uence on the religious development of children. At the same time, those trying to live normal Catholic family lives are more and more being made to feel abnormal in our socie- ty. This is the new bigotry we have to ght.
The sacri ces involved in family living are often too daunting for those reared in relative comfort, and they need all the support the Church can give. It should be one of our primacy concerns to listen to families, to discover their needs and to do what we can to nd ways of meeting those needs. The Catholic Social Welfare Com- mission has done great work in this area at the economic and political levels, but I think we have yet to get our act together at the level of the Parish.
The priest is the leader of worship, the proclaimer of the Word. He is usually the only person in the parish who has had a professional training in theology, includ- ing Ascetical Theology and Mystical The- ology. The youth of today are saying to their priests, “Father, tell us about God” What are we able to tell them? Ä
36 – Summer 2015
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