Cardinal Sean has posted on his blog the talk he gave at the recent convocation of priests beginning the Year for Priests in the Archdiocese of Boston. Here's a portion of his remarks, the complete text is available on his blog. (After clicking on the link, scroll down to the text and photos from the convocation.)
It is my belief that if we have strong groups of fraternal support where we can witness to each other, encourage one another, and understand each other, then we will be able to build a communio among ourselves that we can model for our people.
A spirit of cynicism and negativity, a rejoicing over evil, a sense of competition and one-upmanship is poisonous to priestly fraternity and to the Body of Christ. We must learn to banish clerical jealousy, to celebrate each other’s successes and mourn each other’s failures, rather than rejoicing when a rival has problems or lamenting the good fortune of a brother priest...
The more we become friends, and the more we become focused on Christ and on the mission of announcing the good news of building a civilization of love, the more Christ’s Church will flourish. Internal divisions, polarization, and highly personalized theologies shatter the unity of the presbyterate and of the Church.
Support groups tend to bring together like-minded men, or men who share certain experiences, similar ages. This can give a natural cohesiveness to the group and help guarantee the survival and health of a support group.
The Vicariate meetings based on geography are usually less homogenized and might represent a wider spectrum of age, opinion and experience. The focus is often less on personal growth and more about pastoral life. Still it can be a unique opportunity to build priestly fraternity and to allow a conversation to take place in which every voice can be heard. Everyone needs to have a stake in making a good vicariate meeting. With time for shared prayer, discussion, planning, analyzing and dreaming together about how we can better carry out our mission as Christ’s Church...
The success of the Vicariate meetings and the strength of priestly support groups will depend on our willingness to commit ourselves to minister to one another in order to build a unified and strong presbyterate. Pastors make such great sacrifices for their people of the parish. We must see that an essential part of our ministry is to minister to the priests and to make the whole diocese “your parish,” especially those sectors where there are the greatest needs.
Fruitful discussion and recommendations that can be clearly communicated to the Priests’ Council can enrich the work of the council and allow members of the Presbyteral Council in some way to be representatives of the priests in the Vicariates. The Vicariates can help us to know best practices, to identify problems that need to be addressed, and help find more effective ways of collaboration in carrying out the Church’s Mission.
In the "Archdiocese of Boston
ReplyDeletePastoral Planning Committee Report" of May 2007 one thing that was suggested was for alternative possibilities for priests to live with other priests, especially for those who serve as the only priest in a parish. I'm on the north shore. I have not heard much about this happening. This seems like a good idea. Has there been resistance?
To my knowledge, there's been no organized effort in this direction, Anne. I think it will begin to happen as individual parishes make decisions to sell a rectory and find themselves in need of a residence for their pastor.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me there has been a great deal of communicating TO the diocese and very little real listening & hearing of what is being said to them. Quite honestly, I am not certain my faith could survive being a member of the "parish of the diocese".
ReplyDeleteI think Cardinal Sean's talk makes a lot of sense. The collaboration among priests for the good of the whole archdiocese is an idea worthy of pursuit. Best practices should be shared in order to benefit all parishes. In addition to priests and pastors sharing ideas, the laity of each parish can share ideas of what worked, what didn't work, what could have been done differently, what was a total success story, etc. In biblical terms...why would you want to hide your light under a bushel, when you can put it on a stand so all can see?!
ReplyDeleteRosemary