Priests and models

Catholic sexual abuse scandal sharpens church rift over what a priest should be - CSMonitor.com

A good article here on the debate over what type of priest the Catholic Church should aim for today. The complaint by some is that the current Pope wants to urge a model that some consider inappropriate for the modern, urban setting many work in:

Pope Benedict this spring put forward the Vatican model priest at the end of his letter to the Irish church. Jean Marie Vianney, a 19th century French priest who overcame a lack of education to serve his flock 16 hours a day or more and was known for his radical piety, is the model. Mr. Vianney’s talent for reading thought and tales of his levitation have also brought a cult of mysticism and secrecy around him; he is venerated by hardcore groups like the Society of St. Pius X, whose namesake pope beatified Vianney in 1904.

"Vianney is thought to be a useful model for many new Catholic priests in rural or developing nations," says Andreas Batlogg, editor of the Jesuit-based Catholic intellectual journal Stimmen der Zeit in Munich, Germany.

Yet Benedict’s choice of Vianney caused loud and palpable groans in many parts of US and Europe. Modern-oriented Catholics and theologians see the choice as a political model of a priest closed off from society, overly idealized, hard for young Catholics to relate to, and one whose effect will be to increase a sense of distance between priests and ordinary people, and promote a view of priests more spiritually gifted than regular Catholics.

“We need an example, but this is a pastor of 230 people in a small French village in the 19th century,” says Mr. Batlogg.

Well, more levitating priests would give a certain supernatural zing to going to Mass that's been missing for a while!

I don't mean to sound too sarcastic, though. My support for relaxation of the celibacy rule means the priesthood would comprise more a leadership which is not as set apart from the laity as the priesthood of old. But, with fewer and fewer priests, there is no doubt that more services (not actual Masses, but whatever they call the distribution of Communion when a priest is not available) will be lead by non-priests anyway. I would prefer to have married priests than these Mass substitutes that people envision.

Still, I can see the appeal of a priesthood that does retain some degree of separation from everyday life, so my feelings about this are somewhat mixed.