The Priesthood In Progressive Crosshairs

In the bulletin of a Washington parish I saw the link for a survey being taken by the Archdiocese of Washington in preparation for a synod next year.  The link is www.sharewithfrancis.org.  My curiosity piqued, I clicked on it.  The meeting will be called "2018 Synod on Young People, The Faith, And Vocational Discernment".  The home page shows some categories of folks, with links to their questions: young people, parents, priest/religious.  Oddly enough, there is nothing for those of us lay people who are neither young nor parents.  So much for "inclusiveness".  Anyway, I took the survey in the "young adult" section, giving my actual birth year.  I'd suggest that all take the survey to at least make our voices and concerns heard.

Speaking of "vocational discernment", the online version of Time magazine did an article on seminarians, featuring some seminarians from my parish.  The title of the piece was really quite ominous: "How Millenials Are Reinventing The Priesthood".  What about the priesthood needs to be "reinvented"?  Didn't Jesus Christ do a "good enough" job with that on Holy Thursday?  Given the left-slant of Time, I suspected it would be a thinly-disguised hit job on the priesthood.  Indeed it was.  Seminarians "questioning their sexuality"?  In a saner time, that would be sufficient grounds to remove such young men from the seminary.  Then we read of priests riding bikes through school halls while wearing fake mustaches.  Is that what we have to anticipate with all this "reinvention"?  The stupifying of our priests?

There's no gainsaying that the Times piece was a hit job on authentic Catholic priests.  Let me point something out about the seminarians interviewed for that piece.  I know that they are good decent young men who aspire to serve God through their vocations.  So why did they consent to being interviewed?  For one thing, they are young and may simply not be aware of the malevolence borne by secular media for authentic Catholicism.  However, they were also encouraged (if not directed) to give this interview by the Archdiocese of Washington.  They are seminarians and they do have to obey their superiors.  Now the superiors know full well the machinations of secular media.  Did they simply fail to consider how the media would twist this article to the detriment of vocations - or were they collaborators in that aim?

There does seem to be some effort afoot within progressive circles to redefine the priesthood: that is, to fashion the priesthood into something that is quite alien from its place in Church tradition.  Consider, for example, the continuing debacle at St. Matthew's on Loch Raven Boulevard in Baltimore.  Last week it came to my attention (from LifeSiteNews) that they are openly selling "gay pride" tee-shirts on Church premises after Masses.  They are very up front about it and still Archbishop Lori et al insist on turning their blind eyes towards this destruction of faith and damnation of souls in their charge.  Father Joseph Muth continues to feed his congregation spiritual poison, with the Baltimore chancery uttering nary a peep.  Is that what we should expect with all this "reinventing the priesthood"?

Then we have another clerical train wreck named Father James Martin, S.J.  His heresies seem to be the "gift that doesn't quit giving".  A few days ago this newly-appointed Vatican communications officials publicly opined that "some of the language used in the Catechism on that topic needs to be updated, given what we know now about homosexuality".   That's because we're so much more enlightened than were the Apostles and Church Doctors!  Right?  Will his next target for "updating" be the Ten Commandments?  He too continues to spew heresy.  In a saner time he would have been defrocked.

As mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, a synod is being planned to discuss young people and vocations.  Given what I've just expounded upon, not to mention the abysmal proceeds of the last synod (and yes, Amoris Laetitia is an unmitigated disaster), I think we can expect the attacks on the authentic priesthood to increase: with many of these attacks coming from Church hierarchy.  I truly hope to be proven wrong, but don't bet on it.