What if this is a manifestation of Charles Murray's Coming Apart hypothesis - it's part of the division between the elites and the normals?
The bishops didn't see us as equals. We were peasants. If our little boys were raped by crazed, gay priests, well, the priests deserved mercy and we deserved ... maybe a payoff. We were never their equals.
Now dig an excerpt from this essay on the press penning a team editorial against President Trump.
Had those elites of both parties paid genuine attention to flyover country’s concerns, frustrations and fears, as silly and stupid as they seem to disconnected Beltway know-it-all’s, they would not be in today’s baffling, powerless position.Let's translate that into the case of the Catholic bishops' suicide cult.
Had the bishops paid genuine attention to the laity's concerns, frustrations and fears, as silly and stupid as they seem to disconnected Catholic prelates, they would not be in today’s baffling, powerless position.
 |
| Oh yeah, these guys cared about us. |
6 comments:
"The bishops didn't see us as equals. We were peasants. "
I think that you have put your finger squarely on the biggest source of the Church's problems. Not just the current child abuse scandal, but their entire problem with falling church membership and general decrease in relevance to society. From the priests on up, the dominant attitude is that they are the shepherds and we are the sheep. And that we are not to worry our woolly little heads about meaning or the fundamentals of morality or any other such questions, we are just to do as we are told and let them handle the thinking. And they hold themselves separate and aloof from most of the population to enforce this attitude.
And as a result, of the priests that I have met* the best of them had a condescending, paternal attitude to the parishioners, while the worst of them had a barely-concealed contempt for laypeople. And funny thing, most people don't really like being treated like that. And eventually, they ask themselves, "Why am I putting up with this?" and they leave the church. Go figure.
--
*I was an altar boy for seven years, and between the (fairly high) pastor turnover rate at our church, and the ones who came in as substitutes from time to time, I had direct dealings with, let's see, I think it was seven priests. And no, none of them were child molesters, but all of them clearly considered themselves significantly apart from the general population, and all of them had an attitude of superiority that made them fairly insufferable after a while.
I'm not sure I'm going to go along with you on the majority of priests. Most of them work crazy hours and are always on call for their parish flock. However, I will say that it seems as though the higher up you go, the more haughty they become.
I'm sorry for your bad experiences with the priests. I won't doubt your stories and your sample size and results are pretty damning. I wonder if there's something taught in seminary that tells them to keep the parishioners at arms length to prevent improper conduct. It wouldn't surprise me.
Of course, along with that would come the law of unintended consequences ...
Well, to be fair, our parish was rural and apparently had a reputation for being "difficult", which meant that the diocese didn't necessarily send the best priests there. In fact, I heard hints that it was regarded as kind of a punishment detail (which would be why we had such a high turnover rate). So my observations of priests are probably a bit biased towards the bad end of the spectrum.
Dude, I so respect your honesty.
Just commented on a more recent post.
I've been trying to figure out what is the solution for a congregation to be part of a larger religious organisation and have an approachable clergy who is truly engaged with their congregants.
Something I took helps with some of the Orthodox churches is that a congregation adopts a seminarian: they pay for their tuition and the seminarian comes there during breaks and after graduation.
Something else I think might help is the decentralisation of seminaries. Make seminary students be part of a congregation to begin with. Apprentice them to a congregation, in effect. The more abstruse aspects of seminary study can be done on line.
I do have more thoughts on this.
Those are good ideas, lee. We recently had a seminarian come into our parish and apprentice to our pastor. It was pretty cool seeing his growth. His first homily was terrible, but by the time he left, he was connecting with us.
As for the deeper solution, I would argue that it lies in recognizing facts of male biochemistry. My wife, a trained Catholic catechist, doesn't understand the fundamental basis for a celibate priesthood, either.
Post a Comment