Reflections on an Ordination Golden Anniversary
December 2010
by Eric Hodgens, Melbourne
Cathnews* put a reference to my Golden Anniversary article on its daily website edition. By 11.30 a.m. it had been removed. Apparently very high authorities in the church were angered by it and insisted that the editor remove it. The headline is still there, but a click on “more” results in an article on the Bible. It is disappointing. Couldn’t a bishop see that this is not just one man’s opinion? The extraordinary support I have received reassures me that I am not projecting my own view onto others of my generation. And support from involved laity has been as strong. If a big group of priests who have worked for 50 years is so alienated you would expect an alert bishop to spot the problem and try to offer some redress – even a touch of empathy. But what do they do? Prove my point by their response. Censorship does not work very well in the world of internet. The article can still be seen on www.theswag.org.au
We are the Gaudium et Spes priests. We went into the seminary at the highest rate in living memory. We were ordained between 1955 and 1975 – in double the numbers our parishes required. Most of us were from the Silent Generation with a few years of Baby Boomers at the end. We took Vatican II to heart.
We changed from being priests called and consecrated by God to being presbyters called and ordained by the Church – the People of God.
Ecumenism became a normal way of thinking for us. Prepared for the challenge by Cardijn’s apostolate of like to like, we were successful at educating a newly vital and active laity. We worked with the people rather than for them. We realised that clericalism was an evil, not a good, and discarded it with its style and culture. We ran highly successful and active parishes. Though ageing now, many of us are still on the job. Our presbyteral and pastoral lives have been a source of that unusual experience – joy.
But not without grief. We have experienced the awakening 60s, the exciting 70s, the suspicious 80s, the depressing 90s and the imploding 00s. During the 1980s we became aware that a lot was going wrong. Ordinations suddenly dropped after 1975. We started to lose parishioners – first from Mass then from affiliation. Both of these changes had mixed social causes.
Worse! Discordant decisions were coming down from the pope. Priestly celibacy, despite being highly contentious, was reasserted by Paul VI in 1967 without discussion. In 1968 Humanae Vitae was a shocking disappointment. Most of us never accepted it. Paul VI began appointing bishops opposed to the council’s ethos. This was most notable in Holland which had become a trailblazer in implementing the council. Paul killed that initiative and we are all the worse off for that. The whole trend was demoralizing.
Then came John Paul II. Charismatic in front of the TV camera; brilliant at languages; but – out of touch in scripture and limited in theology, a bad listener and rock solid is his self-assessment as God’s chosen man of destiny. His whole life had been spent in the persecuted church of Poland with its fortress church mentality frozen in time.
The open dialogue of the Church with the new ideas and values arising out of new knowledge in scriptural criticism, theology, psychology, sociology, anthropology stopped. New scientific discoveries in genetics were treated with suspicion and their application usually condemned. Sexual mores were promoted to the top shelf of his panorama of sin – a bit of an obsession with him.
Power corrupts. The history of the papacy shows this pre-eminently. Unchecked potentates believe their own propaganda. Taken to the extreme, they claim infallibility. Pius IX bullied Vatican I into institutionalizing such a claim. Since then creeping infallibility has resulted in the pope and his theologically limited curia stealing the term “magisterium” from its real owners – the college of professional theologians. How can you conscientiously give assent of mind and heart to policies formed without theological debate, consultation, transparency or accountability? In contemporary government and business this would be judged unethical.
John Paul’s lust for power showed very early and was taken to monumental proportions. Accountable to nobody, John Paul moved against any opinion other than his own and removed many exponents of alternative opinions from teaching and publishing. His most powerful enforcer was the Ratzinger-led Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF). Other Roman dicasteries joined the campaign.
The CDF is the current euphemism for the Inquisition. True to its mediaeval roots, it assumes the pope to be entitled to enforce his views. It conducts its delations and proceedings in secret. In today’s secular world this is a violation of human rights.
Theological censorship justifies itself as the quest for the truth and poses as truth’s champion. In fact it is the enemy of the discovery of truth because discussion is forestalled. The contemporary secular world understands this and wisely enshrines freedom of speech and debate as a central value. The Church no less than any other enterprise is at least the poorer and at worst prone to error when it rejects this value.
All of us are abused by this process. The priest at the coal face is not consulted, yet is contemptuously expected to defend policies he and his people do not believe.
John Paul II also enforced much of his own devotional life on the church at large. Despite Vatican II he effectively stopped the third rite of Penance, reversed a burgeoning dynamic theology of Eucharist by reverting to and re-emphasising devotion to the static Real Presence, reinforced a distorted devotion to Mary based on fundamentalist theology and introduced peculiar devotions such as Sr. Faustina’s Divine Mercy Devotion which undercuts Easter – the climax of our liturgical year.
A more grievous abuse of power by John Paul II was his appointment of bishops. Appointees were to be clerical, compliant and in total agreement with his personal opinions. This has emasculated the leadership of the Church. The episcopal ranks are now low on creativity, leadership, education and even intelligence. Many are from the ranks of Opus Dei – reactionary, authoritarian and decidedly not creative. Many, often at the top of the hierarchical tree, are embarrassingly ignorant of any recent learning in scripture, theology and scientific disciplines. Many are classic company boys. Some of the more intelligent and better educated seem to have sold their souls for advancement. Can they really believe the line they channel? Ecclesiastical politics have trumped integrity. And when these men are appointed as the leaders of priests without any consultation they become a standing act of contempt.
Worse still, this happened over a period when the priesthood held its biggest proportion of intelligent, educated and competent leaders. It was those very qualities which blackballed them for appointment under the blinkered but powerful regime. Our best chance has been missed. Today the ranks of the priesthood are depleted due to low recruitment over the last forty years. The pool from which future bishops must be chosen is very shallow.
A newly critical laity questions policy but receives no answers. Why can’t women be leaders in the Church? Why do priests have to be celibate? What is wrong with contraception? Why alienate remarried divorcees? Why this salacious preoccupation with sexual mores? Why are scientific advances always suspected of being bad? Why can’t we recognise the reality of homosexual orientation – and the social consequences of that recognition? Have we learnt nothing from the Galileo case – or the treatment of Teilhard de Chardin? Can’t we escape the Syllabus of Errors mentality?
Benedict XVI has continued the reversal of Vatican II. He is imposing a new English translation of the Sacramentary on a resisting English speaking constituency. This may very well backfire because many priests are not going to implement it. Benedict has received back bishops from the schismatic Society of St Pius X. He has encouraged the Tridentine Mass in Latin. He has reintroduced kneeling for communion on the tongue at his public Masses – all deliberate key pointers to regression from the spirit of Vatican II. To the priests who embraced Vatican II they are iconic insults.
Then he has the nerve to decree a Year for Priests in 2009 with St John Vianney as patron. Like Fr. Donald Cozzens, many felt they were being played. The celebration of the importance of priests in the church is belied by the contempt with which they are treated. How can Rome call priests to repentance when it is so recalcitrant; so slow to admit any failing of its own? How can they be serious in stressing the importance of the priest as confessor when it is clear that confession has all but vanished from the life of the Church? How can they urge Holy Hours and adoration of the Blessed Sacrament when most priests have moved on from that static theology of Eucharist to a dynamic one – with Vatican II leading the way? How can they urge priests to more intense prayer when they show no evidence of a change of heart or attitude – the genuine indicator that prayer is working?
We took as normal the world and the church into which we were ordained. In reality, the religious affiliation of the period was abnormally high. Mass and sacramental participation and priestly vocations were at a high water mark. The reversal which began in the late 60s was always going to happen. But with Vatican II we had the tools to handle the new situation. A large group of the priests were ready to meet the challenge. They did not get the chance. The orders from above were to withdraw to the fortress and sing the old song. Instead of embracing the new they lost the opportunity and left us high and dry – and disappointed.
In the western world priests still always rate highly in job satisfaction surveys. They generally enjoy their job and do it well. That is because they are happy in their own patch. But they feel betrayed by the pope and the bishops. If you ask them what they think about the powers up top and where the official show is going you get a very different answer.
24/12/2010 at 6:36 pm Permalink
Hello Eric,
You miss the point: being a “priest” is a fantasy to be outgrown. Belief in such an illusion is a sign of spiritual immaturity; it’s a mental trap. Those who think they are “popes’ and “bishops” are even more deeply lost. The jewish rabi Jesus taught his followers not to become such an anti-human thing. If the polish pope and his petty german thug made your life miserable they were doing you the favour you missed. The suffering they put on you was supposed to bring you to the point where you let go of the fantasy of being a “priest”. Instead you clung on to your comfortable illusion. You are too egotistical to be just another human being like the rest of us. You want to keep telling yourself that you are special, that you have been called by God. I have always wondered why God never calls people to be a cleaner or rubbish collector. Why is it that God seems to call people only to power trip on the rest of us? Maybe God too is an illusion.
Love Fosco
28/12/2010 at 6:59 pm Permalink
Yes, I agree with everything written here. I am also very cross that our children have been left with no spiritual compass or religious affiliation on account of the irrelevance of most parish Masses to their interests and lives. I feel somehow that the key to change in Australia could lie with women, who form the biggest majority of our practising Catholics. I wonder if a major ‘walkout’ by women could effect a change to the organisation of the Church in Australia and shake the bishops up sufficiently for them to start a ‘renewal’ with the help of the many enlightened educators and theologians who would love to be invited to share their insights and ideas with the mainstream Church.
29/12/2010 at 5:50 pm Permalink
I met Eric in the Glen Waverly parish, and I too was subject to the euphoria triggered by the divine intervention in the person of John 23 … I can’t believe how the Vatimafia have engaged the episcopate of the world in the most obvious act of apostacy of the Holy Spirit after having already engineered the death of JP1 …why is it so necessary to preserve the HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE when it is so clearly corrupt, infiltrated, incompetent, outdated, medieval, misogynist, absurdly patriarchal, heretical (in the true meaning of the word)
31/12/2010 at 6:37 pm Permalink
Your time was an aberration. You were intoxicated by a “spirit” of Vatican II which was not of God. Your egoism is astounding. You and your cohort demeaned and dismissed the popular faith and devotion of so many faithful believers, you and your cohort left us with two generations of illiterate Catholics who know neither Jesus nor the Catholic faith. You have left your younger brothers in the priesthood with rebuilding from the ashes the once-flourishing Church. I am sickened by listening to you and your peers spouting about all the good you have done, when, by and large, you have left the Church in ruins. You and your peers cannot retire soon enough. And then we will rebuild.
01/01/2011 at 5:44 pm Permalink
Fosco, difficult to know how to start to respond to your comments, first thoughts come to mind at the surprise of so much harsh words against members of the Catholic Church, it may be time to re think your views on the Church, ie a church that preachers love and charity, against what you subscribe to..No body has ever said that the church is perfect and in a way that is its strength, if people were perfect that would have been no point in Jesus coming to us.. The comments of Eric are those of frustration, anger and not what the church is all about. The fact remains that not all priests will be saved, alas many will not enter into a life promised to us, this is sad, because for does who have been given so much, have failed.. Fosco my advice is for you to form your own church, you seem to have all the answers..
04/01/2011 at 12:27 pm Permalink
Thank you Eric for your erudite expression of the recent history of the Catholic Church. Until the end of the ’70s I was proud to call myself a Catholic. My spiritual life was fed by a deep well from within this Church. However, since the windows of Vatican 11 have been slammed shut, and that bright, alive expression of faith through the Catholic Church has been stymied, I no longer call myself Catholic. To follow in the footsteps of Jesus seems to have been totally overlooked by Catholic hierarchy. Churches whose social justice activities are vibrant and strong are being targetted as being outside the narrow guidelines of the hierarchy. I count myself fortunate to have known a Church blossoming and growing under Vatican 11. It has given me a light in the darkness of a Church without a heart.
04/01/2011 at 12:37 pm Permalink
Hello Marcus,
It is better to ask why Jesus did not start a new religion. Of course, the answer is simple: he knew it would end up like the old one. After two thousand years of Christianity the Jewish Rabbi has been proved correct. His “kingdom of the father” is not the so called “church”.
Eric has been trashed by the side he chose to be with. Back in the late 60′s those of us coimg out of catholic schools said that catholicism was not what it claimed to be. Church priests responded in the traditional way: with abuse. We were communists, had lost the faith, we were drug addicts, amoral, selfish, lacking in christain character, too full of ourselves to accept authority…and so on and so forth. Four decades later Eric has discovered that we were right. Oh well, some have to learn the hard way! An event much bigger than Valican two, third rite of confession or first rite or fifth, bigger than priests, has happened. The People have moved.
I do not live in Brisbane and do not know anything about St Mary’s in Exile other than what has been reported in the media. I have seen Peter interviewed on the ABC. I have followed St Mary’s journey because it claims to be trying to move with the real changes happening in our time. Whether that is the case remains to be seen but at least they are giving it a go.
I do not have any sympathy for Eric. My sympathy is with the women of my generation who used effective family planning methods to balance their work and family life. Despite the church telling them that they were sinners and would go to hell. My sympathy is for gay people who were true to their own emotions and formed relations with people of their gender. The church told them that they too would rot in hell. My sympathy is with people who separated because sadly their marriage did not work out and married somebody else. According to the church they too were on their way to hell.
Strange place hell: religious people fear it and spiritual people have already been there! Maybe Eric is paying a little visit.
Love Fosco
04/01/2011 at 2:11 pm Permalink
Fosco, pardon me but I think you are being unduly harsh in your claim that the church condemns people to Hell. As far as I understand it, church teaching is that nobody goes to Hell except for serious, deliberate, knowing, unrepented wrongdoing (or ‘sin’, to use perhaps an old fashioned term). Whether these conditions apply in any case (especially the ‘deliberate’ and ‘knowing’ parts) is only for God to judge. Interestingly, the church has never declared anyone to be definitely in Hell, although it has declared many individuals to be definitely in Heaven.
The church simply puts out its teachings on faith and morals. It also says those teachings carry a guarantee due to the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Not everyone believes this. No one is forced to believe it. Everyone in the groups you mentioned would already have known about the church’s constant teachings on contraception, homosexuality and marriage. Your aggravation seems to be that the church didn’t change in response to your teenage rebelliousness, and hasn’t changed still. Marcus’s observation about finding a new religion seems most apt.
05/01/2011 at 11:26 am Permalink
Hello Perry Mason,
How’s it going mate? Let me run this quote pass you, see what you think. “….bureacracies tend to turn habit into virtue. Is that what has happened with priestly celibacy, women’s ordination and denying Holy Communion to remarried divorcies?…..And what about homosexual love, IVF and contraception?….a vast number of loyal catholics say it is time for change.” Continuing on “…a vast crowd.. are alarmed at the fundamentalism pervading the mentality of the Roman bureaucracy.” And “…alarmed at the bully culture of Rome…favoured status given to authoritarian movements such as Opus Dei…”
Well, what do you think? Should the author do something about his teenage rebelliousness or maybe he should just go off and start his own church. Try guess the author. No it wasn’t St Paul nor Rabbi Jesus it was our man Eric, in this morning’s Melbourne Age. Check it out for yourself because I would not want to misquote him. I do agree with Eric, after all it’s what we said four decades ago in the late 60′s. But of course you are right with us it was all just teenage rebelliouness. You impress me as a person that is always right because you have the authority on your side. I’m the exact opposite: I think I am always right because I oppose authorities, which is just more a sign of teenage rebelliousness.
Just one more thing: when people go off to the media, as St Mary’s has done and as Eric too, from the general public they will get agreement and disagreement. That’s the nature of free speech. They then do not have the right to censor disagreement with put down statemants like “why don’t you go off and start your own whatever”. If St mary’s do not want comments from people with views different from their own it should simply say so on its public website.
Love Fosco
05/01/2011 at 6:44 pm Permalink
Fosco, I’m doing alright, thanks for asking, and I hope you are too.
I didn’t know, but it wasn’t a surprise to learn that the article was by Eric because it mostly seems to rehash the ideas he expressed here only recently.
We all think we’re right, don’t we? Otherwise we would change our opinions. But, if you will forgive me for saying so, it’s a bit silly to think you are right BECAUSE you are not supported by authority. To be fair, I don’t at all imagine you are that silly. Like all of us you would be more confident of being right if supported by an authority, say a legal opinion from a respected barrister. It all comes down to what you think is a reliable authority.
The comment about finding another religion was not meant to be a censorious put down. (Speaking for myself. I don’t know about Marcus). It’s just a logical consequence of the situation Eric is in. The point is that HE changed, not the church. One could of course stay and try to white ant the church into changing, but what point would it serve? First, the church is not going to change (that’s my opinion). Second, even if it did change it would only become another of the many branches of Protestantism that already exist to cater to your requirements. Take the Uniting Church for example. Already it has no problem with contraception, divorce or homosexuality.
You remember the Uniting Church? The one that Rob Spiers has told us could not even muster the enthusiasm to celebrate Christmas?
05/01/2011 at 11:56 pm Permalink
If God can do anything and chooses to operate from inside a mystery then how do you suppose you can decipher it by applying worldly logic, especially when it’s not even logic, it’s just some contemporary bias rigged out to look like logic.
Should the popemobile have three wheels instead of four? Should he have a different hat? Is hell a marketing exercise? Can you unscramble an egg?
I think they should have left the mass in Latin, then I would go along too.
07/01/2011 at 10:51 am Permalink
The trouble is, you don’t want a religion, you want a sausage sizzle.
08/01/2011 at 9:27 am Permalink
Howard St.John, re your last but one post: FYI, the Latin mass is a legitimate form, and by taking a little trouble you should be able to find one.
Of course, the only logical reason for joining or staying in the catholic church is that you believe its doctrines, and if that were the case you would be prepared to sit through even the most banal of masses in order to participate in the catholic sacrament of the eucharist.
08/01/2011 at 11:54 am Permalink
Perry Mason,
Using “of course the only logical reason” gives away something of your character even without the fact of dealing with a mystery.
Sausage sizzle liberalism as promoted by “Fosco Antonio” (04/01/2011) together with a relentless paparazzi has created the problem. Turning cathedrals into souvenir shops is an aberration, not a solution. The all year singing of Christmas carols drives everyone away. The Vatican is the only place that’s got it right! What’s on offer in modern churches is a mutated cargo cult. Jesus smacked up the money changers because he didn’t like a tax on religion, not because he disdained the temple.
As for driving for hours to find an authentic mass, the onus is on you to prove what you say. There should be one within 10 minutes’ walk of a central train station. The pope is right to shut you liberals down, there should be a lot more of it.
08/01/2011 at 2:17 pm Permalink
Howard, reading your latest post has left me quite disoriented. I think I need to lie down for a while.
14/01/2011 at 2:03 pm Permalink
I profoundly agree with you Eric.
You were our parish priest at St Bede’s in the 90′s. I wanted to let you know this article has been emailed around by a large group of parents who had kids at St Bede’s then. It was forwarded to me by my dad, and I’ve since passed it on to friends in my year who remember you fondly.
Just wanted to voice my support and say how appreciated this piece was.
Kind Regards.
09/02/2011 at 4:17 pm Permalink
Dear Eric Hodgens,
I was moved today when I read your reflections on an Ordination Golden Anniversary. I graduated from Immaculate Heart College in 1960 filled, like you and many other Catholics, with Gaudium et Spes. Yet, at 72, I am still persona non grata in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles for leading a sit-in and picket at the offices of James Francis Cardinal McIntyre in the early 1960′s after urging him to embrace the call for justice by African Americans and Mexican Americans, an end to racism in Catholic institutions and permission for priests to speak from the pulpit on issues of social justice. At the time, Fr. William Dubay contacted Rome and called for the “removal of Cardinal McIntyre for malfeasance in office.” The church responded with silence and ignorance, calling us “communists.” We called ourselves CURE, Catholics United for Racial Equality. Still, in the 1990′s, CURE, Fr. WIlliam Dubay, myself and others were further pilloried in a book praising the Cardinal. It seems the corporate church never forgets those who question and seek truth. Dubay left the priesthood after being silenced and humiliated, an immense loss to the church, I believe.
While I no longer desire or participate in the church, especially now with its backward mission, I embrace your guiding principles and thank you for your wisdom, courage and the work of justice by St. Mary’s Community.
Sue A. Welsh
Los Angeles, CA
2/7/2011
02/03/2011 at 4:18 am Permalink
Having made a Holy Hour everyday for over thrity-five years, I find Eucharistic devotion to be totally dynamic and not static in the least. But, I agree with everything else Father Hodgens wrote on his 50th annv. of priesthood.