Actively working toward priestless parishes

Actively working toward priestless parishes

What if the decline in the number of priests available for parish assignments in certain dioceses is what they really want? In Los Angeles, they’re preparing with gusto for the day when parishes are led by laypeople. Most often that means women. In fewer cases, it means married deacons. It all adds up to making people more comfortable with women and married men in parish leadership, turning the priest into a sacramental technician, just one among many ministers in a parish, rather than a spiritual father and shepherd.

Locally, results of the survey, completed June 1, favored appointing nonclerical parish life directors to handle the business of the church, leaving the ordained to celebrate Mass and administer sacraments.

“PLDs” could be men and women from religious orders or trained laity. Four Southern California churches are now run by these directors. Though there is some fear that the Vatican would object, Wilkerson said canon law allows for lay parish directors. “It could be a deacon, a woman religious (nuns) or laymen and -women,” Wilkerson said. “They must have all the academic requirements - probably a master’s in religious studies or theology. “If you’re going to lead a parish, you need to know canon law, Scripture, the whole nine yards. They would be leaders.”

It says something that this is the step they’re taking. And look at the myths they’re perpetuating, that it’s natural for the priesthood to be composed of gay men: “When the priesthood was thriving, she said, a large contingent was gay. It was an honorable life for a man for whom marriage wasn’t an option.” Yet in the paragraph before, a priest is saying that the key to increasing vocations is making the priesthood appealing to young men. And this being Los Angeles, the priest betrays the agenda:

That means priests must make the priesthood look appealing as a calling and lifestyle, parents must be willing to nurture vocations in their sons - and perhaps, someday, their daughters - and Catholics must step back from society’s demands and lead more spiritually fulfilling lives, he said.

If I’m a healthy young man in Los Angeles, why would I even consider a vocation that would place be in close proximity with a largely homosexual population of priests who openly dissent from the Church’s teachings. It is an unhealthy environment for any institution.

Imagine if the US Marine Corps was full of fat, lazy slobs who openly spoke of the day when they could become pacifists. What would that do to recruiting and morale? What would that do to their effectiveness? That’s the equivalent here.

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