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Post by guillaume on Jul 19, 2009 17:32:28 GMT
Pax. Taken from the blog : irishdominicanvocations.blogspot.com/There has been some coverage recently in the Catholic media in Ireland and Britain about the transferring of some candidates for priesthood (seminarians) and priests to a 'conservative' French (religious) community. The community in question appears to be the Missionaries of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Toulon.
It has been reported that many of the Irish bishops are concerned about this and that there is a broad agreement among the hirearchy in Ireland that Irishmen interested in the priesthood should be encouraged to join Irish based dioceses and congregations. It is estimated that 'a few dozen' Irishmen have joined congregations outside the Irish church in recent years.
While I agree that, as far as possible, men from Ireland should be encouraged to join Irish dioceses and religious orders in Ireland I am left with some questions. What is it that the dioseses, seminaries and religious orders and congregations are not offering to these men who undoubtedly have vocations? Is is tradition, authenticity, identity - or the lack thereof? And who can blame men (young and old) who seek to follow the Lord elsewhere when there is a distinct lack of interest in promoting vocations to priesthood and religious life in Ireland?Obviously God continues to call young and not so young men to the religious life or priesthood. He then does it to Irish men. So according to this blog, is there actually a lack of vocations in this country or are those vocations going abroad, in France in this example. Actually a young man who want to be a priest, and learn more deeply the extraordinary and ordinary form of the mass has NO CHOICE but to fly abroad. I do not know the Missionaries of the blessed sacrament. However it is possible that it could have a confusion with the Missionaries of divine mercy, a new congregation, also based in the south of ~France, whose members practice exclusively the old mass.
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Post by Harris on Jul 20, 2009 15:15:39 GMT
Pope Benedict XVI recently quoted an 8th Century Irish theologian who said that the evidence that any one Catholic completely understands Holy Scripture, that person will be found in Perpetual Adoration in silence. I would say that Ireland has had it's share of great religious and many more to come except that they will develop a greater quality rather than quantity. That’s a very optimistic (and most prabably unrealistic) way of looking at the current situation!!!!! There will be less of us but we'll be a better quality of Christian? What evidence are you basing this statement on? A bit disingenuous don’t you think? Would it not be more accurate to state that Ireland is rapidly losing attendance at mass and people entering orders amongst our youth and that Catholicism is becoming less and less attractive to the younger generation in the modern world? As much as it is uncomfortable for people who are religious to face up to, never the less its a situation that must be addressed. Many people see religion as not important or even irrelavent these days and are making their point by not attending services throught the country and not entering the priesthood. We have to wake up and smell the coffee here and not entertain fanciful notions. Its a serious problem for the church at present.
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 11:57:51 GMT
".......fewer numbers but much higher quality Catholic" I'm sorry but this seems to me to be fanciful. What are we basing this assumption on? A Higher quality catholic? Akin to the master race is it? ;D The above smacks of: "Well look lads, we are losing the war here but sure every cloud has a silver lining. There'll be less of us but we'll be a better buch of lads. More room in hevan for those of us who hang around......"Slightly defeatest dont you think? Dont you think it would be more proactive if the church examined the reasons as to why young people are losing interest in religion and tried to address these issues head on rather than searching for an ASSUMED conclusion based on wishful thinking rather than facts? You are even stating that the movement was started by a few men. Although I find this point quite irrelevant, however, does this suggest that if the movement once again shrunk to the membership of only a few than this is satisfactory on some level? Whats going on people?
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 12:07:26 GMT
And by the way Michael, just to correct your reference to the authorship of the bible, the new testament was not written by the apostles, but rather by evangelicals who didnt put pen to paper until at least 40 years, (the gospel of Mark - some believe maybe even 50 years) after Jesus died.
Considering the average life span of a human in that time was between 40 and 50 years its unlikely any of the apostles even knew about the four gospels that have been handed down to us today. They were given the names of apostles by later writers so as to add credence to the message contained within.
Of course we have the letters of Saint Pauls during this 40 - 50 year period, but Paul never mentions Mary, Joseph, Virgin birth, walking on water, feeding with the loaves and fishes or any miricales (save the resurection) and doesnt even place Jesus on earth. He claimed to be communing with the heavenly Jesus as he never met Jesus in the flesh.
I know this is probably nit-picking, but if we are going to debate we should get out facts correct.
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Post by guillaume on Jul 21, 2009 12:27:23 GMT
And by the way Michael, just to correct your reference to the authorship of the bible, the new testament was not written by the apostles, but rather by evangelicals who didnt put pen to paper until at least 40 years, (the gospel of Mark - some believe maybe even 50 years) after Jesus died. Considering the average life span of a human in that time was between 40 and 50 years its unlikely any of the apostles even knew about the four gospels that have been handed down to us today. They were given the names of apostles by later writers so as to add credence to the message contained within. Of course we have the letters of Saint Pauls during this 40 - 50 year period, but Paul never mentions Mary, Joseph, Virgin birth, walking on water, feeding with the loaves and fishes or any miricales (save the resurection) and doesnt even place Jesus on earth. He claimed to be communing with the heavenly Jesus as he never met Jesus in the flesh. I know this is probably nit-picking, but if we are going to debate we should get out facts correct.absolutely, knowing that Saint John was indeed an apostle and wrote the Gospel according to Saint John and the Book of Revelations, yes we should get our facts correct, not to mention the others holy writers based their Gospels according to the witness of Jesus, Saint Luc wrote his Gospel - according to tradition - with the help of Mary herself.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 21, 2009 13:17:12 GMT
The fact that the average age was 40 or 50 doesn't mean that everyone died at the age of 40 or 50. We are talking about a society which placed a high value on oral transmission, and on apostolic communities which placed great value on handing down the recollections of their founders. (BTW classical ideas of authorship would cover compilations by a secretary, in the same way that the expression "memoirs of X" used to refer to biographical compilations made by others as well as memoirs written by the person him/herself). May I suggest that if Harris wants to debate the authenticity of the Gospels he shoudl start another thread about it and leave this thread for a discussion of Guillaume's point about vocations? We will get nowhere if we try to debate several issues at once on the same thread? Does Harris's dating of the Gospels by any chance rest on the assumption that they cannot pre-date the destruction of Jerusalem (c.68 AD) because they prophesy it - which is a good example of circular argument? The earliest existing fragment of John dates from the beginning of the second century, whcih is extremely soon after composition by the standards fo classical manuscripts.
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 13:57:09 GMT
guillaume, Im afraid your information is incorrect. There is no imperical proof that the gospel of John was written by Saint John the apostle. It is also accepted by New Testament scholars the the John who wrote Revelations IS NOT the John that wrote the gospel due to differecnce in prose and writing style. Really really wanting to belive something does not make it so guillaume.
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 14:20:26 GMT
The fact that the average age was 40 or 50 doesn't mean that everyone died at the age of 40 or 50. We are talking about a society which placed a high value on oral transmission, and on apostolic communities which placed great value on handing down the recollections of their founders. (BTW classical ideas of authorship would cover compilations by a secretary, in the same way that the expression "memoirs of X" used to refer to biographical compilations made by others as well as memoirs written by the person him/herself). In general, I Agree....... May I suggest that if Harris wants to debate the authenticity of the Gospels he shoudl start another thread about it and leave this thread for a discussion of Guillaume's point about vocations? We will get nowhere if we try to debate several issues at once on the same thread?). With all due respect, I was merely responding to Michaels statement that the apostles wrote the new testament which it is accepted by scholars they did not. Therefore I was on topic. I would be delighted, as an theology student, to discuss their authorship if it pleases you. Some people (such as guillaume) talk of "church tradition". These traditions contain stories such as the ascension of Mary and Paul and Peter going to Rome. These stories all came later (sometimes hundreds of years after Jesus' death) and are not mentioned in the bible at all or by the early church fathers at all. We have to be careful when we talk of church tradition and examine the source and the context in which these stories first emerged. Does Harris's dating of the Gospels by any chance rest on the assumption that they cannot pre-date the destruction of Jerusalem (c.68 AD) because they prophesy it - which is a good example of circular argument? The earliest existing fragment of John dates from the beginning of the second century, whcih is extremely soon after composition by the standards fo classical manuscripts. The dating of Mark, the first gospel, is believed by modern scholars to be after the destruction of the Temple in Jeruslam as Mark mentions it in his gospel. The destruction of the temple was 70AD not 68AD as accepted by modern scholars. Also the authors of the New Testament were using midrash in that they knew of the Old Testament prophasies and when an event occured that corrosponded with these hundreds of predictions they merely yealled "Look! Its happend as predicted!" Not only that, we know from the style of the prose the general period in which these texts were written. Its also obvious that Mark was written first as the later gospels seem to embelish the Jesus story more and more. Things like the virgin birth are not mentioned by Mark, but are by Maththew and Luke. And just to pull you up on another point, the fragment of the Gospel of John you refer to is dated as mid 2nd Century. Probably 120 years after the death of Jesus and is the size of a human fist. If you wish to debate this point further we can do so on a dedicated thread.
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 21, 2009 15:04:53 GMT
I am not going to discuss the authorship of scriptural books, I will address the original point.
It is often self-congratulatory to say because there are less practicing Catholics, that we are somehow better than previous generations. That is not necessarily the case. But the point that is made is that when society is as Catholic as Ireland was until the mid-1980s, that many people went along with religious practice for social and cultural reasons, but without any real committment. Also, there were many very secular reasons for entering the priesthood or religious life. I have heard anectdotal evidence of people who were told by their parents that they were to enter a convent or monastery. This is not altogether a healthy picture.
Right now, there are no prizes for pursuing the priesthood or religious life, or even for adhering to the external signs of practicing Catholics. The point I believe that is made is that committed Catholics in present-day Ireland are so because they want to be so and not because they have to be so. But as I have said, this is not a matter for self-congratulation.
On the topic of vocation, I should add that whatever we say about vocations to the priesthood, vocations to the religious life is neglible. I am thinking of the news story of a 31-year old Italian novice preparing for vows who is suing her ex-boyfriend for posting a photograph of her sunbathing topless on a Sicilian beach during their last holiday prior to her entering the convent. The man hasn't got over the break-up after 3 years. The woman seems to have made an abrupt break from a lifestyle which on the face of it doesn't seem to normally lead to religious vocation. Well, not a problem one ever associated with Irish convent entrants.
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Post by Harris on Jul 21, 2009 16:54:21 GMT
I find myself agreeing with a lot of what you say Aliasdar. I feel personally that the church should be more proactive in addressing the problem.
Not in the way American TV Evangelicals try to get their message across but rather exploring the issues that are commonly used as reasons for not entering the priesthood.
One of these that keep cropping up is the issue of celibacy. I feel that were catholic priests permitted the sacrament of marriage, it would result in many more young men entering orders.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 22, 2009 11:24:04 GMT
The Italian young lady mentioned by Alasdair may not be completely unique. John McGahern wrote a short story ("Like All Other Men") in which a "recovering" ex-seminarian sleeps with a young woman, and when he asks to see her again he discovers she is joining the Medical Missionaries of Mary on Thursday and acted on an impulse, from a desire to bid farewell to her lay life. It is actually quite a subtle treatment; the woman is presented as having a genuine faith, however odd her behaviour, to the exasperation of the man who is given McGahern's own atheist views - or, to be more precise, his belief that Catholicism is simply a story petrified into literaluism, that its doctrines and standard prayers consist of meaningless repetition, and that to sacrifice oneself in the religious life is to embrace death and give up one's life - rather than, as the believer has it, to give up ones life in order to save it. This of course is the central question, and IMHO one reason for the current shortage of vocations is that so many people in the Church's apparatus seem unsure of the answer and it no longer seems to speak with one voice. Similarly, when William Oddie converted to Catholicism after being an Anglican minister, he "said farewell" by celebrating a last and particularly "high" Anglican service in his parish, even though his decision to become a Catholic logically entailed acceptance that his Anglican Orders were invalid. People don't always make clean breaks in this sort of thing (that's why Newman's APOLOGIA is so interesting; it explores how he could have remained an Anglican for months or years after developing beliefs which both Newman's Anglican and Catholic critics, and Newman himself in retrospect, thought logically implied that he should become a Catholic). What is more striking is that a young lady living such a lifestyle should still feel the desire to give it up and follow Jesus. Today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene, after all...
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Post by Alaisdir Ua Séaghdha on Jul 22, 2009 15:37:48 GMT
I could start a discussion on the perception of St Mary Magdalene, Hibernicus, but I won't.
With regard to the Italian 'suora in topless' (topless nun) and the woman in McGahern's story, I think these are two different aspects of the same thing. In the latter, there is a dramatic effort to taste some of the things of the world prior to entry into the religious life (a dangerous enough practice in the case of a woman sleeping with a man immediately prior to entering a convent, but I don't imagine this approach was as rare as we might think) or the former, where the Italian woman was in a lengthy relationship which still involved holidaying alone with her boyfriend on beaches where it is typical for women to disgard their bikini tops and after three years, the ex-boyfriend still isn't over the split (this suggests to me the relationship was consistent with the spirit of this age, which for reasons I'll leave to readers to surmise, is not usually quite as dangerous as the former case - another thing I doubt is as rare as we think among those going for religious life). The latter case points to conversion; the former to desperately trying to taste something which soon will be off the menu - but it is possible that either the actual Italian girl or the fictitious Irish girl (representative, perhaps, of real women) might make better nuns than the caricature of the woman left standing at the altar or the pious girl, the 'holy Mary'. My point, however, is that one does not encounter too many candidates for convent life in Ireland these days.
To answer Harris, I agree the Church needs to be pro-active in promoting participation in the church, especially among laity and I further say, it has fallen down on the job. Perhaps the 'better in quality, if less in quantity' is a consolation prize. But the Church is all the people in the Church, and I could read this as the failure on my part as a Catholic to attract less observant Catholics to Mass on Sundays. Sort of defeats the quality/quantity argument. The one point I disagree with Harris is that I don't believe an end to priestly celibacy will mean more vocations in the long run. I am talking mainly of religious life, in which celibacy/chastity/conversion of manners is a pre-requisite, but we could have a debate about allowing married diocesan priests. I will return to this point later, as it is something which needs to be dealt with deeper than just dismissing what Harris has to say.
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jul 23, 2009 8:50:41 GMT
I always thought a topless nun was a nun without a veil. ;D
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Post by Askel McThurkill on Jul 23, 2009 8:53:19 GMT
Pax. Taken from the blog : irishdominicanvocations.blogspot.com/There has been some coverage recently in the Catholic media in Ireland and Britain about the transferring of some candidates for priesthood (seminarians) and priests to a 'conservative' French (religious) community. The community in question appears to be the Missionaries of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Toulon.
It has been reported that many of the Irish bishops are concerned about this and that there is a broad agreement among the hirearchy in Ireland that Irishmen interested in the priesthood should be encouraged to join Irish based dioceses and congregations. It is estimated that 'a few dozen' Irishmen have joined congregations outside the Irish church in recent years.
While I agree that, as far as possible, men from Ireland should be encouraged to join Irish dioceses and religious orders in Ireland I am left with some questions. What is it that the dioseses, seminaries and religious orders and congregations are not offering to these men who undoubtedly have vocations? Is is tradition, authenticity, identity - or the lack thereof? And who can blame men (young and old) who seek to follow the Lord elsewhere when there is a distinct lack of interest in promoting vocations to priesthood and religious life in Ireland?Obviously God continues to call young and not so young men to the religious life or priesthood. He then does it to Irish men. So according to this blog, is there actually a lack of vocations in this country or are those vocations going abroad, in France in this example. Actually a young man who want to be a priest, and learn more deeply the extraordinary and ordinary form of the mass has NO CHOICE but to fly abroad. I do not know the Missionaries of the blessed sacrament. However it is possible that it could have a confusion with the Missionaries of divine mercy, a new congregation, also based in the south of ~France, whose members practice exclusively the old mass. This was carried in the Irish Catholic a few weeks back - and elicited a strong response from Father Gabriel Burke.
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Post by hibernicus on Jul 23, 2009 9:35:13 GMT
The actual text of the blog entry brings out a point which Guillaume probably had in mind but which was overlooked because of Harris' intervention. Fr. Dunn (and presumably Guillaume) was talking about a situation in which young men who had ALREADY put themselves forward as students for the priesthood chose to transfer to a conservative (or neo-orthodox) order, and wondered if this was because existing mainline orders (and the secular priesthood) had too little in the way of a distinctive identity or a strong sense of what it is to be a priest. Harris then speculated about why there are not more seekers after priesthood to begin with. The two questions are related but there is a distinction between them (i.e. the sort of people who become clerical students under present circumstances might be different from the sort of people who now do not pursue a vocation but might do so under other circumstances.)
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