General
Faith
It's always fun talking to my pastor; very chaotic conversations. An example from today:
And on and on, haha; from "we know a smart girl" to Roman political theory. I wish everyone knew my pastor: he's a great man, extraordinarily talented, and a phenomenal leader.
I think everyone should pray for our priests. They have such difficult jobs, are so overworked, and need to make so many tough decisions. You can never please everyone, and they-- and our bishops too-- often get the brunt of criticism, when they shouldn't.
We should always remind ourselves of our beliefs in Apostolic succession, that the Holy Spirit is directing our bishops, and so forth, and give our Church leaders a huge amount of grace.
Reading Group
We're doing a reading group for the diaconate formation on this book. The first couple of chapters were interesting enough-- but then the author got into the buildup to Vatican II, which is where the "permanent diaconate" as it became called, wound up contentiously getting re-established.
It was so gripping I could hardly put the book down!
Had I been around in the 1960s, I would have found the opposition arguments to be much more lucid and compelling-- perhaps ironic, considering I'm seeking ordination to the very order in question!
Their argument in a nutshell: "So we're going to throw the incredibly important notion of celibacy out the window as a prerequisite to ordination, so that we can have designated people... serving the poor, or something? Church members are already performing these functions; and if you want new offices in the church, why do they need to involve ordination?"
My impression based on all of the language is that the "pro" group wound up engaging in all sorts sophistry, just to get the measure passed. "But the Orthodox are doing it!" is the bandwagon fallacy; "Well what if we just do it in isolated places?" just takes a bad idea and makes it even more confusing; "Why not just kick the celibacy can down the road to individual bishops?" And so forth.
Here's the kicker though: with sixty-plus years of retrospective insight... the "pro" camp was right.
We have a permanent deacon in my local "Area Catholic Community", and not only does he in no way detract from our pastor, or water down the concept of ordination, but he's an amazing complementary aspect to our community, and to Father.
Have there been droves of men saying "I feel called to be a priest, but I'm going to take the 'easy way out' and become a deacon instead"? Of course not-- in fact, it's so "not a thing" that the argument feels preposterous in the modern age.
I couldn't imagine the Church without the permanent diaconate at this point: it would leave a void. I think if I do go on to become ordained, God willing, I will wear the collar in public, as a reminder to everyone of that special "minister of the theshold" role I occupy among them, in service to them.
I also give major props to the guy who wrote section 29 of Lumen Gentium: he must have spent hours on every single word choice to achieve such a level of perfection in melding together everyone's concerns in one big compromise, that doesn't actually feel like a compromise: it's the epitome of rationality.
This whole "permanent diaconate" debate was so contentious that it was more heated at Vatican II than the college of bishops question. And yet, look at what we wound up with! It's a great illustration of how the Holy Spirit really does guide the Church, even when no one in the moment can clearly see what the right answer is.
- "One of the young girls we have serving at the altar is very bright."
- "Very true. However, let it be said that lots of times girls do better in school because the boys are busier taking things apart."
- "My uncle had a screwdriver in his room as a kid, just so he could take apart and rebuild all of his Transformers."
- "But it's bad when you have one part missing at the end."
- "See, an engineer told me once that if you put it back together and it still works without the missing bolt, you've just made the design more efficient."
- "Palmer Luckey, the Occulus Rift creator, made a lot of money with the DoD by making Patriot missiles out of fewer, and standardized parts."
- "That's sort of like the United States in WWII, where they could retool the car factories to make planes and bombs."
- "Yes, it's like that one Hirohito quote. You know, their culture was really built around 'down to the last person', to do the fighting."
- "One of those honor-based cultures."
- "Indeed. The Romans tried to capitalize in such a fervor as well, by..."
And on and on, haha; from "we know a smart girl" to Roman political theory. I wish everyone knew my pastor: he's a great man, extraordinarily talented, and a phenomenal leader.
I think everyone should pray for our priests. They have such difficult jobs, are so overworked, and need to make so many tough decisions. You can never please everyone, and they-- and our bishops too-- often get the brunt of criticism, when they shouldn't.
We should always remind ourselves of our beliefs in Apostolic succession, that the Holy Spirit is directing our bishops, and so forth, and give our Church leaders a huge amount of grace.
Reading Group
We're doing a reading group for the diaconate formation on this book. The first couple of chapters were interesting enough-- but then the author got into the buildup to Vatican II, which is where the "permanent diaconate" as it became called, wound up contentiously getting re-established.
It was so gripping I could hardly put the book down!
Had I been around in the 1960s, I would have found the opposition arguments to be much more lucid and compelling-- perhaps ironic, considering I'm seeking ordination to the very order in question!
Their argument in a nutshell: "So we're going to throw the incredibly important notion of celibacy out the window as a prerequisite to ordination, so that we can have designated people... serving the poor, or something? Church members are already performing these functions; and if you want new offices in the church, why do they need to involve ordination?"
My impression based on all of the language is that the "pro" group wound up engaging in all sorts sophistry, just to get the measure passed. "But the Orthodox are doing it!" is the bandwagon fallacy; "Well what if we just do it in isolated places?" just takes a bad idea and makes it even more confusing; "Why not just kick the celibacy can down the road to individual bishops?" And so forth.
Here's the kicker though: with sixty-plus years of retrospective insight... the "pro" camp was right.
We have a permanent deacon in my local "Area Catholic Community", and not only does he in no way detract from our pastor, or water down the concept of ordination, but he's an amazing complementary aspect to our community, and to Father.
Have there been droves of men saying "I feel called to be a priest, but I'm going to take the 'easy way out' and become a deacon instead"? Of course not-- in fact, it's so "not a thing" that the argument feels preposterous in the modern age.
I couldn't imagine the Church without the permanent diaconate at this point: it would leave a void. I think if I do go on to become ordained, God willing, I will wear the collar in public, as a reminder to everyone of that special "minister of the theshold" role I occupy among them, in service to them.
I also give major props to the guy who wrote section 29 of Lumen Gentium: he must have spent hours on every single word choice to achieve such a level of perfection in melding together everyone's concerns in one big compromise, that doesn't actually feel like a compromise: it's the epitome of rationality.
This whole "permanent diaconate" debate was so contentious that it was more heated at Vatican II than the college of bishops question. And yet, look at what we wound up with! It's a great illustration of how the Holy Spirit really does guide the Church, even when no one in the moment can clearly see what the right answer is.