Julian Porteous
Connor Court Publishing, 2009
152 pages with bibliography.

Bishop Porteous has rendered a good service in producing this little book. In it he has documented and reiterated the recent statements from Rome on the ordained priesthood. In doing this, he provides us with a useful compendium of teachings, mostly from Pope John Paul II and the various Congregations at the Vatican. As such, the book offers one significant part of what must be an ongoing and multilayered conversation. That conversation, given particular impetus by the Second Vatican Council and demanded by the times in which we find ourselves, will require scholarship, patience, faith and wise attention to “the signs of the times” (see Matthew 16:3).

We would do well to follow the dictum of Gaudium et Spes: “Let there be unity in what is necessary, freedom in what is unsettled, and charity in any case” (92).

Already in the title of the book we can find intimations of some of the complexities and subtleties that that conversation might involve. The book’s title is taken from 1Samuel 13:14, the beginning of the story of the kings of Israel. Starting with the kings of Israel – suggesting an analogy between those kings and the ordained priesthood in our times – may have some unintended and unfortunate consequences. For example, it might remind some of the ethos that flourished in the Catholic Church prior to the Second Vatican Council. Pope Leo XIII represents it well:

To the pastors alone has been given the full power of teaching, judging, directing; on the faithful has been imposed the duty of following these teachings, of submitting with docility to these judgments. (Cited in The Catholic Weekly, September 19, 1993, quoting The Freeman’s Journal, September 12, 1885.)

The Second Vatican Council was a watershed event in the life of the Catholic Church. It emerged at a time in history which Pope Paul VI describes as a “privileged moment of the Spirit” (Pope Paul VI, Evangelii Nuntiandi, 75). Joseph Ratzinger spoke of a “spiritual awakening” in the Council:

This spiritual awakening, which the bishops accomplished in full view of the Church, or, rather, accomplished as the Church, was the great and irrevocable event of the Council. It was more important in many respects than the texts it passed, for these texts could only voice a part of the new life which had been awakened in this encounter of the Church with its inner self. (Theological Highlights of Vatican II, Paulist, 1966, 132.)

That “new life which had been awakened” requires a threefold discernment task if we are to be faithful to the unfolding Tradition:

• We must discern that which is no longer helpful, maybe even an obstacle, to our proclaiming the Gospel and gently but firmly relinquish it.
• We must discern that which is old – maybe forgotten – yet is essential or at least valuable for our proclaiming the Gospel and gently but firmly reclaim it.
• We must discern that which is new and of value to our proclaiming the Gospel and gently but firmly embrace it

I would have liked to see more energy and vigour in Bishop Porteous’s attempts at discernment of and engagement with the issues of our times. Many of those issues are in fact mentioned. But there seems to be no recognition that the Holy Spirit works in and through human history. In particular, there seems to be a resistance to submitting the taken-for-granted understanding of ordained priesthood to the possibility of new expressions in the light of the new situation.

Dialogue is a critical part of that “spiritual awakening.”, Dialogue is also the focus of Pope Paul VI’s first encyclical. Pope John Paul II, citing Gaudium et Spes, offers a philosophical reason for this commitment to dialogue:

The capacity for ‘dialogue’ is rooted in the nature of the person and human dignity… the human person is in fact “the only creature on earth which God willed for itself”; thus we cannot “fully find ourselves except through a sincere gift of ourselves” (Gaudium et Spes 24). Dialogue is an indispensable step along the path toward human self-realization, the self-realization both of each individual and of every human community. (Pope John Paul II, Ut Unum Sint 1995, 28)

I single out three particular instances where the absence of serious dialogue is evident – the sexual abuse scandal, conscience and the humanity of the priest.

Bishop Porteous says “the Church has suffered through a homosexual sub-culture penetrating seminaries in the 1970s” (18). He then seems to link that development – if it did happen – with the sexual abuse crisis. Later he cites the example of Fr Geoghan in Boston (27) without also noting that he was ordained in 1962.

Conscience needs much more serious attention. Our understanding of conscience in turn obviously affects our understanding of obedience (83-84). Joseph Ratzinger represents a solid Catholic understanding of conscience:

Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority, there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. (Joseph Ratzinger in Herbert Vorgrimler, ed, Commentary on Doctrine of Vatican II, Volume V.)

Chapter 7 is headed “Humanity of the Priest.” Although it is said earlier that “the human formation of the priest is seen as the foundation” of all the other elements of the priest’s life (46), it is difficult to find in this chapter any sense of genuine engagement with the human. It is very abstract. The “metaphysics of priesthood” (56) seems rather to be the foundation. The following three chapters – “The Living Situation of a Priest,” “The Spiritual Life of the Priest” and “The Pastoral Ministry of the Priest” – maintain this abstract approach. This is dangerous. I suggest this same kind of abstractness was a factor in the sexual abuse scandal.

The theologian George Pattison made an observation about the work of theology that we might usefully heed when reflecting on the ordained priesthood:

That thinking about God requires engagement with the tradition and with its contemporary context is not something I wish to deny. However, it is all too easy for the contemporary theologian to defer the moment when it is necessary to stop and think, to ponder seriously the nature and direction of one’s own thinking and to consider why one is committed to this particular way and what its consequences are. As we add our voice to this surging polyphony of the historical development of ideas, it is important that it really is our own voice. (The End of Theology and the Task of Thinking About God, SCM Press, 1998, x-xi.)

Michael Whelan SM