Priestly Personality and Unity

Last updated on: April 14, 2011 at 5:34 pm by Fr. Dwight Longenecker

Priestly Personality and Unity 2011-04-14T17:34:00-05:00 Fr. Dwight Longenecker

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

My friend Fr Christopher Smith writes here about the five different Catholic parishes in a Southern town called Verdae City. The town is fictional, but I recognize it. The five parishes have very different ‘styles’ of Catholicism. There is one pastor who he says “Keeps the old timers spellbound with sermons about English novels.” This is untrue. I know the priest he is talking about and the man never refers to English novels in his homilies. He may insert the odd quote from T.S.Eliot, e.e.cummings and Gerard Manley Hopkins, but never ostentatiously. He drops them in surreptitiously–as a little doggie treat to the cognoscenti.

Fr. Chris thinks the vastly different styles of the five parishes reflect the personalities of the pastors, and that the people shop around according to whichever style of liturgy they like (and by extension) which pastor they like best.I agree that this happens, but I must disagree with him on another point. I think he is saying that ecclesial and liturgical unity has been broken as a result of this, and unless I have misunderstood, I think Fr Chris is saying that before Vatican II the liturgy unified Catholics much more and it didn’t really matter which parish you went to in town, it was pretty much all the same, and Catholics were unified across parishes.

Was this true? I don’t know. I was born in 1956, I wasn’t there, but when I talk to the old timers they say things like, “Geesh, Father you should have been a Catholic in Reading Pennsylvania in the 50s. All the parishes were different. There was the Ukrainian, the Italian, the Irish, the German, the Polish. They were all competitive. Everybody went to their own parish. Why one Irish priest wouldn’t even let one his girls marry a boy from the Ukranian parish even though they were all Catholics.”

So is the distinctiveness of individual parishes something new? I doubt it. It’s just that people chose along ethnic lines rather than their taste for music by either Haugen or Haydn. Furthermore, priests were strong characters back then too, and people would often (if they had the means) go to different parishes because they liked a priest or the school or the youth worker better.

Then talk to the old timers about the liturgy. “It was a low Mass every week. We just went there and sat in the cold and said our beads while Father muttered through the Mass as fast as he could. The sermon was awful if you could hear it at all. The liturgy was sloppy. The servers negligent and we were just doing our duty.” I know this is a sour memory of the past, and it wasn’t all that bad, but at least people are making an effort now to involve the people and make the religion real for them–even if at times those efforts end up being either banal or highfalutin.

So, I’ll pick nits with Fr Chris on those matters, but the rest of the article is worth a read and certainly all he says about the vertical and horizontal in religion is good stuff, and I can’t really quarrel with Fr Chris. After all, he’s the one who, for my first Mass (which happened to fall on Gaudete Sunday) got me dressed up in a rose fiddleback chasuble. The only thing he forgot was to get a photograph of it for posterity.

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 14, 2011

Primitivism and Progressivism

Next Post

April 15, 2011 America the Literal

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Anglican Matters Apologetics Architecture Blobble Study Book Reviews Brideshead Caitlin O'Rourke Catholic Art Catholic Culture Church Politics Chust for Nice Contemporary Culture Duane Mandible Ed Blanch Film Reviews Fr Harvey Nicolaitan Frank Viola Mantilla the Hon More Christianity Mrs Brady Catholic Old Lady Mystery of the Magi Norman Anderson Queen Hillary Saints and Supernatural Spirituality The Inklings The Vicar Theology Todd Unctuous Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz