{"id":405,"date":"2009-04-09T09:09:44","date_gmt":"2009-04-09T09:09:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/pontifications\/2009\/04\/a-priesthood-returning-to-its.html"},"modified":"2009-04-09T09:09:44","modified_gmt":"2009-04-09T09:09:44","slug":"a-priesthood-returning-to-its","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/04\/a-priesthood-returning-to-its.html","title":{"rendered":"A priesthood returning to its roots?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\"Holy<\/span>Today is Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, as it is popularly know, though that descriptor seems as odd as “Good Friday.” Maundy actually comes from the Latin word mandatum<\/em>, which refers to Jesus’ words to the Apostles as he washes their feet: “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos<\/em>” (“A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you”) John 13:34.<\/p>\n

That is a commandment we’d all do well (bloggers especially, I think) to remember. There is much else to commemorate this day as well: The institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper, and by extension the institution of the sacramental priesthood (as well as the betryal by Judas in the garden.) <\/p>\n

The day thus reinforces the inherent connection between the Mass and the priesthood, but of course there are far fewer priests these days, and so less access to the Eucharist, not to mention pastoral care. Priests and lay people lose out. <\/p>\n

Optional celibacy continues to be a promising option without official approval–yet. But as Cardinal Egan noted recently<\/a>, it’s a matter of church law that can be discussed and changed, not dogma. And besides, most of those fellows at the Last Supper–and beyond–had spouses. <\/p>\n

Things will change, I suspect. Interesting is this item from the latest edition of The Tablet<\/a> of London: <\/p>\n

\n

New bishop calls for married priests<\/strong><\/p>\n

A PRIEST who is in favour of ordaining married men and increasing the decision-making powers of women and bishops’ conferences has been appointed a bishop to the bilingual diocese of Bozen-Brixen (Bolzano-Bressanone) on the Austrian\/Italian border, writes Christa Pongratz-Lippitt. <\/p>\n

Bishop Karl Golser told the weekly church paper of the Innsbruck Diocese, Tiroler Sonntag: “In future we will have a pastoral structure which is no longer as clerical and as concentrated on priests as it used to be. The question of ordaining proven married men – whose marriages have proved stable – and who are respected in their communities will therefore come up more and more often.” <\/p>\n

The bishop pointed out that the Eastern Churches in full communion with Rome ordain married men, but added that it was a question of consensus and regional bishops’ conferences should be given more decisionmaking powers because the attitude to ordaining proven married men varied from continent to continent. <\/p>\n

Bishop Golser said he also thought that women should be more involved in decision-making in the Church. “The Church will grow wherever women are given more such decision-making powers,” he said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Good for him for saying what most bishops only whisper. This isn’t a matter of banishing or devaluing priestly celibacy. On the contrary. Rather, it is about elevating the Eucharist to its central place.<\/p>\n

[Image above: Vincenzo Civerchio. Christ washing the feet of the disciples<\/em>. 1544.<\/font><\/span>] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today is Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, as it is popularly know, though that descriptor seems as odd as “Good Friday.” Maundy actually comes from the Latin word mandatum, which refers to Jesus’ words to the Apostles as he washes their feet: “Mandatum novum do vobis ut diligatis invicem sicut dilexi vos” (“A new commandment I give…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":128,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,2,6,7,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bishops","category-catholic","category-church","category-history","category-pope"],"yoast_head":"\nA priesthood returning to its roots? - Pontifications<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/2009\/04\/a-priesthood-returning-to-its.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A priesthood returning to its roots? 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He came by all those vocations by accident, or Providence, during a longer-than-expected sojourn in Rome in the 1980s. Gibson began his journalistic career as a walk-on sports editor and columnist at The International Courier, a small daily in Rome serving Italy's English-language community. He then found a job as a newscaster and writer across the Tiber at the English Programme at Vatican Radio, an entity he describes as a cross between NPR and Armed Forces Radio for the pope. The Jesuits who ran the radio were charitable enough to hire Gibson even though he had no radio background, could not pronounce the name \"Karol Wojtyla,\" and wasn't Catholic. Time and experience overcame all those challenges, and Gibson went on to cover dozens of John Paul II's overseas trips, including papal visits to Africa, Europe, Latin America and the United States. When Gibson returned to the United States in 1990 he returned to print journalism to cover the religion beat in his native New Jersey for two dailies. He worked first for The Record of Hackensack, and then for The Star-Ledger of New Jersey, winning the nation's top awards in religion writing at both places. In 1999 he won the Supple Religion Writer of the Year contest, and in 2000 he was chosen as the Templeton Religion Reporter of the Year. Gibson is a longtime board member of the Religion Newswriters Association and he is a contributor to ReligionLink, a service of the Religion Newswriters Foundation. Since 2003, David Gibson has been an independent writer specializing in Catholicism, religion in contemporary America, and early Christian history. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Boston Magazine, Commonweal, America, The New York Observer, Beliefnet and Religion News Service. He has produced documentaries on early Christianity for CNN and other networks and has traveled on assignment to dozens of countries, with an emphasis on reporting from Europe and the Middle East. He is a frequent television commentator and has appeared on the major cable and broadcast networks. He is also a regular speaker at conferences and seminars on Catholicism, religion in America, and journalism. Gibson's first book, The Coming Catholic Church: How the Faithful are Shaping a New American Catholicism (HarperSanFrancisco), was published in 2003 and deals with the church-wide crisis revealed by the clergy sexual abuse crisis. The book was widely hailed as a \"powerful\" and \"first-rate\" treatment of the crisis from \"an academically informed journalist of the highest caliber.\" His second book, The Rule of Benedict: Pope Benedict XVI and His Battle with the Modern World (HarperSanFrancisco), came out in 2006 and is the first full-scale treatment of the Ratzinger papacy--how it happened, who he is, and what it means for the Catholic Church. The Rule of Benedict has been praised as \"an exceptionally interesting and illuminating book\" from \"a master storyeller.\" Born and raised in New Jersey, David Gibson studied European history at Furman University in South Carolina and spent a year working on Capitol Hill before moving to Italy. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife and daughter and is working on a book about conversion, and on several film and television projects.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/author\/dgibson"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/128"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/pontifications\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}