Still Life Study
Galvin, Martin
Still Life Study An apprentice to the craft could draw you, perfect squirrel, in motion, your belly slung low in a physics right for one of your size and disposition. It's plain the tree was...
...They don't want to be associated with rebel groups...
...Still, the melancholy its members express, even if tempered by a belief that change is possible, is what many American priests feel about their vocation these days...
...Bishop William F. Murphy, the local ordinary, is widely unpopular and has been the subject of much negative press ever since he came from the Boston archdiocese three years ago...
...Commonweal 22 July 16, 2004...
...One priest sees retrenchment on the horizon...
...Greeley notes in his most recent book on the priesthood that American clergy generally love what they do and are generally happy with their lives...
...His expensively renovated house has been a contentious issue, and he has been tarred by his association with the now disgraced Cardinal Bernard Law...
...As a result, contributions to the diocesan appeal are harder to come by, and parish budgets are unlikely to see the help of large rebates delivered to church-es that exceed their goals...
...One participant reports that members of VOTO are casually referred to as "fucking fag-got liberals" among some seminarians these days...
...His fellow priests note that, when such an accusation gets into the public realm, fully recovering a reputation is impossible...
...In its short history, VOTO has attracted few younger priests...
...If one listens carefully, there is a hint of an activist sense of optimism amid the complaints uttered here...
...The diocesan re-view board studied the charges and recommended his reinstatement, but the cloud of accusation lingers...
...Of course, any serious discussion among priests today about their vocation has to deal with the sexual-abuse scan-dal...
...They want the plum parishes...
...Still, in the tree-less world you run a fatal risk...
...Still Life Study An apprentice to the craft could draw you, perfect squirrel, in motion, your belly slung low in a physics right for one of your size and disposition...
...The best one can hope for is that out of this crisis will come some unforeseen opportunities...
...Guys our age want to be monsignors," says one priest just on the junior side of fifty...
...How right to be a squirrel in such a place, your face as full of pleasure as the nut filling the shell...
...He had no idea where to find either, and no clue about the costs involved...
...Others indicate that the generation gap between young conservatives and older priests shaped by Vatican II is about more than careerist caution...
...Tires blind and straight as crutches don't go for craft, your fake left, go left...
...The suggestion is that a renewed and married clergy might be able to provide the kinds of leadership needed, particularly in immigrant communities...
...Where he ministers to Spanish-speaking immigrants in the diocese, the ratio now is one priest for eighteen thousand Catholics...
...Thomas Gallagher, a pastor, notes that there is a huge chasm between a verbalized theology in which priests are regularly claimed to be brothers to one another and the bishop, and the post-Dallas policies enforced when priests come under fire...
...Gallagher cites his own case...
...This discussion reflects some of those findings...
...Yet even that seems a long shot to one outsider listening to a dozen priests this spring afternoon...
...They round their lives in a minor league, leave you a question mark...
...He has refused to allow Voice of the Faithful, the lay reform group, to meet on church property...
...Another sees a bigger picture...
...They express fear that, in the current church climate, false accusations will be made...
...It's plain the tree was your retreat in the hawk-lit woods, your helmeted head poised to see threats coming, peripherals keened by art beyond ours...
...The Long Island VOTO group, of course, remains an unrepresentative sampling, strongly tilted to the liberal—and perhaps, complaining—side...
...No skill to that sport, nothing worth your move...
...He notes that the bishops in general seem blind to the growth of Evangelical church-es that attract large numbers of former Catholics...
...There is a pervading sense among the group that their calls for change are left unheeded by their younger colleagues...
...Connolly notes that in 1950, the ratio of priests to Catholics in the United States was 1 to 652...
...One priest at the VOTO meeting notes how far younger priests are from the attitudes of their cohorts in the wider culture, who have very different views about the role of women, among other issues...
...Catholic clergy remain one of the most studied groups of all...
...When accused, falsely or not, priests move from the category of brother to a distant independent operative...
...They expect little support from their bosses...
...What prodigious leaps, what sheers of will, flinging yourself from done branch to undone...
...Andrew Greeley refers disparagingly to conservative "young fogeys"—is starkly evident in the conversation...
...The much-commented-upon generation gap among Catholic priests—Fr...
...Dean Hoge, a sociologist at The Catholic University of America, says that the growing conservatism of younger priests—who are relatively few in number—clashes not only with their older colleagues but also with their parishioners, who have grown accustomed to a church where laypeople have a say...
...He was falsely accused of abuse, he says, suspended for ten days, and advised to find a civil and a canon lawyer...
...now it is 1 to 1,276...
...As a result, he says, many traditionally Catholic Hispanics are finding spiritual support in small Evangelical churches...
...Martin Galvin Pastors in the group have the most immediate concerns...
Vol. 131 • July 2004 • No. 13
