Why "Apostolate" is Bigger Than Ever

The following is a slightly edited version of a column I have written for this month's Dominican Laity newsletter eLumen.

Only this year, my first as a Dominican, did I notice that August is a huge month for feast days. To name just some, in order: St. Alfonso Liguori, St. Jean-Marie Vianney, The Transfiguration of the Lord, St. Dominic (my father in faith), St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), St. Lawrence, St. Clare, The Assumption of Mary (which I will have celebrated at one of her shrines), St. John Eudes, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Rose of Lima (lay Dominican), The Beheading of St. John the Baptist. Contemplating such a lineup, it's easy is to feel inadequate to the mission of evangelization—the most visible form of what used to be called "apostolate" in the Catholic Church, and in more traditional quarters, still is. But Christ spares no disciple their mission. Accordingly, while we do well to seek the help of our great forefathers and mothers in faith, the point is to emulate them.

Many Catholics seem to find such a resolution presumptuous, if not downright crazy. In their eyes, saints are like tangible miracles: by definition rare, and certainly not to be expected in the ordinary course. It's natural to live in such a way as to make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. But that is not how God wants things to be. “Be ye perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect” (Mt 5:48). And that “universal call to holiness” has a necessarily “missiological” dimension. Transformed by Christ ourselves first of all, we the laity are meant to transform the world for him. The two processes are inseparable: committing to either means committing to both. In today’s world especially, that means thinking and acting bigger than we are, by grace and faith.

The task too often daunts. Thanks to scientific advances, which have enabled humanity to improve the conditions of life along with our understanding of God’s creation, people can do more than ever without reference to God. Thus in the more “developed” countries, secularism, materialism, and unbelief abound. Even where God is remembered, his name is often invoked to rationalize violence, exploitation, and other forms of unlove. Lately, the need for conversion among the baptized, even among the clergy, has become all too evident. Those who would follow Christ have more work than ever, starting with themselves. So even aside from our natural incredulity about the call to holiness, the obstacles to answering and spreading it can seem overwhelming. No amount of virtue, talent, study, or publicity seems to make much difference in a world full of opposition to the Gospel. But what we do, if we offer it in faith to God, does make a difference. The Kingdom of God is “like a mustard seed” (Lk 13:19). Those who belong to it are small, and start small, but God gives the increase. And the increase is mighty indeed, if we would but let ourselves become living sacrifices of love for God and neighbor.

One way to do that is through the new “social media” on the Internet. Most of us know about them, and some of us use them. It’s easy to dwell on the pitfalls of such media: the over-the-top rhetoric, the opportunities for shallow publicity and self-indulgence, the threats to privacy, and so on. But as the Pope has repeatedly pointed out—see, e.g., here—the new media also present enormous opportunities for apostolate. I shall offer my own example, then generalize.

A dozen years ago, I hosted “Religion Chat” for MSN and moderated its largest Catholic “group.” From 2005 to 2010, I blogged on mostly theological topics (Sacramentum Vitae). That got more attention than I expected: attention evoked more by the message, thank God, than by the personality of the messenger. After a year in which my online interaction with people has been mostly on Facebook, to good as well as bad effect, I shall resume my original blogging apostolate. And I have now joined Google+, a new social network that, in my opinion, is better organized and has more even potential than Facebook.

Such activities are not just a personal hobby or eccentricity. Many Catholics are engaged in them, and I could here cite numerous examples with which I am personally acquainted. But to get a broader idea of how it's working in America, I cite young Brandon Vogt’s new book The Church and New Media: Blogging Converts, Online Activists, and Bishops Who Tweet (Our Sunday Visitor, 2011). To the extent we can, the members of the Order of Preachers in particular should make extensive use of them. Some of us do; I notice that the St. Joseph Province has quite a respectable website.

Then there’s all the research material the Internet has made available for study, private as well as public. Almost anybody can now carry around a library of Catholic classics, including St. Thomas’ Summa, in a device no bigger and somewhat lighter than most books. I plan on getting an e-reader as my Christmas gift to myself (unless, of course, somebody wants to spare me the trouble--hint, hint). Even the mobile phone I have now contains an “app” for reciting, and daily updating, the complete Liturgy of the Hours. The opportunities for living our charism in and through these new media are enormous. Let us pray and work together to take still better advantage of them.

Clubs and vocations

There's an old joke about Washington society: at the University Club, you need money and no brains; at the Cosmos Club, you need brains and no money; and at the Metropolitan Club, you don't need either one. When I lived in DC I thought at first that I belonged in the Cosmos Club—until, like Groucho Marx, I concluded that any club that would have me was, for that very reason, not highbrow enough for my tastes. An analogous problem, I believe, helps to explain the so-called "vocations shortage" in the developed countries.

Giving secularism, materialism, hypereroticism, and heterodoxy their ample due, the fact remains that I've known many admirable Catholic laymen who either have or do exclude themselves from consideration for the priesthood because they consider themselves unworthy. In the abstract, to be sure, they would acknowledge that nobody is worthy, that a genuine "call" comes only with a power to answer and live it that no man possesses naturally. But that truth of pastoral theology is basically seen as irrelevant. For it is generally assumed by practicing cradle Catholics that a man has to be better than most of us, and better in a certain hard-to-define way, in order to be considered "worthy" in the sense meant by Eastern-Christian tradition when the newly ordained are hailed as Axios!

Being "better" in the relevant sense does not mean being somehow more pious, or knowing Catholic teaching better, or even believing it more fervently, than the average Catholic man. I've known some laymen who are both more "pious" and theologically better-formed even than some priests I've known, but who would neither consider themselves nor be considered suitable for the priesthood. Nor is the problem any presumptive lack of willingness on the part of such men to live a life of ascesis and loving service. In the concrete, the sacrament of marriage as the Church understands it often requires living such a life to a greater degree than some priests do, or are even expected to do. I had dinner at a Jesuit residence last weekend and was amazed by how commodious their domestic life is; if this is poverty, I thought, then I for one wouldn't miss wealth. (A couple of the Jesuits there were guys who had known me in high school, and I thought the same about their lives back then!) I've also been inside parish rectories of which much the same could be said. True, most celibate priests are overworked and put under a microscope; but that's only true when they're not at home. When I was married with children, what I did on family time was often harder work than my job and certainly put me under closer scrutiny. Hence an old Irish joke: "Why is marriage a sacrament? Because nobody can crucify themselves."

I think the blockage here comes from a sense that a priest, unlike a layman, should be a transparent icon of Christ. When one meets a genuinely holy priest, his natural virtues are unprepossessing even if they happen to be great. They are not what one keeps one's attention when one meets him. Supernaturalized by the grace of his vocation, the natural virtues of a holy priest point beyond himself to Christ. It becomes evident that it is not the man who lives, but Christ who lives in him. It's not that a layman can't be that; but truth be told, laymen aren't at all expected to be that; largely for that reason, they are not seen to be that save in very unusual situations. Hence and perforce, they are not that.

That is why, when I was younger, hardly anybody saw me as "worthy" of the priesthood and eventually convinced me that I wasn't worthy. Since what they noticed was my natural self, not Christ, they assumed I wouldn't be interested in the priesthood; those who found that I was, assumed that my motives were natural not supernatural and thus unworthy. So, e.g., being theologically better-educated and more orthodox than some priests only earned me the plaudit "smart," and we all know that "smart" guys need to get themselves into lucrative professions. Being more traditional and consistent in my piety than some priests earned me only the shopworn adjective "devout," but that didn't even put me up there with the ethnic grandmothers, who were presumed to be more devout than anybody except the priests, who were presumed to be the most devout of all, even when it took rather little insight to see that they weren't. And of course, nobody with a noticeable sexuality counted as priest or nun material; if they were seriously willing to consider taking a vow of celibacy, that meant they needed a hot date and a psychotherapist rather than the seminary or novitiate. And I think it safe to say that my sexuality was, at least, noticeable.

It took me a long time to realize that that is how I was seen and, by and large, continue to be seen by most good Catholics who have known me in "real" life. Once I did realize it, I quickly noticed that many good Catholic laymen do the same number on themselves without any explicit social encouragement. They have seen only their "natural" virtues and conclude that the best way for them to serve God is to put those virtues to use in pretty much the way other good men do, only with the addition of quietly sanctifying them through the practice of their Faith. Thus, it is thought, one can become holy not only without believing oneself to be holy but also without appearing to be and certainly without talking about it. Such seems to be the picture—again, among most "good" Catholics—of how the laity, i.e. 99% of Catholics, are to live their faith. Those in consecrated life, on the other hand, are supposed to be icons. Unlike the rest of us Catholics, they can and ought to get away with being visibly holy and spending a lot of time talking about as well as living the Faith—even if their theology and piety are virtually indistinguishable from those of Katherine Jefferts Schori. But laymen who carry on with the God-stuff are vaguely (and often not so vaguely) suspect, even if their theology and piety are virtually indistinguishable from the Pope's. Such men are presumed to be eccentrics, or worse. It doesn't help matters that some of them are.

It is this bit of (for want of a better turn of phrase) Catholic collective psychology that helps to explain today's vocation shortage. It is taken for granted that only a rather narrow range of personality-types, which have never been thick on the ground, are plausible candidates for the priesthood. I don't believe that was always the assumption. Perhaps the difference now is that the priesthood, for various extrinsic reasons, isn't the path to social status and respect that it once was, so that Catholic men who could or do succeed in a secular profession are now expected to do so. Whether the change is a good or a bad thing is hard for me to say. But it definitely means that many good Catholic men won't join a club that might have them.

The vocations front

In casual conversation this week with a few local Catholics, I heard more of the old CW about how the growing shortage of priests can be resolved simply by ordaining married men, women, and even the actively homosexual. When I pointed out that the Episcopal Church has been doing just that for years, only to witness a growing shortage of laity, I was assured that the Catholic Church is not the Episcopal Church. My response was what it could only be: "Let's keep her that way." Unlike those who want the Catholic Church to be the Episcopal Church—or as close to it as makes no differenc—the Catholics I spoke with conceded I had a point. And on the vocations front, there are proven ways to keep her from becoming the Episcopal Church.

The most important way is for Catholic families and parishes to be prayerful and orthodox. Both prayer and orthodoxy are equally necessary; for even as spirituality without orthodoxy is gnosis, orthodoxy without spirituality is pharisaism. But when both are present in sufficient measure, the people understand what a great and special vocation the priesthood is and are willing to transmit that attitude to the young men they influence. Dioceses where that process occurs, such as Omaha, St. Louis, and Denver, get ample vocations. The last of those three is even building a bigger seminary. In the solid and growing Diocese of Charlotte, plans to build a seminary from scratch are well advanced.

There are other ways too, but I lack time to get into more detail about them. Here I'd rather focus people's attention on the biggest obstacle to the spread of such ways: the extent to which American cultural values shape the outlook of most lay Catholics themselves.

I just came across a blog called Roman Catholic Vocations, where today's post offers a vignette about the young author's process of discerning a priestly vocation. What most struck me was not the post, however, but the first and, so far, the only comment. It is by "A Simple Sinner," who often comments here too. He wrote:

A dozen years ago before I left for seminary, the most common comment I got from my suburban neighbors when I told them my plans (you know, people who are members of suburban parishes, put their 2.1 kids through the parish grade school because it was a better "private school" and bragged about being buddies with priests...) Don't do that! You'll find a girlfriend!" The message being clear - I wasn't such an unattractive loser that I couldn't do far better than becoming a priest! I later came to suspect that a young man taking a step to be a sign of contradistinction to all that we hold dear in the US - sex, money, fame - is a challenge that bothers people who themselves may feel guilty how NOT seriously they take their own faith. Sure they will put $25 in the collection plate on the Saturday nights they do go to Mass... But give up their granit-counter-top homes, his & hers SUVS, birth control, sex, money? Now that is just plain crazy!

SS is right about one thing: the default assumption is that the priesthood is for losers, so that a young man who could get a girlfriend and a good job doesn't belong in the priesthood. That problem was fully apparent during the aftermath of Vatican II. As a young man in the 70s, one who could and did get girlfriends and could have had a remunerative career if he'd actually been interested in something that remunerates, my interest in the priesthood drew mostly the reaction that SS describes. I'm still interested in the priesthood and, when I express that interest, still draw the same reaction (even before the perennial child-support issue comes up, which it doesn't always). But I don't think SS is quite right to "suspect" that many of the scoffers secretly feel guilty. If I thought they did, I wouldn't be in the least disturbed; for somebody's guilty conscience is a sign that they know, at some level, that they're guilty of something. The real problem is that, among most Catholics, the necessary formation of conscience isn't even taking place.

They don't think of the priesthood as a noble vocation from God at all. That is partly because nobody has told them—at least not in any convincing way—and partly because they have no idea that to adopt sacrificial service willingly as a lifestyle, for love of God and neighbor, is to be divinized. But they don't see as much mostly because all the cultural icons that suffuse their environment send the opposite message. As some wag once asked: "Why does the Devil have all the best tunes?"—a question much more apposite now, if only given the state of Catholic liturgy, than it was a century ago. The gods and goddesses the young know today play sports and movie characters, or at the very least drive BMWs and have lots of sex without consequences. They simply cannot conceive that a life with no sex and hardly any money could be for anybody but a loser.

Nonetheless, I'll venture a challenge in the form of a question. Everybody has been outraged by the clerical sex-abuse scandal. But which scenario is more likely to produce clerical pederasts and their enablers: one in which only losers are thought fit for the priesthood, or one in which real men are admired for following that vocation?

Objectivity, abortion, and vocations

Communion and Liberation's annual Rimini meeting opened on Monday with the theme: "Truth is the destiny for which we are made." This notion of a Truth-capital-T which is everybody's destiny is the notion of a great objective truth that is a Person; our relativistic age is sometimes willing to grant that as a hypothesis, but never as a certainty. Yet one of the things I love about CL is that such a wildly countercultural theme is actually celebrated: with unrestrained music, lots of food, and not a little joshing as well as with a keen, prayerful awareness of how hard it is for us to let Truth Himself take over our minds and hearts. Love of and from Christ is palpable at CL gatherings—the small ones as well as, apparently, the yearly big one. This year's theme brings some specifics to mind.

The Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, has got the meeting into the MSM with an opening speech containing yet another criticism of Amnesty International for supporting legal abortion for rape victims in war zones. Like her disapproval of condom use by married couples for AIDS prevention, this stance of the Church is virtually incomprehensible to non-believers and to not a few believers. People wonder how can anybody with a heart could possibly oppose the availability of the choice of abortion for women who have conceived by being raped. In response, Cardinal Bertone is absolutely right to point out that, while "the Church is absolutely opposed to all forms of violence against women," she "cannot accept violence against the innocent child. Violence and injustice, he said, cannot be overcome by more violence and injustice, but only by the conversion of hearts." But such a response falls on generally deaf ears because subjectivity, at least for women, reigns supreme today. In the case of conception by rape, the child is a desperately unwanted intruder making use of a woman's body against her will. Since there are few if any violations of a human person's autonomy greater than rape, a violation which is augmented when conception occurs, the natural repulsion a woman feels is thought to justify at least giving her the legal choice to kill the intruder. The suggestion that the intruder is also an innocent person whom it is objectively and intrinsically wrong to kill is treated, in comparison, as a mere opinion—an opinion which a woman has the right to hold, if she chooses, but just as much right to reject. What matters is how she thinks and, even more, how she feels—not any moral duty that she might conceivably owe the life within her regardless of how she thinks or feels.

Whether in this particular form or more generally, the abortion issue is currently the most salient example of how Truth has been brushed aside as our objective destiny and reduced to individual opinion and feeling. The result of such an attitude, for nearly a century, has been the biggest waves of mass homicide in human history, of which abortion is not the least. Yet even many Catholic politicians believe we are not supposed to lift a finger to prevent the abortion holocaust because, on the conventional wisdom, what really matters is what women believe and feel about what happens in their own bodies—not what's true, regardless, about the life within their bodies. Such politicians conveniently ignore the fact that there are good non-sectarian arguments against their position; but Bertone is right that only conversion of hearts to Christ can change the underlying attitude.

From a male perspective, I believe the same phenonomen of contemporary subjectivity helps to explain the decrease of interest in the priesthood since Vatican II. Ironically, a bit of subjective narrative serves to explain that in turn.

First, the two subjects that far and away interest me the most are God and the Church. I have never been interested for long in any secular profession. I do not reject such professions, at least the morally legitimate ones; after all, God calls most men to them. What makes me unusual, I suppose, is that God and the Church interest me the most precisely because, as a Catholic, I believe they are objectively the most important realities of life. God is Being Itself, which is thus and also a triune communion of persons; the Church is that visible reality across space and time, heaven and earth, which as the Mystical Body of God the Son is meant to incorporate us into said communion. If one believes such assertions, I've always felt, why wouldn't one find the designated subjects more interesting than anything else? I realize that most believers don't, even when they have the time and leisure to do so; and far be it from me to condemn that. But I must admit that I don't quite get it.

Another reason I don't get it is that the Church actually needs more people with attitudes like mine. Consider the priesthood. I believe that the objective power and importance of the ministerial priesthood makes it the greatest vocation a man can have. It's not the "robes and rituals" as such that attract me; those are the outward, aesthetic symbols, which have their small appeal but are purely ancillary. What attracts me is the essence of the sacraments: the fact that the sacraments administered by priests, chiefly the Eucharist and Reconciliation, transmit the presence and transforming power of God ex opere operato—i.e., through the very thing done—rather than ex opere operantis—i.e., through the doing of it by this or that man. When a priest confects the Eucharist, it is the risen Christ himself who replaces the bread and wine on that altar as a living sacrifice of praise to the Father for our salvation. When a priest pronounces absolution, it is that same Christ who is absolving us. The grace and power that only a priest, by God's mysterious design, can transmit by such means are there whether we believe or accept it or not; so long as the priest intends what the Church does in the sacraments, their power does not even depend on his own virtue. It is the utter objectivity of the inestimable gifts given us through the priesthood that I find so compelling and attractive. For that reason I've always wished I had the vocation, even though at this point I must admit I don't. But there don't seem to be many Catholic men out there today with a similar attitude. The very idea that the priesthood is something inestimably powerful and noble for its purely objective reality is lost on most Catholic men in our society precisely because it is lost on most people in our society. The values of most Catholics seem to be formed more by the surrounding secular culture, with its emphasis on subjective gratification, than by what the Church objectively embodies. Is it any wonder that the ratio of priests to laity continues to shrink?

Whether we're talking abortion, the priesthood, or the Christian life generally, the biggest step in the right direction is the first step. By how we think, live, and above all love, we must preach to the world that Truth Incarnate, Jesus Christ, is what life is all about—and that he is what he is regardless of what the world thinks and feels about him at any given time. What ails the Church is that is not often enough kept in view, in a world that hardly has it in view at all.

The wisdom of the children of darkness

This vocations article in the Raleigh News and Observer is headlined in the usual, predictable way. But I found it worth a look for two reasons. One was that Michael Brown found it worth linking to; the other was that I know some quite spiritual people in that diocese, having spent some time there for several purposes, one of which was to pursue church jobs, unsuccessfully, in 2002 and 2004. Sure enough, I found in the article a golden nugget of that wisdom which unbelievers sometimes pick up faster than many churchgoing Catholics.

Here's the passage that caught my attention:

In the Diocese of Raleigh, which spans 54 counties from Chatham to Dare, there is one priest for every 1,791 Catholics. Nine small parishes have no priests, and mega-parishes strain at the seams with round-the-clock masses every weekend to accommodate an ever-burgeoning Catholic population.

Since Bishop Burbidge arrived in Raleigh last year, he has added a monthly service to pray for more priests. To encourage teens to consider the priesthood, he even refereed a basketball game of seminarians versus students from St. Thomas More Academy in Raleigh. So far, eight men have responded to the call -- an impressive feat that brings the number of seminarians in the diocese this coming school year to 21.

"I'm thrilled with how the awareness has been heightened," Burbidge said recently.

Scholars say that might not be enough. Dean Hoge, a leading expert on the priest shortage, estimates that efforts by bishops such as Burbidge might result in a 10 percent increase in priests at a time when the church needs a 100 percent increase.

"A 10 percent increase is fine," said Hoge, a professor of sociology at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. "Is it going to solve the problem? No."

But there is a curious thing about the new crop of Catholic priests. Many of them, such as Burbeck, who is 23, have a passionate commitment to the Catholic Church. At a time when many Catholics blame their priests for the horrific cases of sexual abuse of children, Burbeck said that in embracing the church, he felt not qualms but clarity.

"That's the reason I was created," Burbeck said referring to his desire to become a priest. "That's the meaning of my life."

Bishop Burbidge ordained eight new priests this year, which isn't enough to compensate for both retirements and deaths among priests and the inexorable burgeoning of the laity. But if Michael Burbeck is any indication of the attitude of incoming seminarians, Burbidge will be ordaining priests at an accelerating rate in the future. I found myself pumping my fist after reading this story.

The spiritual commitment of the Michael Burbecks in the Church is infectious. They do not aspire to the priesthood so as to escape anything. They do not seek it out as a career or as a mark of social status. They don't even see it as a "vocation" in the generic sense, which could apply just as well to mothers, doctors, or first responders. What's happened in the American Church over the last several decades makes the inadequacy of all such motivations painfully evident. No, they enter the seminary because they recognize that what they're there for is simply to become who they are in Jesus Christ, their chief love in life. They choose it not because it's something they'd like to do, but because it's simply who they have been created, in love, to be. The choice is so clear that it's hardly a choice at all.

I've known a few other guys like that. They are now terrific priests. The Holy Spirit is calling many such men. I resist my temptation to envy them by exercising the priesthood of believers: offering my own sufferings partly for them. I have no doubt that is efficacious, especially in conjunction with adoration of the Eucharist outside Mass. It sustains and augments the clergy, especially the higher clergy. Indeed, if more bishops like Michael Burbidge are appointed, more seminarians like Michael Burbeck will keep coming to the fore across this country and become terrific priests in their turn. They will do so despite massive incomprehension and resistance, not just from the world but including and especially from within the bosom of the Church. Such is the leadership we need; if we pray, love, and believe as we ought, such is the leadership we will get.

What do you think of this vocations video?

I can't vouch for its effectiveness as a recruitment tool. But I lived in Manhattan for fifteen years during the 1970s and 80s, and wish I had seen something like that.

Pentecost, vocation, and two models of church

Sorry for the week's absence, dear and vast readership. There's been a great deal to blog about; but as Pentecost approached, I grappled with my periodic depression about my standard conundrum: how to earn a living by doing what I love and the Church needs. What I have now, and have had for a long time, is purely secular work whose only meaning to me is that of purification and penance. (True, it does prevent me from being jailed as a "deadbeat dad," but that only means I've adopted a more prudent form of penance.) I note that blogging has earned me some tips, for which I am most grateful, as well as a few accepted invitations to publish conventional pieces; but that, after all, doesn't quite add up to a living, nor have I ever thought it would. After prayer and conversation with a few anointed people this past week, I'm no clearer about how to resolve the conundrum beyond efforts I've already been making. Those people tell me not to give up on following my passion, which I suppose is sound enough advice, but not especially enlightening. Adherence to it calls for faith; and while my faith in the teaching of the Church remains unwavering, my faith in my own temporal future has been pretty well ground to powder. Oddly, though, neither have I kept on feeling depressed. That is the Holy Spirit's doing.

For one thing, I went to confession last Saturday evening on the spur of the moment, without even recalling that it was the eve of Pentecost. There was nothing unusual or egregious to confess; yet afterwards I realized how necessary the exercise had been all the same. I hadn't been praying enough; the cacophony of the world outside, and of my own resentments within, had been poisoning me; I had reverted to my second-nature cynicism about life and thus ceased to trust God. The certainty of mercy following repentance, which entails trust, changed that—at least for a time and, one ever hopes, for good.

Then there was the word of God given for the Solemnity of Pentecost itself. I keep on returning to how, according to the first reading from Acts, the Holy Spirit starts to reverse Babel. The original story of the Tower of Babel is probably an etiological myth, though I wouldn't be surprised if it grew out of a true story, perhaps one of a grandiose public-works project gone bellly-up for want of effective communication among contractors. Like the Middle East in general, Iraq hasn't changed that much. But regardless, it is abundantly clear that what St. John the Divine calls "the world" is full of chaos and confusion, even as those empowered by the Spirit exhibit unity and certainty. You can see the contrast even between families: many are fragmented by their TVs, their iPods, their hectic leisure schedules; a few, headed by fathers who are spiritual leaders, are kept together by prayer: in church, at the dinner table, and doubtless elsewhere in or about the home. The miracle related in Acts, which there's no good reason to doubt actually occurred, is clearly meant as a sign of the same sort of unity: that of the Church, of which a healthy domestic church is but a cell. But such unity is possible only if one confesses Jesus as Lord and waits for his Spirit. That means prayer, such as the nine days of prayer—the "novena"—among the Apostles as they awaited the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And such prayer entails an implicit trust that the grace of the indwelling Spirit continues to renew for me.

Yet how, in general, is such trust really possible today? Few if any of us have seen or heard the risen Jesus; none have heard the Apostles preach; biblical scholars don't agree on how much the actual Apostles were involved in writing the various "gospels," canonical and non-canonical; there is no longer any church that the baptized all agree is "the Church;" and since the so-called Enlightenment we have witnessed the relentless march of secularism as an all-encompassing ideology, not merely of government which is not theocracy. It sometimes seems we must say, with the relativists, that it's all a matter of choosing what appeals. And pace some analytical epistemologists, belief is in some cases voluntary. We hold many of the beliefs we do because we choose—often for good reason, sometimes for bad—to put our trust in the authority with which they are presented, even though we are not in a good position to verify them for ourselves. But whom do we trust in order to be sure that we have been drawn into the very life of God? Well, God of course. But how do we know that's whom we're really trusting?

People often appeal to their own experience; but without being situated within a wider context of authority, that does not really answer. "The varieties of religious experience," to use William James' phrase, are countless and not easily classified; and even experiences with ostensibly similar phenomenal content are often interpreted by different people in mutually incompatible ways. A cacophony of individual "experiences" and testimony thereto raises more questions than it answers. It is a Babel—ultimately, a Babel of relativism and indifferentism. It won't serve to unify people because, taken just by itself, it confuses without clarifying.

Among Protestants, it is common to appeal to "the Bible" as the normative authority for interpreting religious experiences. To some extent, that is helpful. Assuming that the Bible is somehow divinely inspired, which is a big assumption, that mini-library materially contains what's necessary to know for our salvation. But again, absent some normative authority for resolving disputes about what that really is on various points, appealing to the Bible only pushes the problem back a level. Even if, per impossibile, we had complete agreement on what the original human authors intended in each and every case, we probably wouldn't be much closer to agreement on what the Holy Spirit intended in each and every case. The literal sense is not eo ipso the canonical sense; if it were, we'd have some irresolvable contradictions on our hands, which I doubt we want to say God intended; and even if we didn't have those, the content of the faith would be largely a matter of opinion. Christianity is not primarily the religion of a book, or even of a special set of books. As the Pope says, it is not even primarily a doctrine: it is an "encounter with a Person." And how are we to encounter that Person reliably, so that we can trust him?

At this point some people, including but not limited to Orthodox believers, appeal to Tradition, i.e. to all that is "handed down" to us by Christ from the Apostles. The Bible, they say, is only the most authoritative written expression of that wider Tradition in light of which the Bible itself must be interpreted. That is true. But in order to identify the content of that wider Tradition, we need to identify an authoritative bearer of Tradition; it's no good appealing to something called Tradition as a way of resolving doctrinal disputes if we can't say whose tradition and why. Now the only candidate for such an authoritative bearer of Tradition is "the Church." So then the question becomes: how to identify "the" Church, given the myriad of churches?

The importance of that question is why, during my career in the blogosphere, I have so often broached ecclesiological issues. Whether one believes the answer or not, the Catholic Church has a clear, consistent, and non-arbitrary answer to the question, one that is grounded in history even though not proven by appeal to historical data alone. That is one very important reason why I'm Catholic. But I am not writing this to convince anybody of the Catholic answer to the question; that would be absurdly overambitious even for me. I'm writing to make clear that the question cannot be credibly evaded.

The most common way of evading it, at least among devout Christians of the evangelical and pentecostal varieties, is to appeal to what is often called "the witness of the Holy Spirit." Thus, in his response to my article "Why Beckwith Matters", Rev. Rick Phillips says:

Whereas Liccione and other Roman Catholics see the divide as consisting between ecclesiastical and individual authority, Reformed theology sees a divide between church authority and the authority of the Holy Spirit. We are not relying on private interpretation, but on the witness of the Spirit to the Word in the church to the people of God.

The question I would pose in response to that is this: if the witness of the Spirit is indeed distinguishable from that of individual interpretation of the Bible on the one hand, and from that of "ecclesiastical authority" on the other, how is one so to distinguish it? Everybody who sincerely believes the version of Christianity to which they subscribe believes they are led to do so by the Holy Spirit and are thus bearers of the witness of the Holy Spirit. But that doesn't even begin to settle the question who is right so to believe. Nor is there any agreed, publicly accessible method for settling the question. That is why, in such a context as this, appeal to the witness of the Holy Spirit as opposed to both private interpretation and the teaching authority of the Church utterly begs the question. The Catholic and Orthodox churches also, after all, claim to bear the "witness of the Spirit to the Word in the church to the people of God," while believing their own dogmas to be part of that witness. But of course the differences within Christianity remain; and there is no way, prior to assessing the claims of a given church to divinely bestowed authority, to identify who really bears the witness of the Holy Spirit to the word "in the church."

Such difficulties make me glad to be Catholic. If we understand what the Catholic Church claims to be, and accept it, we don't have those difficulties. Of course we have many other problems in the Catholic Church, as everything involving human beings does. But I have excellent reason to trust that, whatever does or doesn't happen to me as an individual member of the Mystical Body of Christ, his Bride on earth, I am just such a member and can remain one as long as I choose to. That makes my trust in the worthwhileness of my life possible even when the visible evidence thereof isn't very persuasive. Why? Because I can reasonably trust that I remain in loving encounter with the Person whom life is all about.

Nevertheless, it's often been said that American Catholics are experientially Protestant inasmuch as their religious sensibilities are formed, almost by osmosis, in a culturally Protestant environment. I think that's largely right, and the phenonomenon affects our experience of church in particular.

In Protestantism, a church is essentially a voluntary association of individuals whose religious opinions happen more-or-less to coincide; "the" Church, on this model, is the invisible collection of people through the ages who have got and stayed right with God; and one hopes, with fingers crossed, that the Church and the churchgoing set roughly coincide. In Catholicism, however, "the Church" is something visible: those among the baptized who are in full communion with the Bishop of Rome; "a" church is an organ of that body, which might or might not have remained in full communion with the Bishop of Rome, and thus might or might not be fully integrated into the whole. That selfsame Church is the Bride of Christ, one body with him in a mystical marriage, and thus is the Mystical Body of Christ. What "the" Church teaches with her full authority, therefore, just is the teaching of Christ, and thus is what "the Spirit witnesses to in to the Church to God's people." That is why what the Church proposes for our belief is coextensive with divine revelation, and the decision to accept it is the gift of faith bestowed by the Holy Spirit. Any church built on any other conception of church has no such authority and therefore, to the extent its doctrine and church order differ from those of the Catholic Church, is teaching mere religious opinion. Even when the members of such a church do hold what is of faith, they do not hold it by faith, save to the extent they rely on the authority of the Catholic Church—which many do more than they realize.

This Pentecost, I pray that a lot more people come to realize that. And I'm not doing that just because, if the prayer is answered soon, I'd have a better chance of getting the sort of job I want. That might only mean that I'm mistaking my own desires for those of the Holy Spirit. No, I'm praying that way because it's always a good and joyous thing when Truth is acknowledged. It might even help people trust each other more again.

The vocations solution

It ain't marketing. It ain't scholarships. It ain't even broadening the applicant pool to include the usual suspects. God is calling plenty of young men to the priesthood. So why aren't we seeing more of them?

Fr. Philip Powell, OP, has an excellent homily up on a theme suggested by today's Gospel in the Latin Church, which have the apostles called to be "fishers of men." In his inimitable style, he well explains why some young men who are called to the priesthood are put off:

I hear the question all the time: “Father, what can we do to get more priests? Is it allowing priests to marry? Ordaining women? What do we do?” Yesterday, I spent the whole day with the UD Serra Club on retreat. We read sections of JPII’s Pastores dabo vobis, his document on priestly formation. Our Holy Father accurately diagnosed the vocations crisis as both a cultural disease and an ecclesial malaise. In the culture, we are more apt to hear the gospels of corporate marketing, faux individualism, narcissistic prattle, relativist and subjectivist gibberish, hyper-sexed panting, the near-fundamentalist gospel of scientism and rationalism, and the always destructive and fear-mongering extremes of feminism. Each of these, just as dark spirits always do, specialize in digging under the faith of those called to serve and weakening the foundations of trust and the desire to sacrifice.

Corporate marketing begs us to worship mass produced objects by convincing us that each of us is a unique consumer, all the while shaping us into a corporate eater, a corporate buyer—just like millions of others. Narcissistic individualism preaches the power of ME, the source and summit for MY universe, a universe where I select my sounds, my tastes, my textures, my flavors, my images and a universe where I am ME and you are (if you in fact exist) you are here to mirror me to me. Relativism and subjectivism are routine postures for those who know that the truth of the matter doesn’t report what they want to hear. There is no argument here, only a sly redefinition what “truth” is and the casual dismissal of anything so medieval. Rationalism, and its religion scientism, work to kill the supernatural so that the bond btw Creator and creature is broken. And feminism in its extreme forms adopts most of these other “ism’s” and undermines the natural, created order of sexual differences. To even utter such a sentence is blasphemy in most churches and universities these days!

These are the dark spirits that are tearing our vocation nets; these are the demons of the age that turn our young men’s heads and whisper fear and loathing in their ears. How do you say yes to sacrificial service to the people of God when on a daily basis for 18, 22, 28 years you have heard that you, as you are, you are the center of the universe; powerful as a purchaser, truly unique as a consumer; virile as a man only to the degree that you are sexual; educated only to the degree that you are committed to scientific-rational inquiry; and deeply afraid of saying anything remotely critical of the feminist dogma that “to be equal” is “to be the same.” With all of that riding on your back, you’d strain the vocations net too!

Such is our culture, which happens to be inhabited by the laity, who are called to leaven and transform it.

Fr. Powell accordingly calls on the laity, in their own lives, to model what's needed: sacrifice for others in a spirit of love, hope, and truth. Many of us have failed egregiously in that; no surprise, since our culture does not reward it much with what is generally considered reward. So the solution to the vocations shortage is not to jazz up recruitment campaigns or improve the financing of seminary education. And it surely is not to ordain women or even married men. It is for all of us to put the Kingdom of God first, by how we live. We cannot expect priests to make us holy; only when we live out the priesthood of believers ourselves in humble, unordained fashion, will we get "enough" and holy enough priests. The solution to the vocations problem is to be priests ourselves.

That's the vocation I know I have, and I'm working with God to remove the numerous obstacles to my answering it.

A stemwinder on vocations

Last week I forgot to peek at Fr. Philip Powell's blog the way I usually do on Sundays. Naturally, he posted a rousing exhortation on vocations. Anybody who worries about the priest shortage should read it; if you can, listen to and record the podcast for distribution.