Sacrifice

"The Catholic Church is dead. It just doesn't know enough to lie down and roll over." Father Daniel Reichert recoiled as if he'd been struck. "How can you say such a thing! You, of all people!" "Just look around you," Father Harry Morgan responded, with an all-encompassing gesture. "Everyone running about like chickens who've been relieved of their heads." He turned back to Reichert. "And what for?" What for indeed, thought Reichert. The ceremony that was about to begin was meaningless at best and heretical at worst. But that it threatened the very existence of the Church--the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church? Certainly his boon companion, Morgan, had to be hyperbolizing. Harry knew as well as he that the Catholic Church was indefectible. Jesus had said so. "Behold I am with you all days. Even to the end of time." No, the one, true Church could not be dying, let alone dead. "You ought to have a more open mind," Reichert rebuked. Morgan's lip curled. "You should talk!" In effect, each priest had just accused the other of being narrow-minded. If truth be known, it was simply a matter of degree. Reichert and Morgan shared an epoch. Born in the twenties; parents staunch Catholics; the priesthood looked upon as an exalted calling. The two had entered the seminary a couple of years apart; Morgan was the elder by two years. They advanced through the seminary--high school, college, and theologate--in what would later be known as the pre-Vatican II era. The transformation that rumbled through the Church when the beloved Pope John XXIII opened some windows and let the present in affected Catholics variously. Where once Liturgy, law, and theology had been marked by a universal rigid sameness, after the Second Vatican Council indisputability was replaced by uncertainty. Gradually, two camps formed. One was the conservative wing: fundamentalist, dedicated to a counterreformation, committed to a return to the pre-Vatican II Church. The other held to a liberalism that would not be static no matter how uncompromising the Vatican remained. Fathers Morgan and Reichert were devoted to a fairly firm conservatism. Even so, they could and sometimes did differ between themselves. This was such an occasion. The Archdiocese of Detroit was about to receive into its presbyterate a former Episcopal priest. His wife and a younger son would follow the priest into the Roman Church. The other son and a daughter (middle child) were quite another matter. The decision as to whether to accept such ministers or priests into the Roman Catholic priesthood was left up to each individual diocese. If such a judgment was affirmative, there were still many bases to touch, steps to be taken. But in any case, the matter clearly was controversial. On the one hand was the incontrovertible fact that Catholic priests were in critically short supply. And that shortfall was pretty much worldwide. In Detroit, for instance, parishes that had once been assigned as many as three or even four priests in the fifties and sixties now commonly were staffed by only one. And many parishes that had held one or two priests were now closed for simple want of a pastor. Recruitment was one obvious avenue toward a solution. Detroit, as well as other dioceses, gave that possibility a professional shot--to little avail. Priests who had become inactive, in many cases choosing married life rather than celibacy, had a snowball's chance in hell of being called back to priestly duty. Offering ordination to married men and/or to women was a proposition that the Vatican had shot down repeatedly. In fact, Rome considered the latter two potential solutions dead issues. Proponents kept insisting that there was life in the concepts yet. But those who wanted to reactivate priests and/or invest womKienzle, William X. is the author of 'Sacrifice' with ISBN 9780449007129 and ISBN 044900712X.