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For those who have been paying attention to the Catholic Church and Pope Francis, you may be familiar with Cardinal Raymond Burke. Formerly the bishop of LaCrosse, WI and archbishop of St. Louis, MO, Cardinal Burke was recently transfered by the Pope from his post on the Vatican's highest court to the ceremonial role as the sponsor of the charitable Order of Malta. This transfer has been widely understood as a demotion, an exceedingly rare occurence at this level of the Church. The problem with this demotion is that it actually gives the Cardinal more freedom to express his criticisms of the Pope.
In a recent interview, Burke expressed his views that the decline in priestly vocations and the sexual abuse scandals were caused by a radical feminzation of the church. I'm not sure what reality the Cardinal resides in, but it must look a whole lot different from the one I live in. I think the most clear explanation for the sexual abuse was spelled out by Fr. Andrew Greeley, the late Catholic priest, sociologist, and novelist. In his view the sexual abuse was an expression of of the unchecked power in the structure of the church hierarchy. He, very credibly, pointed out that similar abuses occur in any social structure where individuals are place in positions of authority and then not held accountable for their actions. This has nothing to do with feminism or the (all too slowly) growing role of women in the church. If anything, the increasing number of women in positions of some authority in the church has helped to both reduce the amount of abuse and expose its existence. Perhaps that is what Burke is referring to...without the women, the abuse scandal wouldn't have happened because the abuse could continue undetected. I hope that isn't what he meant, but I'm not sure what else he could have meant.
As for the decline of priestly vocations, I want to quote him directly before I comment:
The problem with this argument is in the timing. The numbers of men entering seminary and preparing to become priests had been in steep decline well before girls were allowed to serve at the altar in 1983. I was an altar boy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I remember the priests then complaining about the declining enrollement. There weren't any altar girls yet, so I don't see how the decline in priestly vocations can be linked to the introduction of girls to the altar. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons girls were allowed to serve was because they couldn't convince enough boys to do so. I can't speak to why the numbers of men entering the priesthood has declined, but I'm reasonably sure that Burke's connection to the introduction of girl altar servers is utterly bogus.
To me, Cardinal Burke represents a style of Church leadership that should have vanished decades (or even centuries) ago. His vision of the Church is narrow and exclusive, and it smacks of the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus condemned quite clearly in the Pharisees of his time. For me, the humble, open and inclusive style of Pope Francis shows the kind of leadership that I believe the Church sorely needs more of.
In a recent interview, Burke expressed his views that the decline in priestly vocations and the sexual abuse scandals were caused by a radical feminzation of the church. I'm not sure what reality the Cardinal resides in, but it must look a whole lot different from the one I live in. I think the most clear explanation for the sexual abuse was spelled out by Fr. Andrew Greeley, the late Catholic priest, sociologist, and novelist. In his view the sexual abuse was an expression of of the unchecked power in the structure of the church hierarchy. He, very credibly, pointed out that similar abuses occur in any social structure where individuals are place in positions of authority and then not held accountable for their actions. This has nothing to do with feminism or the (all too slowly) growing role of women in the church. If anything, the increasing number of women in positions of some authority in the church has helped to both reduce the amount of abuse and expose its existence. Perhaps that is what Burke is referring to...without the women, the abuse scandal wouldn't have happened because the abuse could continue undetected. I hope that isn't what he meant, but I'm not sure what else he could have meant.
As for the decline of priestly vocations, I want to quote him directly before I comment:
The introduction of girl servers also led many boys to abandon altar service. Young boys don’t want to do things with girls. It’s just natural. The girls were also very good at altar service. So many boys drifted away over time. I want to emphasize that the practice of having exclusively boys as altar servers has nothing to do with inequality of women in the Church.
I think that this has contributed to a loss of priestly vocations. It requires a certain manly discipline to serve as an altar boy in service at the side of priest, and most priests have their first deep experiences of the liturgy as altar boys. If we are not training young men as altar boys, giving them an experience of serving God in the liturgy, we should not be surprised that vocations have fallen dramatically.
The problem with this argument is in the timing. The numbers of men entering seminary and preparing to become priests had been in steep decline well before girls were allowed to serve at the altar in 1983. I was an altar boy in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and I remember the priests then complaining about the declining enrollement. There weren't any altar girls yet, so I don't see how the decline in priestly vocations can be linked to the introduction of girls to the altar. In fact, I suspect that one of the reasons girls were allowed to serve was because they couldn't convince enough boys to do so. I can't speak to why the numbers of men entering the priesthood has declined, but I'm reasonably sure that Burke's connection to the introduction of girl altar servers is utterly bogus.
To me, Cardinal Burke represents a style of Church leadership that should have vanished decades (or even centuries) ago. His vision of the Church is narrow and exclusive, and it smacks of the kind of hypocrisy that Jesus condemned quite clearly in the Pharisees of his time. For me, the humble, open and inclusive style of Pope Francis shows the kind of leadership that I believe the Church sorely needs more of.
