What
an excellent article by Michael.
John N. Collins is hoping more people will comment on it.
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2012-06-04
John N. Collins
Comment on The
Elephant in the Room: Ministry by
Fr Michael Kelly SJ
Early
in the week, when CathNews promoted Michael Kelly’s public lecture on ‘The
Elephant in the Room: Ministry…’, I was elated (still am) that such a
prominent Jesuit was brave enough to voice the obvious.
Home here, on the other hand, I was rather depressed.
We had a family funeral on our hands and no real way of joining in the
conversation.
On Wednesday morning I
rang
In the end this
wasn’t needed because Eureka Street had
the address up online on Friday.
Because
of the author and of the elephant he is writing about, I am sure the article
will travel far in our vast land and quickly.
Not many other people accountable to ecclesiastical bookkeepers have
shown themselves willing to show the state of the columns to the non-accountable
public
(I can’t extend the metaphor to ‘shareholders’).
Undoubtedly
Eric Hodgens did it quite like that in 2008, but then in
the Garratt series New Evangelisation
in the 21st Century: Removing the Roadblocks he
had the advantage of a 50 page booklet and was writing from retirement
from clergy jobs. No sacking on the
cards. He was also writing out of a
significant career with professional responsibilities for continuing education
of priests. He knew it all, had
experienced it all on the ground. But
bishops could afford to ignore his review, his views, questions, and implicit
demands arising from the crisis he so clearly depicted.
He was out to grass.
Michael
Kelly is better known nationally, at the peak of his game, and was speaking to
the tune of only some 5000 words. He
packed it in. And socked it to them.
A more than welcome voice.
The
statement is, however, a rather personal one: the process itself revealing of
some inadequacies within the route designed for him to get to ordination.
No real theory of what ‘priesthood’ might mean in the post-Vatican II
world. The learning he appears to
have most cherished arose from revealing interaction with client believers after
his ordination.
At
some stage, however, Michael drew enlightenment from Raymond Brown’s Priest
and Bishop: Biblical Reflections. This
was a 1970 book. Actually, booklet:
86 pages. Yes, indicators of new
ways to go to avoid going deeper into the mistakes of the previous 500 years and
more. But a lot of stuff had been
written before 1970 and went on into about the mid-1990s.
As well, a number of guys (and the odd woman) have suffered for the words
they put on the printed page about ministry and priesthood.
But
why, if he was ordained in 1984, hadn’t he read Brown in his seminary days?
The cauldron had been on the boil for at least 20 years.
This should not be phrased to appear to be a criticism of Michael.
Rather it points to a situation that the Jesuit educators were
responsible for. Obviously they were
playing safe: keeping to the sound doctrine that was ever so shortly to be
exposed as inadequate and, in fact, unreliable.
I
am probably sounding mean. Don’t
intend that. Just alerting people to
the fact that we have had an enormous output about ministry since the 1950s,
which fact was itself a significant factor in building a sense that the church
needed an ecumenical council to see what was going on and where the church ought
to be going next.
I
hope many more readers feel some encouragement from Michael Kelly’s public
exposure of theological inadequacies in relation to ministry.
If the elephant begins to show signs of feeling less comfortable in the
room of the church, someone may turn to open another window or two upon g-d’s
fresh air.