In preparation for the 2018 Synod of Bishops, the Holy See released a preparatory document which includes a series of 15 questions to be answered by National Conferences of Bishops and other Church groups.
The document, entitled “Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment,” states that the Church needs to assess its pastoral approach to young people living in a fast-changing world where globalization, economic and social hardship present major challenges
The survey of Bishops and Pastors includes questions that are specific to each continent and is part of the preparation for the 2018 Synod of Bishops, which will focus on young people.
Pope Francis urged young people in an open letter to share their doubts and criticisms of the Church.
The 2018 Synod will ask Bishops and Priests about cultural changes, particularly digital media and technology, that are changing young people’s relationship with the church.
In addition to the input from Bishops’ conferences and Pastors, young people will also be able to express their views directly through a dedicated website that will be launched by the Vatican on March 1.
Charles Dillon "Casey" Stengel (The Old Perfessor), legendary American Major League Baseball right fielder and manager, was renowned for the one-line quips of sage advice that he would often share with players and fans. Among his most remembered is this: “Never make predictions, especially about the future.”
Risky as it is, I shall ignore the “Old Perfessor” and make a prediction about the 2018 Synod, with this qualification. If Pope Francis is alive and well enough to attend and engage in the discussions, this Synod on youth and vocation will perhaps have the most significant impact on the Church for centuries to come.
This is a quite a prediction, true. But here’ the reason I make it.
For months, the Holy Father has been making remarks and giving interviews which has skirt around the issue of vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life.
In comments made at ad limina visits of South American and African Bishops, in interviews published in both Catholic and secular media outlets, in his homilies at morning Mass in the chapel of Santa Marta, Francis has indicated both his awareness of the critical shortage of Priests and Religious as well as his hope in young people who are eager and anxious to be of service to the Church.
At the same time, the Pope has been constant in his praise of the holiness of the heterosexual family unit. He has called the family the “masterwork of society,” and frequently reminds us that Jesus "begins his miracles with this masterwork, in a marriage, in a wedding feast: a man and a woman."
Over the course of the past several months, the Holy Father has made his vision of the Priesthood starkly clear. Toward the end of last year, he confirmed the ban on ordaining women, as well as the ban on gay seminarians.
True, Francis has been rather low-key in the statements he has made thus far, but I am beginning to seriously wonder whether the Pope is preparing the Church for a new model of Priesthood: one in which married men may be eligible for ordination.
It seems that Pope Francis has an agenda at work, and his desperate need to fill the ranks of the Priesthood is taking priority over much of what he has been saying recently.
Francis has given clear indications that he is receptive to a conversation about married Priests.
This past August, Austen Ivereigh wrote an essay declaring: “Next synod likely to focus on ordaining married men.” Ivereigh cites examples in South Africa and Honduras where teams of married men with families were chosen by their communities to minister part-time while continuing to work in their professions.
“Francis has given many signals of his willingness to open up the question of ordaining married men, even encouraging local Churches to put forward proposals,” Ivereigh wrote.
Theologically, a shift to a married Priesthood is relatively simple. Clerical celibacy is a canonical discipline that is not essential to Priesthood. As such, the discipline can be changed, without disrupting the dogmatic and doctrinal teachings of the Church.
Most immediately, the Church would have much to gain in instituting a married Priesthood.
Obviously, it would stave off the looming crisis of the Priest shortage. It may also serve as a tool for evangelization and promotion of family, since a Priest and his wife would model the gender complementing roles frequently praised by Pope Francis. The husband would be both the father of the parish and the family, and his wife would be the serving, nurturing mother.
A married Priesthood might bring back into the fold all of those heterosexual families who could more easily relate to a Priest who is a husband and father.
Frankly, I see no particular theological hurdle to the Holy Father allowing for the ordination to Priesthood of those presently serving as Permanent Deacons, a position whose present sacramental impact is little more than having another altar server at Mass.
Let us remember that, historically, the Church has ordained married men, while not allowing ordained men to marry. Abuses in the Middle Ages eventually led the Latin Church to suppress the practice of admitting married men to the Priesthood.
Perhaps, the time has come for the Church Fathers to listen to the stirrings of the Holy Spirit and seriously consider the detrimental effect which mandatory celibacy is inflicting upon the Church's ability to provide the Sacraments to God's People.
Viri probati (men proven in virtue), whether married or celibate, should be able to offer themselves in service to the People of God, serving in the sacred Priesthood of Jesus Christ.
Francis loves to work incrementally, taking small steps before the last and final leap toward renewal and reformation. Astute observers of this Papacy can easily recognize that the preparatory process presently underway for the upcoming Synod have the Pope's agenda and method all over them.
I believe and predict that the Synod on youth and vocation perhaps will be the most historic and influential imprint this Pontificate will have upon the future of the Latin Church.
And what better place to address the discipline of celibacy and a married Priesthood than a Synod on youth and vocation!
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