I want to emphasize the call to mission. This is indeed what the Lord asks for in the final lines of the Gospels, including that of Saint Matthew.

We suffer when we see that there are people in the Church who are obstacles to the encounter with God.

The urgency of a more faithful Church was received with such force that the synodal consultation began at the same time as France's Independent Commission on Sexual Abuse in the Church (CIASE) published its report was published.

As for the whole of society, the difficulty lies in the exercise of authority.

The Church is suspected of abuse, of not respecting minorities and even of covering up abuse, and Pope Francis has expressed this well by pointing out that the three types of abuse - abuse of power, as well as spiritual and sexual abuse - often feed off each other.

Many words, or writings, conclude that the cause of all this is the specificity of priests and bishops, meaning both their lifestyle, including celibacy, and the authority they exercise in the Church.

They say that changing both would be the remedy for the excesses that have produced so many offenses and crimes.

A possible path forward

I resist this causal link.

I might be told that the reasons for my resistance is that I am defending and justifying who I am: a celibate and an archbishop. I want to go beyond this argument that stops all reflection.

Both the CIASE report and the synodal syntheses question the systematic character of priestly celibacy in the Catholic Church of the Latin Rite — it must be remembered that the Catholic Churches of the Eastern Rite have preserved the tradition of a married or celibate clergy.

I have spoken about the possibility of the Latin Church ordaining married men to the priesthood.

This possibility would not be a solution to the number of priests, which is estimated to be low in Europe today, nor would it be a guarantee against possible deviances, especially sexual ones.

I have written the reasons why I believe this path is possible and undoubtedly desirable. But this would not call into question the possibility of a celibate clergy, nor would it lead current priests to be able to marry.

Indeed, the Gospel calls for fidelity to commitments, and the tradition of the Church commits those whom it ordains to remain in the state which they were when they were ordained.

A misunderstood choice

Many years ago, I did not want to consider the possibility of ordaining married men because I saw in it an argument that would be understood as denying all meaning given to celibacy.

I am aware, as are many priests that our choice of celibacy is often misunderstood, even mocked, or even suspected of not being faithfully lived out in private.

Without deluding myself about the falls and failures and without presuming to speak for others, I want to express everything about the meaning behind the celibacy that I strive to live.

Even if there were married priests, it would still make sense to me... how can one not find meaning in what one lives?

First of all, I want to affirm that I did not choose to be a priest, I was called to it.

Of course, none of this happened without my consent, nor even without my expressing a certain expectation and a certain desire, but it is through being called that I am a priest.

The Church, through men and women, has been the interpreter and the servant of God's call.

Excellent priests, but bad celibates

As for celibacy, I chose it. Others like me have discerned and verified their ability to be a priest in the Catholic Church in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it was I, myself, who perceived that celibacy suited me.

Of course, this celibacy is the corollary of my availability to be a priest, but it must also correspond to a human and psychological state, allowing me to experience it as a path of humanization.

I have known several young people who had the desire to be priests, but they could not see themselves living without a wife or children. They would have made excellent priests, I am certain, but bad celibates.

The rule of mandatory celibacy thus deprives the Catholic Church of some excellent priests and some excellent pastors.

There is certainly no one way to live out priestly celibacy, as psychologies and cultures are different.

Of course, this life makes you feel the absence... of an emotional life, of a sexual life, of touching someone else's body. The absence of children, of intellectual intimacy... For each person, the absence will take on a different aspect.

Yet, what human life is not without some kind of absence? It is a lie to think that a person could experience everything that the human race knows.

Attitudes of seduction

Each one of us lacks something; it is the consumer society that seeks to make it unbearable, to immediately offer a remedy with an object which, for hard cash, will fill it.

However, one must learn to live with absences, to suffer from them, and to find ways of sublimation. It seems to me that this is the way to envisage a life of celibacy before finding spiritual or religious reasons for it.

These reasons certainly count, but if they are not anchored in the heart of the person, they run the risk of being nothing more than external justifications that will not nourish one's existence.

The consequence will be to seek gratification in the eyes of others, or even to beg for it, developing attitudes of seduction, including religious and spiritual ones, even to the point of taking control. The person who behaves in this way will never acquire true freedom for himself and will not allow others to grow in freedom.

Rather, it is a man who is called to be a priest, and a man who has been verified as being more or less balanced!

Attachment to Christ

I am increasingly convinced that the priestly celibacy, which has been understood and lived above all as a means of availability for mission, can and will only make sense - notwithstanding human capacities - for spiritual reasons, thus coming closer to the celibacy of religious and consecrated persons.

The conditions of Christian life in a secularized world have done away with the social and reputational rewards that priests previously received. This affects all Christians.

Therefore, without a life of attachment to the person of Christ, a life of prayer and of giving, all believers - including priests - can feel a loss of meaning in their lives.

We must always be aware that we live not by what we do, but by the gift of ourselves; without having the exclusive right to do so, celibacy is an expression of this.

• Pascal Wintzer is the Archbishop of Poitiers in Western France. He currently heads the Observatory on Faith and Culture within the French Bishops' Conference.
• First published in La-Croix International. Republished with permission.

The initial phase of listening drew nearly 220,000 people across Australia and 17,500 individual and group submissions.

These submissions were distilled into the six national theme papers and then further distilled again into the working document and finally the agenda.

Momentum for the Plenary Council ebbed and flowed during this process, which has been disrupted by the pandemic.

By and large, there has been considerable goodwill, enthusiasm and even a sense of hope for the future of the Church in Australia in the post-Royal Commission period. Robert Fitzgerald who - among other prominent roles - is the new Chair of Caritas Australia, once enthused that the Plenary Council is the only game in town.

For a country of about five million nominal Catholics, the initial response was quite remarkable.

Perhaps, for many of the disenfranchised, it is the last throw of the dice. I wouldn't put all my eggs in one basket, though.

Some of you might have heard or even attended the first of the three convocation series organised by the Australasian Catholic Coalition for Church Reform (ACCCR).

There were 3,000 participants, including myself.

We heard a powerful and inspiring address by Sr Joan Chittister.

Catholicism "must grow up", she said, "beyond the parochial to the global, beyond one system and one tradition, to a broader way of looking at life and its moral, spiritual, ethical frameworks."

That is the kind of stretching of the imagination and dreaming of the transformation of the Church that many Catholics are thirsting for.

Few Catholics have any appetite left for cosmetic changes, mediocrity or worst, restorationism dressed up as renewal.

We have struggled under the weight of the old ecclesial paradigm of the clerical order, control and hegemony with a penchant for triumphalism, self-referential pomp and smugness.

We yearn for a Church that commits to a God-oriented future of equal discipleship, relational harmony, wholeness and sustainability.

The revitalisation and convergence of many lay reform groups in response to the Plenary Council is no small development for the Church in contemporary Australia.

It is a sign of the "growing up" that Joan spoke about.

Australian Catholics are growing up beyond the passive, subservient to the co-responsible agents for the transformation of the Church.

In Germany, there is a lay body called Central Committee, which plays a key role in their Synodal Assembly, including having one of its members as co-president of the said structure.

Perhaps this unique feature is part of the legacy of the Reformation in the German Church.

Is the Church in Australia in pole position for deep reform?

The Church in Australia is uniquely positioned to move into a new fresh future.

Yes, it is true that we have been humbled and reduced to near irrelevancy by the sexual abuse crisis.

The Royal Commission, though being the lightning rod, has also served as a necessary wake-up call for Australian Catholics.

Indeed, no other country in the world has conducted a similar national inquiry, which is as comprehensive in its scope as ours. This has brought about a heightened level of consciousness and an unprecedented momentum for deep reform.

In many areas, Australia punches above its weight.

• Could we be a leading light in the struggle for a more fit-for-purpose Church in this place and in this time?
• Could Australian Catholics rise to the challenge and co-create the synodal Church that Pope Francis has envisaged?

While the Plenary Council may not address all of the issues of importance, it is certainly worth the effort in discerning the roadmap for the future.

Recently, Cardinal Marx of Germany tendered his resignation in a personal gesture to take responsibility for sexual abuses by priests over the past decades.

In Chile, the bishops after a period of discernment offered to resign en masse for similar reasons.

This collective act of contrition is totally unprecedented, and it shows the depth of the crisis in the Church.

Whether or not we bishops of Australia should make the same radical gesture remains an open question.

However, what is indisputable is the need for deep institutional change that will restore confidence and trust in the Church. Nothing less than a root-to-branch reform that will align our minds and hearts to the Gospel will do.

What the Church needs is not simply a renewal or an updating of methods of evangelising.

Rather, what we desperately need is an inner conversion, a radical revolution in our mindsets and patterns of action.

Gerald Arbuckle speaks of refounding as opposed to renewal. This refounding means going to the very cultural roots and a hope-filled journey into the paschal mystery for mission under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Unless we genuinely repent of institutional failures and unless we convert to the radical vision of Christ and let it imbue our attitudes, actions and pastoral practices, we will not be able to restore confidence and trust in the Church.

Conversion is one of the key areas on the agenda of the Plenary Council.

It is framed in terms of our openness to learn and meet the needs of the world we live in.

As a result, the questions revolve around our engagement with First Nations peoples, with the marginalised and the vulnerable.

However, one wonders if conversion needs to be framed not just in terms of our openness to learn and meet the needs of others but also in terms of our examination of the Church's attitude and treatment of racial minorities, women, LGBTQ+ individuals and others.

Until we have the courage to admit the old ways of being Church, which is steeped in a culture of clerical power, dominance and privilege, we cannot rise to a Christ-like way of humility, inclusivity, compassion and powerlessness.

There is a sense in which the Church must change into a more Christ-like pattern of humility, simplicity and powerlessness as opposed to worldly triumphalism, splendour, dominance and power.

Christians in the post-Royal Commission are like the Jews after the exile.

The future of the Church, like the New Jerusalem that the exilic prophets often speak of, will not be revitalised by way of simply repeating what was done in the past.

It will not be simply a restoration project or doing the old things better. Rather, we must have the courage to do new things; we must be open to the Spirit leading us to new horizons even as we tend to revert to the old ways.

Change of era and new way of being Church in the world

Many Catholics hope that the Australian Plenary Council of 2020 will see a change in a number of priority issues such as greater inclusion of the laity, the role of women, clerical celibacy et cetera.

While it is important that there is an openness and boldness to discuss these matters, what is more important is to envision a new way of being Church in the world.

The model of the Church based on clerical hegemony has run its course. Insofar as it is deeply embedded in patriarchal and monarchical structures, it is incapable of helping us to meet the needs of the world and culture in which we live.

We have long moved out of the Ancien Régime and the age of absolute monarchs.

We are on this side of the secular state and the rise of democracy.

Yet it seems that the deeply entrenched patriarchal and monarchical structures of the Church have failed to correspond with our lived experience.

For the Church to flourish, it is crucial that we come to terms with the flaws of clericalism and move beyond its patriarchal and monarchical matrix.

What is urgent is that we need to find fresh ways of being Church and fresh ways of ministry and service for both men and women disciples.

New wine into new wineskins!

The new wine of God's unconditional love, radical inclusivity and equality needs to be poured into new wineskins of humility, mutuality, compassion and powerlessness.

The old wineskins of triumphalism, authoritarianism and supremacy, abetted by clerical power, superiority, and rigidity are breaking.

It is worth noting that at the recent Synod on the Amazon, the synod bishops say they consider it "urgent" for the Church to "promote and confer ministries for men and women in an equitable manner.

"It is the Church of baptised men and women that we must strengthen by promoting ministeriality and, above all, the awareness of baptismal dignity," they state.

Beyond these generic statements, it remains to be seen how women can share in the decision-making power and institutionalised ministries in the Church.

The Church cannot have a better future if it persists in the old paradigm of triumphalism, self-reference and male dominance.

• So long as we continue to exclude women from the Church's governance structures, decision-making processes and institutional functions, we deprive ourselves of the richness of our full humanity.
• So long as we continue to make women invisible and inferior in the Church's language, liturgy, theology and law, we impoverish ourselves.
• Until we have truly incorporated the gift of women and the feminine dimension of our Christian faith, we will not be able to fully energise the life of the Church.

In the world where the rules are made by the strong and the structures of power favour the privileged, the Church must be true to its founding stories and responsive to the living presence of God.

It must find ways to promote a community of equals and empower men and women disciples to share their gifts for human flourishing and the growth of the Kingdom.

Our founding stories are those of emancipation and liberation.

• It is the story of Moses and the movement of the new social order against the tyranny of empires that lies at the heart of the prophetic imagination.
• It inspires Mary who sings of the God who overthrows the powerful and lifts up the lowly.
• It is the story of Jesus who washes the feet of his followers and subverts the power structures that are tilted towards the strong.

This narrative of the new reality that envisions radical reordering of human relationships was in fact the hallmark of the earliest Christian movement.

The Church must continue to embody the alternative relational paradigm.

This alternative relational paradigm turns the world's system of power structures on its head because it is rooted in the biblical narrative of the new social order of radical inclusion, justice and equality.

The Church cannot have a prophetic voice in society if we fail to be the model egalitarian community where those disadvantaged on account of their race, gender, social status and disability find empowerment for a dignified life.

Towards a Church of co-responsibility and synodality

Martin Luther King, Jr famously said that the arc of history is bent toward justice.

The parallel statement I want to make is that the arc of the Church is bent towards co-responsibility or synodality. Let me explain.

The way of being Church has evolved over the centuries.

When, after the early centuries of persecution, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire, the early tradition of egalitarianism gave way to a more clerical and hierarchical governance system that actually took on many features of the Empire.

Throughout the long reign of Christendom and up to the Second Vatican Council, the Church often understood itself predominantly as a perfect society. Its institutional functions and dynamics were steeped in clericalism.

Ministries gradually became the domain of the ordained.

They were all subsumed under a very cultic priesthood (set apart for the sacraments). Even the ancient ministry of deacon became a casualty of the process known as the "cursus honorum". This means that no one could begin "the course of honour" unless he is destined and qualified for the priesthood (no married and certainly not women!).

The shift towards the celibate priesthood as the normative form of ministry effectively deprived the Church of the richness of ministries as attested by the New Testament.

At the Second Vatican Council, there was a shift in the Church's self-understanding.

The dominant metaphor of "a societas perfecta" gave way to a more biblical image of a pilgrim people.

The priesthood of faithful was rediscovered along with the affirmation that the working of the Holy Spirit was granted not to the ordained only but to all baptised. Ecclesial ministries were understood in such a way as to fully honour what Paul says, "everyone is given the grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ".

Pope Paul VI accordingly suppressed the minor orders and opened some of these ministries to the lay faithful.

Now some 60 years later (talk about the glacial speed of change in the Church), Pope Francis took a step further with two recent important decisions.

In January this year, he opened to women the "installed" lay ministries of lector and acolyte, previously restricted to men.

Then just a few weeks ago, he responded to an idea that sat untouched since the Council and established the installed ministry of catechist.

The Pope called for "men and women of deep faith and human maturity, active participants in the life of the Christian community, capable of welcoming others, being generous and living a life of fraternal communion."

Pope Francis affirms that ‘this path of synodality' is precisely what "God expects of the Church of the third millennium."

He gave new impetus to the doctrine of the sensus fidei fidelium, stating that the path of synodality represents an indispensable prerequisite for infusing the Church with a renewed missionary impulse: all the members of the Church are called to be active subjects of evangelisation and "missionary disciples".

The Church has entered a new era that is characterised by a crisis of a top-down centralised ecclesiology.

With Vatican II, the ressourcement and aggiornamento led to a more biblical paradigm of a pilgrim People of God, called to be the sacrament of the Kingdom and the prophetic witness in the world.

The emphasis on the superiority of the ordained gave way to an ecclesial communion based on common baptism.

Pope Francis has applied a critical lens through which the Church is renewed for the sake of its mission for the poor.

The Church is helped to decentralise and impelled towards the peripheries.

The Church, the People of God, should walk together, sharing the burdens of humanity, listening to the cry of the poor, reforming itself and its own action, first by listening to the voice of the humble, the anawim of the Hebrew Scriptures, who were at the heart of Jesus' public ministry.

Conclusion

The COVID crisis, the Pope says, has exposed our vulnerability.

It has revealed the fallacy of individualism as the organising principle of our Western society.

It has given the lie to a "myth of self-sufficiency" that sanctions rampant inequalities and frays the ties that bind societies together. If we want a different world, we must become a different people.

I wonder if the crisis in the Church today could be framed in analogous terms.

In fact, we are at a point in history where all the indications point to a perfect storm: sexual abuse crisis, near-total collapse of active participation, loss of credibility, shrinking pool of clerical leadership et cetera.

Some have likened the state of the Church to Shakespeare's state of Denmark.

It is hardly an exaggeration!

This monumental crisis above all has exposed the weakness and indeed the unsustainability of the clericalist model.

Hence, if we are to emerge out of this, we will need to boldly embrace a new ecclesiology from below that has regained momentum thanks to the prophetic leadership of Pope Francis. We must take up the call issued to St Francis, "Go and rebuild my Church that is falling into ruins".

It is not only possible; it is the most exciting time for us to construct a new future.

It humbles us to know that God is with us in the mess and even in the perceived irrelevancy of the Church.

It comforts us, too, to know that the Church was not at its best when it reached the heights of its power in what was known as Christendom.

It was the Church of the Catacombs that shone forth its best rays of hope ironically when it was poor, persecuted and powerless.

Christendom and for the most part of history, we have tried to be great, powerful and dominant.

It was no coincidence that Dom Helder Camara and many of his Latin American colleagues chose to make the so-called "Pact of the Catacombs" as a way to return to the roots and foundations of the Church.

They weren't just letting the fresh air of the Second Vatican Council blow away the cobwebs and the manacles. They were determined to recapture the original and radical spirit of the earliest Christian movement.

It may be a long and winding road to a vision of the poor, humble but empowering and leavening force in the world. But as Teilhard de Chardin wrote: "the only task worthy of our efforts is to construct the future".

I pray that this historic once in a generation Plenary Council may be an expression of such effort.

May we have the courage, boldness and parrhesia to move from the old paradigm of triumphalism, power and splendour to the new ways of being Church that will convey the freshness of the Gospel.

• Most Reverend Vincent Long Van Nguyen OFM Conv DD STL, Bishop of Parramatta - Dom Helder Camara Lecture.
• First published by Catholic Outlook. Republished with permission.

More recently, on 11 October, Müller told the Tagespost that "not even the Pope can abolish priestly celibacy".

In the final days of the Amazon Synod, quotations from a 1992 German text by Müller were circulated among the Synod participants in Rome.

Writing in 1992, when he was professor of dogmatics at Munich University and had not yet become a bishop, Müller looked back to a trip he made to the Andes in Peru in 1988. "On the Feast of the Assumption (in 1988), we experienced expressions of a deeply felt Indian religiosity which in our eyes could be understood as an expression of genuine faith and trust in God," he wrote.

In his "Reflections on a Seminar", held in 1988 on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the 1968 Medellin General Conference of the Latin American and Caribbean Bishops, (CELAM) which were published in the Catholic Academy for Youth Issues - Akademie für Jugendfragen - Müller then advocated ordaining viri probati, that is, proven married men.

"Celibate priests are necessary for the priesthood. It must, however, be possible to ordain religiously proven and theologically educated family fathers, not only in remote areas but also in huge city parishes, so that basic pastoral and liturgical practices can continue to be celebrated," Müller emphasised.

He explained: "A new concept of this kind would not contradict the Church's tradition, as loyalty to tradition does not mean that the Church is only committed to past history but, on the contrary, far more to future history."

He then warned: "If the Church insists on holding on to obligatory celibacy under all circumstances, it must state the reasons as to why both the spiritual meaning and the assets of celibacy are of such importance to the Church that it is even prepared to hazard a decisive deformation of its constitution on account of the lack of priests."

These views on celibacy stand in strong contrast to views he expressed during the Amazon Synod.

Asked what he thought of ordaining viri probati by Paolo Rodari in an interview in La Repubblica on 10 October, Müller replied: "Ordaining viri probati is wrong. The celibacy rule is not just any rule that can be changed at will. It has deep roots in the Sacrament of Holy Orders. The priest represents Christ and has a living spirituality that cannot be changed. ... No Pope and no majority of bishops can change dogma or Divine Law according to their taste".

And on 11 October, Müller told Bavarian Radio that the discussions on the possible introduction of viri probati at the synod looked like "European Catholics' wishes in an Amazonian wrapping".

"Celibacy as the normal priestly lifestyle in the Latin-rite Church cannot be called into question," he underlined. Continue reading

This rhetorical trope has persisted despite radical redefinitions of what healthy sexuality means; one sexual culture overthrows another, but Catholicism remains eternally condemned.

Thus in a 19th-century context, where healthy sexuality meant a large patriarchal family with the wife as the angel in the home, anti-Catholic polemicists were obsessed with Catholicism's nuns — these women who mysteriously refused husbands and childbearing, and who were therefore presumed to be prisoners in gothic convents, victims of predatory priests.

Then a little later, when the apostles of sexual health were Victorian "muscular Christians" worried about moral deviance, the problem with Catholicism was that it was too hospitable to homosexuality — too effete, too decadent, too Oscar Wildean even before Wilde's deathbed conversion.

Then later still, when sexual health meant the white-American, two-kid nuclear family, the problem with Catholicism was that it was too obsessed with heterosexual procreation, too inclined to overpopulate the world with kids.

And now, in our own age of sexual individualism, Catholicism is mostly just accused of a repressive cruelty, of denying people — and especially its celibacy-burdened priests — the sexual fulfillment that every human being needs.

The mix of change and consistency in anti-Catholic arguments came to mind while I was reading "In the Closet of the Vatican," a purported exposé of homosexuality among high churchmen released to coincide with the church's summit on clergy sexual abuse.

The book, written by a gay, nonbelieving French journalist, Frédéric Martel, makes a simple argument in a florid, repetitious style: The prevalence of gay liaisons in the Vatican means that clerical celibacy is a failure and a fraud, as unnatural and damaging as an earlier moral consensus believed homosexuality to be.

The style of Martel's account is fascinating because it so resembles the old Protestant critique of Catholic decadence.

Instead of a tough-guy Calvinist proclaiming that Catholicism's gilt and incense makes men gay, it's a gay atheist claiming that the gays use Catholicism's gilt and incense to decorate the world's most lavish closet.

Instead of celibacy making men deviant, celibacy is the deviance, and open homosexuality the cure.

Celibacy used to offend family-values conservatism; now it offends equally against the opposite spirit.

The book is quite bad; too many of its attempted outings rely on the supposed infallibility of Martel's gaydar.

And yet anyone who knows anything about the Vatican knows that some of the book's gossip is simply true — just as the other critiques of Catholicism have some correspondence to reality.

The church's teaching that gay sex is sinful has clearly coexisted with and encouraged powerful gay subcultures in the priesthood.

Priests really have seduced and abused nuns, and still do today.

Celibate men are not more likely to be predators (as one would hope the #meToo era has decisively established), but particular kinds of predation have flourished in the priesthood, and the worst of that predation looks like an anti-Catholic polemic brought to life.

So if Catholics look at these changing-yet-recurring critiques of the church and see only bigotry, they would be making a grave mistake.

A critic of the church can be quicker to see problems than a believer, and when critiques are dismissed just because they partake of anti-Catholic stereotypes — well, you get the disgraceful way the church treated allegations of clerical sex abuse for many years.

But at the same time, the way the "healthy sexuality" supposedly available outside the church seems to change with every generation offers a reason to be skeptical that all Catholic ills would vanish if Rome only ceased making "unnatural" demands like celibacy and chastity. Continue reading

• Image: The Eric Metaxas Show

I celebrated my 48th anniversary of ordination at the end of July and am happily caring for two large parishes in south Liverpool.

For most of the 1970s I was Director of Vocations for my congregation, the Redemptorists. During the 1990s I was involved with the education of our students until we finally ran out of them and closed the house in Canterbury.

When I was a student in the 1960s the numbers coming from the novitiate to the seminary each year were sometimes in double figures, but then came the dramatic haemorrhaging, not only of students, but of the newly-ordained as well.

In the meantime there have been periodic surges with sizeable groups trying their vocation with us, and the flow has only occasionally dried up completely, but now in our province we have only two men in training, one of whom is already in his fifties, and we have only nine priests less than 70 years of age.

This story is being repeated across the religious congregations and dioceses of the country and although there may be the odd exception, the trend seems to me to be inexorable.

It would be interesting to do a piece of serious research into the causes of all this, but I believe one thing is certain: the Church community of the immediate future is going to be very different from the one I signed up to serve in 1964.

Indeed in many ways it already is, although we are still clinging on to the old structures.

Unashamedly I am a son of the Second Vatican Council and I continue to rejoice in the energy it released and the freedom it gave us.

Now I see Pope Francis as the most wonderful gift to the Church of our time.

Paradoxically, I have never felt more content or affirmed in my ministry than I do at present, yet deep down I also sense a real sadness.

There is a strong human instinct to want to leave a legacy, and for those of us who are not married and able to rejoice in the next generation through our children, the next best thing is surely to see our way of life flourishing and developing.

Here in Liverpool, the Redemptorists now have five priests in their eighties, five of us in our seventies and the most recently ordained, who is thirty-eight.

For years I have been involved in the work of restructuring in our own Redemptorist Congregation as well as in the dioceses in which I have lived.

In the early 2000s I had the privilege of facilitating the clergy meetings in Portsmouth as the diocese reduced from some 90 parishes to 24 pastoral areas.

In Liverpool we are looking at how our deaneries (pastoral areas) are going to be able to cope in the future as we work towards a Congress in 2020.

Recently I spent the inside of a week with the Military Chaplains of the three Services, reflecting on how they are going to cope.

For the last three years they have been without a Bishop, though the week after our meeting, that was rectified with the appointment of Bishop Paul Mason.

However, I was amazed to find that the total number of military chaplains is only just over twenty, with only four in the RAF, two of whom are deacons.

In the Redemptorists we now have Conferences covering the continents of the world, in an attempt to help us restructure for mission.

As you can imagine, in Europe it is hard to find a province whose statistics are not comparable to our own.

So I ask myself, why are we not acknowledging this reality?

Why do we continue to try and shore things up?

Do we only have one model of priesthood which requires that men study for six or seven years and live as celibates?

Did not Cardinal Hume's arrangement with Rome over the Anglican clergy who wished to be received into the Church drive a cart and horse through the celibacy issue? Continue reading

• Timothy J. Buckley is a Redemptorist. He is Parish Priest of Bishop Eton and St Mary's, Woolton (Liverpool, England)
• Image: YouTube

In an initial response to the report, a Vatican Press Office released a statement saying the report is a thorough effort that "deserves to be studied seriously."

It reiterated the commitment of the Holy See to be close to the Church in Australia as it responds to the sex abuse crisis.

Archbishop Denis Hart of Melbourne, the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference president, offered the bishops' unconditional apology for the suffering that had been caused.

He gave a commitment to ensuring justice for those affected.

Hart said the bishops would take the royal commission's recommendations seriously and present them to the Holy See.

He said many of the panel's recommendations would have a significant impact on the way the Catholic Church operates in Australia.

However, the archbishop took issue with the recommendation that the seal of the confession should not apply to allegations or canonical disciplinary processes relating to child sexual abuse.

He said the seal of confession cannot be broken, even if priests face the prospect of criminal charges for failing to report child sexual abuse.

"I revere the law of the land and I trust it, but this is a sacred spiritual charge before God which I must honour, and I have to respect and try to do what I can with both."

Hart said if a person confessed "those heinous crimes" to him he would refuse them absolution until they went to the authorities.

He said if a child came to him and told him they had been molested, he would see the conversation move outside the confessional and take them to a parent or teacher to see that the allegations were reported.

Hart said he will make sure bishops pass that recommendation suggesting voluntary celibacy on to the Holy See who will make the decision.

While he said he believed there were benefits to the vow of celibacy, he admitted it was a difficult undertaking.

Sydney Archbishop Anthony Fisher said he stood ready to address systemic issues behind the abuse.

He said he was appalled by the sinful and criminal activity of some members of the clergy and ashamed by the response of church leaders.

Perth Archbishop Timothy Costelloe said there will be no easy dismissal of people's stories, no sweeping of things under the carpet, no cover-ups.

The recommendations to the Catholic church include:

• Parish priests are not to be the employers of principals and teachers in Catholic schools.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should request the Holy See to amend canon law so that the pontifical secret [the seal of confession] does not apply to any aspect of allegations or canonical disciplinary processes relating to child sexual abuse.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should request the Holy See to publish criteria for the selection of bishops including relating to the promotion of child safety.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference should establish a transparent process for appointing bishops which includes the direct participation of lay people.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference request the Holy See to consider introducing voluntary celibacy for diocesan clergy.
• All Catholic religious institutes in Australia, in consultation with their international leadership and the Holy See as required, implement measures to address the risks of harm to children and the potential psychological and sexual dysfunction associated with a celibate rule of religious life.
• This should include consideration of whether and how existing models of religious life could be modified to facilitate alternative forms of association, shorter terms of celibate commitment, and/or voluntary celibacy (where that is consistent with the form of association that has been chosen.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and all Catholic religious institutes in Australia should further develop, regularly evaluate and continually improve their processes for selecting, screening and training of candidates for the clergy and religious life, and their processes of ongoing formation, support and supervision of clergy and religious.
• The Australian Catholic Bishops Conference and Catholic Religious of Australia should establish a national protocol for screening candidates before and during seminary and religious formation, as well as before ordination and the profession of religious vows.

More

• Click here to read all 15 recommendations made to the Catholic Church
• Click here to go to the Commission's Official Website
• Click here for the full report
• Listen to Fr Neil Vaney talking on Sunday Morning about seal of confession

Source

• Vatican News
• New York Times
• RNZ
• SBS
• The Guardian
• Child Abuse Royal Commission
• Image: AAP

But when she met Serge as a seminarian and they decided to marry, she was convinced their marriage would be different. "I was going to do it right," she says with a somewhat cynical laugh today, after twenty years as a matushka. "I had this beautiful, idyllic picture. We were going to be a team. We would love everyone and they would love us."

But here are some of the difficulties she encountered:

1. He might not be ordained as a deacon and priest, and he might blame you. The bishop doesn't guarantee ordination when a man starts studying. Perhaps the bishop decides he is not priest material. Perhaps the people don't sing 'Axios!' at the ordination. Perhaps politics swings back to married men even in the Eastern Churches not being permitted to be ordained. And maybe politics starts sending priests to Siberia again. Perhaps the bishop doesn't like you. Well, it is a done deal. Marriage or celibacy comes before any ordination.

2. He will be considered a second-class priest. Even in the east, celibacy and monasticism is considered higher and for the 'kingdom.' Have you ever wondered why non-monks in the Roman-rite are called 'secular' priests? Prepare yourself for the day that the Roman-rite prayer group potluck waits as long as possible for Fr Celibate to arrive to bless the food. Fr Husband can bless the food if the other does not show. Married priests are just too 'down to earth' for some believers. Look to the cross and take joy in forced humility. Everyone needs this once in a while.

3. You will be hurt by 'church-people.' And most likely, you will end up hurting parishioners as well. We are sinners. We all make mistakes. Hopefully, it is misunderstandings that cause hurt unintentionally, but occasionally you will have to brace yourself for a bit of evil in the church setting.

4. Your children will be hurt as well. This is one place where my 'mama-bear' can manifest. I try and help my children tolerate the foibles of some (for example, an older parishioner with strong opinions on how things are done), but I can't sit and let them get hurt by the occasional person who really wants to cause pain.

5. People will accuse you of being in the way of your husband's priesthood.It happens very rarely, but please be prepared. Maybe some things would be easier if he were a free and easy single man, but there is the issue of vocation.You can respond to hurtful accusations by crying, walking away, smiling and waving or shouting (not a good idea). There will be a day when someone asks, maybe just out of curiosity, if your priest husband shares confession stories with you. I respond, "God forbid!" loudly. Continue reading

Cardinal O'Brien resigned as Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh after the public release of accusations that he had made homosexual advances on young priests.

Baroness Helena Kennedy, a barrister, broadcaster and Labour member of the House of Lords, said: "I feel very sad for Cardinal O'Brien because here was a man who quite clearly had wanted to have a sexual life and felt that it was a failing for him to want to have a sexual life and that he was going against his commitment to celibacy.

"It is terrible to torture people by expecting that of them and I just feel huge compassion for him. I do not like the idea that there might be an issue of being predatory but I do not want to make a judgment on that.

"But he himself has said that he was involved in sexual activity and I feel very sad that that was something that he had to in some way bury, then give expression to — then feel shame and guilt and presumably is absolutely covered with guilt now."

Lady Kennedy, who was brought up in a Catholic family in Glasgow, said she was not speaking as someone who would consider herself to be a "devout" Catholic. She said she preferred to call herself a "bad" Catholic.

She was speaking in the House of Commons at the launch of a declaration by a group of 179 Catholic scholars on authority in the Church.

The group's declaration said the faithful had suffered from "misguided" Church rulings on sexual ethics, including contraception, homosexuality and remarriage, and called for a new pope to introduce more democracy in the Church.

Lady Kennedy was joined at the launch by Catholic peer Lord Hylton, Professor Ursula King of Bristol University, Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, and former priest John Wijngaards.

Source:

The Independent

Image: The Guardian