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	Pastoral challenges for the New Year By Fr. Richard McBrien The Tidings January 11, 2008 http://www.the-tidings.com/2008/011108/essays.htm Pope Benedict XVI's recent encyclical on the virtue of hope serves as a reminder that many people begin each new year with the generic "hope" that it will somehow be better than the old one. They even make resolutions to insure that it will --- all the way from losing weight to being more courteous to their co-workers. Most New Year's resolutions, however, are probably broken before the end of January, if not sooner. Good intentions come up against the reality of one's daily life and the patterns of behavior formed over the course of many years. To be sure, there is nothing wrong with embracing the hope that tomorrow will be better than yesterday, nor with making resolutions designed to insure a happy outcome. But both the resolutions and the hope on which they are based have to be realistic. And that applies to the religious sector as well. One of the most serious problems facing the Catholic Church today is the precipitous decline in vocations to the ordained priesthood, and the negative impact the decline is having on the morale and physical health of the thousands of still-active priests. Some church leaders are still convinced that the vocational crisis will eventually turn around. They say that all we need is more prayer, more sacrifice, more encouragement from parents and priests, and more enlightened methods of recruitment. Unfortunately, they have been saying these same things since the late 1960s when the crisis first appeared. Meanwhile, the situation only worsens. In my home Archdiocese of Hartford, Connecticut, however, our pastoral leaders seem more realistic. According to a mid-November article in The Hartford Courant, the archdiocese is anticipating a time when there might be only three priests available to serve the town of West Hartford's six parishes. Of the nine priests currently assigned, two are eligible for retirement and others will be eligible in the near future. West Hartford, the story notes, is one of the state's "more vibrant" Catholic communities. Its parishes are growing, not shrinking. In response, the archdiocese has developed a plan to do there what it has been compelled to do in at least 50 other parishes (with more to come), namely, to merge parishes and to make one priest responsible for two or more of them. This will inevitably reduce the number of weekend Masses in each of the merged parishes, even though the Mass is at the heart and center of Catholic life, as the Second Vatican Council pointed out (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, n. 10). Various lay persons and one of the West Hartford pastors were quoted in The Hartford Courant article urging a reconsideration of the Roman Catholic Church's rule that priests must be celibate for life. But only the pope can change this policy and it is highly unlikely that Benedict XVI will be the one to do it. It is in the context of such pastoral developments as these in the Archdiocese of Hartford that one should pay close attention to a recent article in Commonweal magazine by a priest-sociologist in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Paul Stanosz. The article is entitled, "The Other Health Crisis: Why Priests Are Coping Poorly" (Nov. 23, 2007). His archdiocese has announced the closing of its 151-year-old seminary and the proposed sale of its 44 acres of prime real estate to pay clergy sexual-abuse claims, with the possibility of bankruptcy on the horizon if Wisconsin's statute of limitations on abuse cases is lifted. "Among priests, meanwhile, there is much talk of high stress, poor health, and low morale," Father Stanosz writes. "More and more are battling burnout and depression as well as suffering heart attacks and dying prematurely. Two have committed suicide in recent years." Add to all this "the polarization that exists between recently ordained and long-time priests --- what some call JPII priests and Vatican II priests, respectively." In response to this grave situation, Archbishop Timothy Dolan formed a Wellness Committee, which seeks to promote the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of priests. More than 60 percent of all large- and medium-size U.S. employers already have such programs. Segments of the Catholic Church are just now catching up. Father Stanosz insists that "our bishops must be honest about the crisis of health, morale and collegiality among priests." At a recent Milwaukee Council of Priests meeting, the vicar for clergy announced that "the wheels are falling off the wagons," and that he was "overwhelmed" with the problems of priests under the age of 50. "The greatest threat to priests' well-being," Father Stanosz concludes, "is denial."
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