David QuinnConcerns expressed about the national seminary need to be aired, writes David Quinn
Ever since I began writing on Catholic issues in the mid-1990s, I have been approached with a certain amount of regularity by past and present students of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, the national seminary, with complaints about the college. I have never known quite what to make of them.
Are they the complaints of disgruntled individuals unhappy about the way they were treated but who were actually dealt with justly? Are the complaints justified? Are some justified and some not?
A few years ago it came to light that some students at Maynooth were in trouble with the college authorities for wanting to kneel at the consecration during Mass. This is certain because it was uncovered by the Vatican-appointed visitors who came to the college a few years ago. They said that the students should be allowed to kneel.
Why in the world would this ever have become an issue? At Mass here in Ireland, we kneel during the consecration. Why wouldn’t the college authorities want its seminarians to also kneel? What kind of theology was at work?
One former student told me that kneeling was seen as a ‘penitential’ act whereas Christians are really a ‘risen’ people thanks to the Resurrection.
Kneeling need not be a penitential act, however. It can simply be a mark of respect. If we don’t bow down to God who should we bow down to? Perhaps the answer is no-one, not even God. But Jesus himself knelt in prayer. (Question; where does the instinct to kneel even come from? It is found everywhere in the world and at all times. In my view, it comes from an instinct to pay homage to the transcendent but, like all instincts, it can be misapplied.)
Consecration
Was the battle over kneeling at the consecration a way of weeding out the students who were seen as too ‘rigid’ in their views? Certainly it would reveal who was ‘flexible’ and who was not. A student who refused to go along with the college authorities would be seen as ‘inflexible’ and therefore as ‘rigid’. A ‘rigid’ priest would be a poor pastor and, therefore, the Christian community would be better off without him.
When past and present students have come to me, this question of being ‘rigid’ has come up again and again.
Maynooth is, of course, correct to be concerned about students who are excessively ‘rigid’. But again, it depends on what we mean by ‘rigid’.
If it means an over-dependence on rules, then that is one thing, but if it is means simply being orthodox, that is another thing entirely.
Very few people would want their priests to apply ‘the rules’ in a condemnatory way. For example, if a woman was thinking of divorcing her husband because of his genuinely unreasonable and persistent behaviour, it would be no good for the priest to simply tell her that divorce is wrong and to go back to him.
That would obviously be extremely un-pastoral and it would certainly be out-of-line with what Pope Francis would want, and even for that matter (and despite the stereotype) what Pope Benedict would want.
Perhaps in such a case the proper advice would be to tell the woman not to divorce her husband but to leave him if his behaviour was indeed intolerable and there was no reasonable prospect of him amending it.
Flexible
At the end of the day, the priest would have to offer advice that is both pastorally sensitive and true to the teachings of Christ. Perhaps we might wish that Jesus had been more ‘flexible’ on the question of divorce but in fact he was very strict about it. (Would this open up Jesus to accusations of ‘rigidity’?)
We also need priests who know about life and how complicated it can be. A young priest – like any young person – will only learn this from experience.
Again, Pope Francis wants priests who appreciate that life often doesn’t work out as we plan and doesn’t conform to the Christian ideal and he wants allowances made for this.
The key is to make allowances without compromising the Christian ideal.
In a way, this brings us back to the issue of whether or not divorced and remarried Catholics should be allowed to receive Communion. This is still up in the air and is to be further discussed when the Synod on the Family reconvenes in Rome in October.
The issue of Communion for divorced and remarried Catholics is really a proxy for just how pastorally flexible the Church can be without compromising the teachings of Christ.
What we ought to want is for our seminaries to form priests who have a deep understanding of Catholic theology and who will apply Catholic moral theology in particular in a pastorally sensitive way in day-to-day situations.
However, Catholic theology cannot stray on the fundamentals from the teachings of the Magisterium. A great deal of theological training in Ireland seems to do exactly that.
This is why Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York (one of the visitors sent by the Vatican) noted “a certain tendency, not dominant but nevertheless fairly widespread among priests, religious and laity, to hold theological opinions at variance with the teachings of the magisterium”.
How common is this “certain tendency” in Maynooth?
Indeed, would the very act of looking towards the Magisterium mark out a student as being “excessively rigid”? If that is the case, then there certainly is a problem at Maynooth.
