www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Ruthenian Seminarians transferred to USA/Canada?

Goodness gracious! How did such a vineyard end up in such shambles? Forgive me for asking. But this is shocking. With numbers like that, church communities will disappear quicker than what Islam did to Christianity in the past. But this is the U.S. There is no Islamic force closing churches and killing priests, and force converting Byzantine Catholics. Why is the vineyard in such a condition here, but very healthy (is 158 seminarians a good number?) elsewhere? why? forgive me for asking. I am not trying to be pernicious on this. There is a lot of beauty and truth in your religion. It seems all too sinister that this church is in such a crisis. That the average age of pastors is 64 is a very dangerous sign of the times. i looked at the data and it wasn't 44 or 54; it was actually 64. This is too hard to imagine. Someone please tell me that this is incorrect.

Eddie

Ed,

For that you will need some feedback from some our Byzantine Catholic posters. I am sure they can offer some answers to your questions.

In IC XC,
Father Anthony+

It is quite correct unfortunately.

Fr. Deacon Lance

Well lets not forget the THOUSANDS (probably) who gave up on the Byzantine church over the last 100 years and just went to the Roman church to "fit in" as Americans.

My own family of relatives from Jakubany all went RC over the years , except for my immediate family in central PA who stayed Byzantine because my grandfather HAD A CAR and actually drove the 9 miles to the Greek Catholic Church in Portage Pa.

When he offered to drive them to Portage on occasion, they just said "no we'll just go to St. Francis Xavier right up the street"!

Ed,

Nowhere is it written that a parish must 'support a family', i.e pay for the upkeep of priest, wife and children. Why should the wife sit at home and be paid for by the parish?

I know a number of married priest, all with children. The wives all work. Often they are teachers (and this helps cut down education costs). They help in the parish - cantors, secretaries, etc.

Ever time we have a discussion on married clergy we hear that parishes can't afford them. I admit, it is cheaper to split a priest between two parishes, run him into the ground, then eventually have no priest because vocations to the celibate priesthood are down and married priests are 'impractical'.

The day of a parish priest (and family) being fully supported by parishioners is long gone, soon to be followed by a lot of parishes.

I seem to be reading a variety of postings regarding the Rusyn Catholic Churches in the USA. The voice of those who want to maintain their traditions which they inherited from the founders of the parishes is being expressed. Surely, one way to nourish this precious heritage is to sponsor seminarians from the Old Country for their last few years or last year in the USA.

What a shame if this religious heritage is lost. Maybe with an infusion of new blood the people who have fallen away will return.

Personally I think the Church in the US would be better served to send our seminarians abroad for their training, that is if the theology of the new Byzantine liturgical order is a product of our seminary training here. Why corrupt a whole generation of European priests with Ortho-newspeak, and eastern Catholic follow-along?

Mary

If people just don't want to preserve their Byzantine church (if the desire isn't there) then this unfortunate circumstance is understandable.

Where does this need to "fit in" come from? This implies that the Gospel message is subservient to one's personal desires or whims. I hope this is not so, but from what you stated it seems to be a century long practice.

I would think that "fitting in" to the Gospel proclaimed in the Byzantine church would be an honorable thing in itself worthy of educating the next generation and new members.

Eddie

If it was never written anywhere then why are those days long gone? Was it written before? Are you saying now that the community or church no longer has the responsibility to pay its priests? Are priests independent proprietors who have to find financial support on their own? maybe this is why the U.S. seminary is empty? There is no support and the men know it. It was mentioned that foreign priests serve the Byzantine Catholic churches here. Do they have to find a job to support their spouses and children? or are they exempt but not U.S. born priests? Tell me more.

Eddie

Will this bring back those who would rather go to the nearest Roman Catholic church a block away instead of driving nine miles to their own church?

Dedication or fidelity seems to be very low if not nonexistent. There seems to be a greater problem that is working towards such departures and empty seminaries.

Permitting marriage for the priests is a good idea, but support is wanting. It is like telling a young male member of the church that it is a noble idea to serve his church as a priest, but he has to fund his education, pay for his house, insurance, food, transportation, and feed and clothe his children on his own while not expectin any financial support from his church community. If he does get any then he will have to live on minimum wage. If the money still isn't there then being a priest is still considered a noble idea. With that in mind, considering being a priest also includes the possibility of living in marginal poverty. What man today would want to offer his wife and children poverty? I am not talking about making a monetary killing off the backs of the community like some do. In this environment it seems understandable that celibacy is the only answer since this is the only affordable lifestyle thta the church can afford.

Eddie

Cross-training is always a good idea, but will this solve the vocation problem? They still have to come home to an empty seminray. And if it empties any further then there will be no seminarian to send abroad.

I would think that finding a solution to the reason why there are no seminarians should be first priority. how can a seminary or church in the Ukraine make better do with vocations than in the U.S.?

Eddie

As a married priest, I have to sadly agree. The cost of raising a family in today's world, as most of the posters understand well, is rising every year. The reality of the future will be bi-vocational priests -- who work at secular jobs and pastor parishes.

There was an interesting article in the local paper about this last week. Close to 45% of all Protestant pastors are bi-vocational -- and the number is rising each year.

Of course, and here I speak as a priest who supports his family with a secular job, having a priest that works a full-time secular job as well as pastors a parish requires a different mindset on the part of the laity. The priest cannot be as available to the people when he works a full-time job, etc.

I think we also have to be careful that the parish does not take advantage of the priest when he works a full-time job. It is very difficult to manage everything!

One more point: I totally reject the idea that the parish should depend on the priest's wife to support the family while the parish supports the priest. Little will embitter a wife more than to see the parish reject her and her children while embracing her husband. I also know that the stress this would create in a marriage would be almost unbearable. The priest's family SUFFERS tremendously as the priest is called out frequently, etc. To add to this suffering the responsibility of supporting the family so that the priest can go about his priestly business without worrying about the needs of his wife and children would be to add insult to injury. Plus, if we Catholics believe in having children -- who would support the family as the priest's wife raises the children? Etc.

This is one of the articles on part-time clergy that I found:

http://www.lsj.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070623/NEWS01/706230336/1001/news


This is another article:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19365626/

For those who don't want to read the entire article, I found this to be enlightening:


How many of our churches could afford to pay a married priest $60,000 a year?


I think you might also find this scholarly analysis interesting:

http://www.pulpitandpew.duke.edu/clergyweek.html

This is a very significant point.



And this is also a very significant point.

Churches, like people, who know what they are about and who are focussed on that clearly tend to have better chances for survival and prosperity than others.

I think the BCC's leadership has lost its way. Changing the liturgy was not needed (in my opinion). Reviving the theory and practice of theosis, by evanglization, begining with its own parishes, would have been much more useful and productive (in my opinion), including generating interest and enthusiasm for religious vocations.

But, I am a sinner, and my opinion may well be wrong. Please forgive me if my opinions cause offense.

-- John

Part of this is the numbers. There always were few Eastern Catholics in the U.S. Hence, there always were few Eastern Catholic parishes. Furthermore, many of those parishes were concentrated in a few cities of the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions of the U.S. America is a mobile country in which people must move (often hundreds of miles) in order to follow opportunity. So, many Eastern Catholics simply could not find an Eastern Catholic parish when they moved to follow opportunity. But, there almost always was a Roman Catholic parish wherever they went. So, if they wanted to remain Catholic, many Eastern Catholics had no alternative than to become Roman Catholic.

Part of this is assimilation. For a lot of Eastern Catholics, their religion was part of their culture from the old country. As they adopted the culture of this country, they wanted to adopt the religion of this country too. That meant, by and large, being Protestant or being Roman Catholic.

Moreover, part of this is because of the Roman Catholic Church's treatment of its Eastern Catholic brethren. Eastern Catholic traditions --especially married priests-- were not recognized by many Roman Catholic prelates in the U.S. Then, the Vatican outright banned married priests in North America, even for Eastern Catholic "sui juris" churches who were supposedly guaranteed their traditions by the Vatican by their terms of their unia with the Vatican. As a result, a lot of Eastern Catholics preserved their Eastern Tradition by joining the Orthodox Church.

Finally, there is a question of, for lack of a better term, momentum. Where is the momentum in a religion in a given time and place? And where is it not? For Christianity in America these days, some religions (like the Roman Catholics and the Orthodox and the Evangelicals and Pentecostals) are committed and active and successful in bringing in new members. Others churches, albeit with some notable exceptions within their ranks, seem less committed or active or able to bring in new members.

But, that is just my opinion; and I might be wrong.

-- John