Review- Priestly Identity

Priestly Identity: A Study in the Theology of Priesthood

Thomas J McGovern
Four Courts Press, Dublin, £19.65 (1-85182-655-6)

This is a book that makes me glad I am an Anglican. McGovern is a priest of the Opus Dei prelature and a student chaplain in Dublin and this substantial book is a model of Roman Catholic orthodoxy. It acknowledges at the outset that there is a crisis at hand, especially in Europe and North America, where defections from the priesthood run alongside a dramatic decline in vocations. The well-known former parish priest of St Francis of Assisi in West London, Oliver McTernan, is one of the most recent losses, lamenting the suppression of the reforming spirit of Vatican II. Of course McGovern’s book is a thinly veiled attack on the direction of Vatican II, if not on the actually content - which necessarily is beyond criticism. He argues that Catholicism ‘from about the time of Vatican II’ (what a coincidence) had begun to slide towards Reformation theology, especially in embracing notions of the priesthood of all believers. This in turn led to a functionalist view of priests, no longer keepers of the cult, but preachers of the word. He maintains that secularisation and agenda-specific cultural forces have lured priests into becoming Christian social workers, promoting the latest cultural issue, whether feminism or ecology.

McGovern has been inspired by the teachings of the present Pope, John Paul II, and quotes from them extensively. He responds to the Holy Father’s 1985 analysis of the clerical crisis that sees the underlying problems as anaemic spirituality, theological dissent and deficient formation, by suggesting that priestly identity needs to be clarified in three overlapping areas: theological, spiritual and pastoral.

McGovern’s last major work was Priestly Celibacy Today (1998) so it is hardly surprising that he devotes one of the first 4 chapters, dealing with theological issues, to re-affirming the centrality of celibacy. He returns to this theme at other places in the book especially as he examines the need for a unity between the spiritual life of the priest and his ministry, a unity which would prevent the dysfunctionality which has surfaced in all the current sexual scandals. It is in the three chapters on the spiritual life and five on pastoral ministry that I found the most resonances and challenges. Although in the section on Mary the ‘Mother of priests’ I found the assertion that ‘in the Eucharist we receive not only the verum corpus natum ex Maria virgine but, in a very real sense, Mary’s own flesh and blood for our nourishment’ hard to swallow.

The book is written primarily for Roman priests but at a time when lay presidency at the Eucharist is being discussed within Anglicanism, this will fuel the conservative arguments.

Church Times

Chosen

Chosen

2nd after Trinity: Gen 12.1-4; 1 John 3.13-24; Lk 14.16-24

“God said to Abraham… I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.”

Did you hear that the Queen was shaking hands with someone in the crowd on Tuesday, when the person’s mobile phone went off. The Queen quickly said; “You’d better answer it. It may be someone important.”

We were singing in the Fox last week, for purely educational purposes, one of the expunged verses of All things bright and beautiful...

“The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate;
God made them high and lowly, and ordered their estate.”

Is it God who orders our destiny? Prince or pauper? Famous or infamous? Is it indeed God’s “good providence” which we invoked in the opening collect today, which governs all our lives?

In that wonderful legal ecclesiastical language, George is Archbishop of Canterbury by Divine Providence; whereas poor Richard is Bishop of London, merely by Divine Permission.

A cynic of course might say that both phrases boil down to ‘Tony Blair’.

And then there is today’s text from Genesis 12, where God chooses Abraham to become the father of the Chosen Race.

How odd of God to choose the Jews.

This little aphorism enshrines a very disturbing theological principle of the Judaeo-Christian tradition: divine choices often leave both the subject of the choice and those who observe it, bemused or bewildered.

In the words of the book of Proverbs: “Man proposes; God disposes.”

Or in our Lord’s words: “You did not choose me; I chose you.” (John 15.16)

The doctrine of predestination was an unsuccessful attempt to give theological shape to this part of the character of God that is basically unfathomable.

This is the ‘u’ in ‘TULIP’ - the little mnemonic for remembering the central tenets of Calvinism: total depravity, unconditional election, limited atonement, irresistible calling, perseverance of the saints.

But you end up with a capricious and almost vicious god, and a view of life that is fatalistic. (Like the Calvinist who fell down stairs and said “Thank goodness that’s over with.”)

Paul begins to get to the nub of the matter when he talks of God’s choosing in the same sentence as he says - lest any man should boast.

“For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.” (Eph 2.8, 9)

There is at the heart of God’s dealing with humanity, a desire to confound; and at the same time to reveal. It seems it is the only way to deal with us in order to save us from self-destruction - both individually and perhaps as human kind.

So at Babel there is the confusion of languages, the confounding of the superstate’s plans, in order, Genesis 11 tells us, to save humanity from the dangerous consequences of its own folly.

Our Lord quotes the prophet Isaiah when explaining why he uses parables such as today’s Gospel lesson.

“That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them.” (Mark 4.12)

To confound and to reveal - this is the mystery of our faith. The mystery of this Sacrament. It is what calls us to walk by faith rather than by sight. (2 Cor 5.7)

But, unhappy with the loose ends our faith throws up, we attempt to justify everything; to square the circle. At one level that is what theological debate and trying to understand life is all about. But part of our childlike faith is being able to accept that there are some things, however hard we struggle, that we will never understand.

Mortals are contingent to the universe. They are not the authors of it. We rightly wrestle to increase our knowledge of the way things are. But that knowledge, by definition, can never be exhaustive.

I met up with a lad I taught at Lancing the other day (he’s now 45...) and we were remembering all the justifications boys came up with for not doing their work. One boy whose looks and charm made up for what he lacked in brains smiled as he told me “I had to go to lunch with my broker in Brighton, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to pay your salary.”

So we want to justify God (what theologians call a theodicy).

And we want to justify ourselves.

Sometimes we try to justify God by saying he chooses ‘the good’ for special blessing and special purposes. There seems to be lots of evidence in Scripture for this, especially in the OT.

It’s the righteous who are blessed and used.

But even Scripture struggles with this and isn’t it in the book of Hezekiah that we read that the rain falls on the just and the unjust, but mainly on the just because the unjust have stolen their umbrellas?

The wisdom literature of the Bible knows that plenty of bad things happen to good people. And Scripture is also brutally honest in showing us that many of the saints were bigger sinners than you and I will ever manage to be.

Ahh, but deep down God knew they were good at heart? This is why he chose them and blessed them.

Well, yes and no. The heart is wicked and deceitful above all things. The heart is fickle. Actions and the state of our heart are bound up together in a complex way. This is what today’s first epistle of John is labouring to say.

We cannot ignore the plain truth that the men and women that God has chosen to do remarkable things in the history of the world, have by and large been flawed humans - sometimes ordinary, sometimes exceptional, but always flawed.

The fact is, that there is no justification of God. His dealings with us are always mysterious.

But we also try to justify ourselves. And by this I mean that we say, we’re not holy enough or good enough to be used by God.

We keep a sort of mental hierarchy of whom God will bless and use - Our Lord - Mary - saints & martyrs - bishops - missionaries - priests - deacons - churchwardens - PCC members - right down to advertising executives.

“God can’t use me.” And that lets us off the hook.

But the mysterious workings of God mean that he can use even earthenware jars (as St Paul puts it) such as we are. We presume too much when suppose he cannot use us in some way to bring in the kingdom of God. We are all chosen and blessed. And so that, like Abraham, we can be a blessing to others.

Today’s parable of the Great Banquet is not primarily about God rejecting the stubborn pharisees and taking the Gospel Banquet to the Gentiles. Nor is it an endorsement of the pharisees’ chosen status as the children of Abraham.

Rather it is about the wideness of God’s grace. The invitation goes out far and wide. There need be no ‘outsiders’ for the Messianic Banquet. All are invited to enjoy God’s blessing at the Table. Those who would, may come.

God said to Abraham and he says to each of us: “I will bless you… so that you will be a blessing.”