Many times in my first years of teaching, her gentle humor and model of applied good sense helped me navigate the eddies of administrators and the shoals of undergraduates. And then there were the dreams. My favorite was the one she told me about when I mentioned a room scheduling problem I had encountered. She told me that her regular eve-of-classes dream was that she would be assigned to teach a standard student theology class — in the football stadium.
Of course, Sister Jean would have filled the stadium with cheering fans if the registrar had lifted the student limit. That is: Only we direct the outcomes, and the sacrament of activism is the effective sign of true belief. Fervent seminarians are saving the priesthood — and the entire church in America — from the peril of apostasy it has been sinking into for four decades.
The priesthood is in peril — eternal peril — when Catholics en masse are being led astray morally and theologically. Although our newly minted clergy are focused on the more traditional forms of devotion, one area of their seminary training was either lacking or not absorbed. They may be theologically sound, but they appear to have developed no pastoral skills.
Additionally, their homilies tend to deal exclusively with orthodoxy and traditional ecclesiology with no exhortation to live that faith through good works. For me, it is the exclusionary message that has become the issue. Why is birth control that prevents conception from occurring a sin? And why are women considered less capable of sustaining and preaching the word of God than men?
They have the weight and reasoning of moral certitudes. More to the point, do I need the institution to act as an intermediary for my relationship with God? Lawrence Cunningham argues that the only way to achieve real spirituality is through the Catholic faith. Reading books on self-improvement, pursuing athletic endeavors and attending retreats are, according to the professor, just yuppie selfishness.
