Department of History: University of The Catholic Church; New Vatican City,
Perth, Australia, December 2035.

Student: Bernadette Wong

End of Term Assessment: ” The History of the Church”; Chapter 18, 2010-2024.
Write an essay on the following, making clear the pros and cons of the
Community Priesthood.
“It is as difficult for us to understand why early 21st century European Catholics
had problems with the idea of a community priesthood as it is for us to believe that
theirs was a society which denied the Warming, and which clung to a petroleum-based technology.
1.There were fewer and fewer priests, and less access to the Eucharist.
2.Ultimately there would be so few priests that the Church would be ,by its own wish,
reduced to catacomb level. This was obviously highly satisfying personally for the
last few priests, but denied the Eucharist to almost all the Flock.
3.Perhaps the most frightening aspect of this, although it had been happening to the
Flock outside Europe for many years, was the direct and deliberate refusal of the Church,
as it was then, to “Feed My lambs, Feed My sheep.” ”
4.This was a Church which denied the Eucharist to its members because of the
failure of a particular method of providing it, i.e. through the compulsorily celibate
parish supported Tridentine priesthood. This seems ludicrous nowadays, when every parish
appoints ten or so duly ordained members to say Mass .Bishops are provided by the
religious orders, and the Eucharist and the other sacraments are consequently
available to Catholics all over the world .”

Student’s Notes: Pro Community Priesthood

1. An Old Internet Files search under “married priests” shows that as late as 2014, passionate
defenders of celibacy, both lay and ordained, were found. The former’s attitude is almost never
explained, but is, of course, open to a variety of psychological explanations.
The latter’s, often supported by dubious historical generalisations, was based on celibacy’s
perceived personal benefits to the celibate priest, which were presumably spiritual,
although the effect on world-wide distribution of the Eucharist was simply ignored.
2. The fear that the Church’s liturgy should be denied splendour and pageantry is not merely
psychologically flawed, but is a relic of the old negative Marxist egalitarianism.
But some believed that the liturgy would be fatally impaired by the displacement of a
priestly caste, i.e. a celibate group. The logic of this was never explained, despite the
still surviving pomp and pageantry of secular occasions, from Royal events downwards.
The religious orders, of course, rightly still provide the splendour and pageantry which
elevates the liturgy above ordinary life, as it should be.
And the lambs and sheep are still fed.
3. At a time when confessions to a parish-supported celibate clergy were at a new low,
it seemed to be felt that no other arrangement was possible. A worry was that the role of
confessor as psychiatrist, however rarely used, would disappear. The possibility of penitents
being put off auricular confession through previous bad experiences with ill or disenchanted
priests, or even simply through embarrassment or pride never seems to have been considered.
General Absolution was actually banned! The forgiveness of sin was therefore denied to the
Flock, despite its establishment through Our Lord Himself !
4. The imposition of celibacy inevitably meant the emergence of a priestly caste. Dismissive
and uncharitable comments about cafeteria Catholicism were made about those who sought
necessary change. These comments were not made about those who accepted all Christ said
except His explicit and forthright comments on a priestly caste.
(Student’s Note: I can hardly believe this, but it’s true. Did they ever actually read the Gospels?)
5. The image of the celibate priesthood was destroyed for ever by paedophile celibate priests
and their cover-up.
(Student’s Note: Paedophily? Yuck!)
This destruction was not merely in Ireland and the U.S.A, but any time regular church-going
was being advocated. It was not just abhorrent to rebellious adolescents, to whom it was also
manna,but to non-Catholics. The image of the paedophile celibate priest was seized on with enthusiasm
by neomarxist media gurus, already using religious of all kinds and denominations as
figures of fun.
(Student’s Note: Look up number of funny British TV sitcoms based on half-crazy religious
figures, of all religious denominations. But no Imams? N.B. Look into this.)
6. After the Polish Pope, the Papacy became associated with ignoring Christ’s command to
“Feed my lambs, feed my sheep.” by insisting, bizarrely we see now, on a celibate priesthood
whose existence meant that millions could not receive the Eucharist. It became associated
also with a group of clerical civil servants apparently with Papal “powers”, whose views
diverged from those of ordinary Catholics, with obvious consequences for the diminishment
of the Papacy’s reputation, and that of mainstream religion.
7. Christ left the door open to celibacy. It might have seemed obvious that not everyone is
capable of a lifetime of celibacy, but that many were anxious to be priests. For those who found
as life went on they were incapable of it, how much of their priestly energy and good will
was spent in wrestling, ultimately irrelevantly, with the problem?
And what of those who were anxious to feed His lambs and sheep and provide the Sacraments to
Christ’s flock , who knew celibacy was not for them, but who were prevented from providing
the Sacraments?
Above all, what about the millions who were thus deprived?
8. The advance of Islam on Western Europe seemed almost to be welcomed by some in the Church,
as offering the excitement of a lifetime of dramatised siege mentality, the smugness of
self-imposed martyrdom, without the pains, and, who knows, ultimately a televised
retreat to the Castel San Angelo, to get away from the massed motor horns of
miitant Moslem taxi-drivers in St Peter’s Square. Even in military terms, a much more effective
means of defence, throughout Europe, was the Catholic parish, not with the dubious leadership
of a celibate clergyman, but by the Eucharist, provided by ordained members of the parish itself.

Student’s Notes: Contra Community Priesthood
A. The image of the priesthood was felt, briefly, to be diminished by the disappearance of a lengthy
seminary education, until it was fully realised how permanently damaged this image was, and that the
relevance of this course of education to bringing the Eucharist to Christ’s Flock was far from clear
in any case. The unkind had felt it was a grossly inflated course, “to make priests look cleverer”.
If not, in fact, just a celibacy test.
The removal of extensive study of the early Fathers of the Church, some of which was of relevance
really only to students of psychological aberration, and the implementation of modern teaching
technology, not using Latin, produced a month long course, which was perfectly adequate.
(Student’s Note: Latin! Why not Aramaic?)
B. Community priesthood inevitably meant the disappearance of a pyramidal
ecclesiastical promotion structure and therefore the relationship of the Church in the early 2000s
to its mediaeval era. This relationship was still valued by some, despite its obvious distractions
from bringing the Eucharist to the Flock . A simple litmus test, which Catholics began to accept
very quickly indeed, became common.
Does an ecclesiastical development facilitate bringing the Eucharist to the Flock ?
C. The greatest crisis facing the Church in the early 2000s, and ultimately its rescuer,
was of course China. It took the Archbishop of Canterbury in December 2006 to highlight
the spiritual vacuum which prosperity would bring to China, and to raise among Catholics
the nightmare of the Church’s leadership losing China again, as well as Western Europeans,
South America the Irish, the young and the poor. It would be racist, as well as ridiculous,
to restrict the concept of “losing face” to the Chinese. But to ask the biggest country on
earth to accept control by the Vatican State, the smallest ? The disappearance of
the bizarre arrangement by which the appointment of bishops was filtered through
“Papal Delegates” or “Papal Nuncios” was again deplored, briefly, by some, but welcomed
all over the world. The scandal of ignoring the validly ordained Chinese bishops, and
therefore the Apostolic Succession , disappeared when Pope Paul VII immediately
created seven Chinese Cardinals on his accession.
(Student’s Note: Look up these Papal pople. Who were they? Why were they? )
Student’s Comment: What a bunch! What really kept them from changing things?
Why was it made so difficult for people to receive the Body and Blood of Christ?