We have readers now in Argentina, Tunisia, Albania- and that’s only three continents,
although we would like more from Glasgow.
I must apologise for the many dramatic changes from line to line. There is no
aesthetic reason for this, but simply that we cannot understand the editing
techniques involved in obtaining a connected and coherent typographical
statement.
And also because the Editor’s eight year old granddaughter has now gone to bed.

It must be particularly irritating in reading “Bernadette Wong “, but not as
irritating as re-reading it after several hours work, we assure you.
Loth- at the moment – to impute this to direct diabolical intervention,
we assure you that “To Feed The Flock” is not going to be deflected
from its course by the idiosyncracies of any mere box of wires and wee
electronic thingummybobs.

Be patient and bear with us !

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?

If you remember, we sent a letter to the Archbishops and Bishops of Scotland,
in the belief that it might be relevant to their attendance at the recent
Extraordinary Synod , not realising that they would not be there.
We felt it was respectful, lucid, cogent, reasonably well expressed and possibly
even perceptive. It referred largely to what is not a matter of doctrine, but simply of
custom and was therefore not heretical in any way.
We did not expect the recipients (registered delivery was applied and the letter was signed)
to drop everything, telephone us to say they were working on it,and to
keep an eye on the media for the latest news.
What we did expect, reasonably enough we feel, was some kind of formal acknowledgment
of receipt.
The Archbishop of Glasgow (we have a Glasgow address) formally acknowledged receipt.
The Archbishop of Edinburgh did not reply.
The Bishop of Dunkeld did not reply.
The Bishop of Aberdeen did not reply.
The Bishop of Motherwell did not reply.
The Bishop of Paisley did not reply.
The Bishop of Galloway did not reply.
Earlier this year, with vague rumours of extended ordination
in the Catholic press,we sent a similar letter of support to
the Bishops of England, Wales and Scotland ,and to every priest in
Scotland with an e-mail address for their information.
We missed out about seven bishops altogether out of the total of 29, due to our
technical incompetence, but we got through to the 154 Scottish priests.

The Bishop of Clifton formally acknowledged receipt.

No other bishop replied.

We received two e-mails from the priests. One asked if we were phishing;
another asked if the 10 points were our idea.
(Face to face, one priest said on you go ; another asked if we fancied
putting the collar on)
One moment , you may say. This is ridiculous, you may say.
Go to the top, you may say- to the Papal Delegate himself.
We sent him one too. We’re still waiting.

Cultural contacts involving ostriches and the Church are few.
A 19th century English Protestant writer feared that the country would be
invaded by Jesuits riding ostriches. The flabellum waved formerly
in Papal processions was made of ostrich feathers.
Have we a new one in the Church with the head in the sand thing ?

Benedict XV, Pope Francis, and umpteen Third World bishops have mentioned
in different ways extending ordination . To Feed The Flock is one of several groups
asking for the same thing, the most recent in Britain being the letter from
the Movement For Married Clergy UK in the “Tablet” of 18th October.

If the idea is that by ignoring appeals like ours the whole thing
will go away , it will be found quite soon, judging by the age of the
average congregation,that everybody who should be in church receiving
the Eucharist has also gone away.

Extending ordination is realistically the only way the Flock can receive
the Eucharist in 2014, throughout the world.

How can a clergy which has dedicated its life to providing the Eucharist
just close its eyes ?
It is difficult to imagine anything more disturbing than this,
but there is a uniformity of approach in the attitude of the clergy
to the shortage of priests which is very worrying indeed.