As you will have gathered, this blog exists to ask a simple question:
since the secular clergy is obviously no longer able to obey Christ’s Eucharistic
imperative and provide the Eucharist for the Flock , why not ordain members
of each congregation to do so?
Pope Francis has agreed to listen to individual dioceses or congregations
asking for this, but has received no such requests.

In the absence of any practical concrete suggestions as how to do this,
“To Feed The Flock”, in Britain,made a ten point plan.
We’re not saying it’s inspired; we’re not saying it’s perfect; we’re not trying to be
too big for our unordained boots. What we are saying that it is universally applicable .
And nobody in the 28 countries who have read this blog,or anybody else
for that matter, has brought any flaws in it to our attention.

But the response – or even the acknowledgment of its existence,
other than from two bishops out of three dozen or so in Britain–
has been non-existent.Similarly from Scotland’s many secular priests
on the internet.
There are possible explanations, but many of them look like cheap shots
or are otherwise uncharitable.

We do note that many of the Church’s present bishops are “creatures” of
St John Paul II, as if that mattered now to anybody.

We discarded the idea of an oath being involved, although as students of the
History Channel we are aware of the problem – and the consequences – which
an oath can present to intelligent and otherwise Christian people.
(Only those ordained before 1967 had to take the Modernist Oath- see Google)

We discarded the idea that the Apostolic Succession can be regarded as
functioning on a cafeteria basis by Catholics whose views differ from
those of other Catholics on celibacy, for instance.
We are not into cheap shots,although quite capable of providing them, we assure you.
Instead we have tried to provide an intellectual and psychological basis to explain
why the Church’s bishops are not carrying out Christ’s demand to feed
His lambs and feed His sheep, millions of whom are being and will be
deprived of the Eucharist.

Last time we looked at the perceptive insights of I.M.Janis into group psychology,
and realised that bishops, and secular clergy in general,are trapped,
in other words are what Janis has described in his book “Victims of Groupthink”.
Having looked at how they got this way, now let’s look at the results.
The bishops, and possibly many of the secular clergy are trapped in
various assumptions by the group mentality.
As before, we quote Janis’s insights in inverted commas .

1. “the illusion of invulnerability” :
( which leads to “Well, we are bishops after all. It’ll be all right. It’s risky to do nothing,
but we’ll be fine”)

2. “collective efforts to rationalize”
(see above. It’s all collective- for safety’s sake? Look at Australia to see what happens to
maverick bishops like Bishop William Morris of Toowoomba,
with whom we do not necessarily agree entirely, we hasten to add.)

3.”unquestioned belief in the group’s inherent morality “
(an oblique, unconscious suggestion that the end, i.e the status quo ,seems to
justify doing nothing ? Surely the end must only be
the efficient provision of the Eucharist ? )

4. “stereotyped views of enemy leaders “
( Janis is referring to the military mind, but a variety of adversarial positions like
right wing, left wing or even “elderly Bohemian gripers” is considered to exist in the Church )

5. “direct pressure on any member who suggests strong arguments against any of the group’s
stereotypes, illusions or commitments”
(again, see Australia, but we know nothing, for instance, of the situation in Scotland.
Or will we ever. Is it different elsewhere?))

6. “self-censorship of deviations from the apparent group consensus “
( surely an inevitable subconscious response ?)

7. “a shared illusion of unanimity” (possibly helped by No.5)

8.”The emergence of self-appointed mindguards”
(These must exist. Is a member of bishop’s retinue more likely to say, “You’re right” than
“You’re wrong . And I once heard a person, recalling in public a conversation
with a bishop, begin “Well, milord. I think…” . Say no more !)

Janis’s brilliant analysis refers primarily to business, the military mind and other
examples of a tightly knit group ..
But where secular priests are concerned, we can add , surely:

9. a sense of shared victimhood, in being deprived of the happy side of married life,
and as a result therefore a great deal of personal stress. As well as being
associated willy-nilly by the media with the kind of perversion which the normal
person would shrink from .

10. a sense of failure as one faces elderly dwindling congregations,

This blog is not “anti-clerical”. If we apply “clericalism” to the religious
orders, it could hardly be more “pro-clerical” , since the future of the Church
will depend, once again as it has done so often in the past, on the effectiveness
of the religious orders as the engine room of the Church, and its means of
providing the Eucharist.

It does feel that the Tridentine secular clergy no longer functions in its role
as being almost the sole provider of the Eucharist to millions throughout the world.
And,perhaps above all in 2014, that it will not be able ever to function in this
role to the millions of China , the new world power.

Our slogan, as always when considering the defunct role of the secular clergy
in providing the Eucharist and its failure to realise this, and its unwillingness
even to discuss extending ordination,is quite simply: What is the problem ?

Tell us- and everyone else- What Is The Problem ? ,