Midterms Are Horrid

[WhiteLily]

To be honest, I would not want a parish priest who basically flunked out of seminary with all his classes. Yes, some have a better gift of study, but it's not enough to be a holy priest. He must be holy and learned and continue to study after he is ordained. It's getting old going to a parish where the priest is not learned and does not proclaim the Truth. 

We need to pray for all our priests and seminarians - that they may be holy and learned. Otherwise, if we the lay faithful have to continuously correct our Pastors (out of charity), many more people are going to lose respect for priests and leave the Church or error is going to continue to spread. 

I will pray for you that you may retain all you need to pass your exams.

Edited October 26, 2016 by WhiteLily

[PhuturePriest]

4 hours ago, WhiteLily said:

To be honest, I would not want a parish priest who basically flunked out of seminary with all his classes. Yes, some have a better gift of study, but it's not enough to be a holy priest. He must be holy and learned and continue to study after he is ordained. It's getting old going to a parish where the priest is not learned and does not proclaim the Truth. 

We need to pray for all our priests and seminarians - that they may be holy and learned. Otherwise, if we the lay faithful have to continuously correct our Pastors (out of charity), many more people are going to lose respect for priests and leave the Church or error is going to continue to spread. 

I will pray for you that you may retain all you need to pass your exams.

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure where this is coming from. Did anyone say education wasn't important for priests?

Under your criteria, I am afraid you would miss out on Saint John Vianney as your priest, whom flunked out of seminary once and almost did twice.

Writing good essays and remembering arbitrary facts about the Iliad does not a holy and wise priest make. Besides, what you are describing is not an uneducated priest, but a badly catechized one. Seminary is actually centered around what are called the Four Pillars -- spiritual, pastoral, human, and intellectual. All must be balanced with one another, and none of them are to be given special preference or emphasis. We're actually told to prioritize our school work in accordance with the Four Pillars, which often means we aren't able to get all of our reading done.

[Gabriela]

55 minutes ago, PhuturePriest said:

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure where this is coming from. Did anyone say education wasn't important for priests?

Under your criteria, I am afraid you would miss out on Saint John Vianney as your priest, whom flunked out of seminary once and almost did twice.

Writing good essays and remembering arbitrary facts about the Iliad does not a holy and wise priest make. Besides, what you are describing is not an uneducated priest, but a badly catechized one. Seminary is actually centered around what are called the Four Pillars -- spiritual, pastoral, human, and intellectual. All must be balanced with one another, and none of them are to be given special preference or emphasis. We're actually told to prioritize our school work in accordance with the Four Pillars, which often means we aren't able to get all of our reading done.

[Jack4]

On 10/27/2016 at 5:44 AM, PhuturePriest said:

On 10/27/2016 at 1:19 AM, WhiteLily said:

To be honest, I would not want a parish priest who basically flunked out of seminary with all his classes. Yes, some have a better gift of study, but it's not enough to be a holy priest. He must be holy and learned and continue to study after he is ordained. It's getting old going to a parish where the priest is not learned and does not proclaim the Truth. 

We need to pray for all our priests and seminarians - that they may be holy and learned. Otherwise, if we the lay faithful have to continuously correct our Pastors (out of charity), many more people are going to lose respect for priests and leave the Church or error is going to continue to spread. 

I will pray for you that you may retain all you need to pass your exams.

I understand where you're coming from, but I'm not sure where this is coming from. Did anyone say education wasn't important for priests?

Under your criteria, I am afraid you would miss out on Saint John Vianney as your priest, whom flunked out of seminary once and almost did twice.

Writing good essays and remembering arbitrary facts about the Iliad does not a holy and wise priest make. Besides, what you are describing is not an uneducated priest, but a badly catechized one. Seminary is actually centered around what are called the Four Pillars -- spiritual, pastoral, human, and intellectual. All must be balanced with one another, and none of them are to be given special preference or emphasis. We're actually told to prioritize our school work in accordance with the Four Pillars, which often means we aren't able to get all of our reading done.

I second this. A priest who doesn't know that Jesus died is one thing, one who can't remember when the first Olympics was held is another. 

 

[WhiteLily]

I wasn't talking about not finishing reading, and not so much catechesis, but a comment (joke) someone made about ordaining men or just barely pass seminary. In my archdiocese, I take this very seriously because men are ordained without proper formation and things fall in the cracks - big time. If one can not relate to people or who have physiological problems, they are ordained because "we need priests". This is a terrible issue. 

Yes, I know the story of St. John Vianney. I'm not saying this applies to everyone, but priests are being ordained who have psychological problems and they are not addressed. Therefore, in their preaching, they do not preach the truth. Even if what they at is 99% true and 1% lie, it's still a lie. 

I should have elaborated this before, but I have had to talk to many priests about boundary issues because they didn't know how to relate to women. Also, in their preaching, what they shared wasn't accurate and truth was violated so in charity, I went to talk to them. 

This is a much deeper issue, especially for someone who was abused by a priest due to boundary violations/etc. 

hope what I said makes sense.

Edited November 3, 2016 by WhiteLily

[Nihil Obstat]

That sounds like less a problem of poor academics as it does poor formation. And part of good formation is sending away the ones who simply should not be priests. Even here on Phatmass we have met people who deeply desired to be priests, but who had serious emotional and psychological issues which, if not addressed, would make them very poor priests indeed.

Tough to form good priests if we do not start with good, strong, healthy Catholics.

[Guest]

On ‎4‎/‎11‎/‎2016 at 4:36 AM, Nihil Obstat said:

 Even here on Phatmass we have met people who deeply desired to be priests, but who had serious emotional and psychological issues which, if not addressed, would make them very poor priests indeed.

Tough to form good priests if we do not start with good, strong, healthy Catholics.

I certainly am not aspiring to the priesthood!   What I have to state applies to the male gender too.

As a person with a physical and mental disability, we are constantly pushed to the fringes of The Church as objects for charity.  We seem to have no/little value in our own right in the daily life of The Church. We can have nice words addressed to us and/or about us, but it most always strikes me as efforts to be politically correct and rarely followed through in the day to day life of The Church with action - not that I have ever experienced anyway........other than, as I stated, objects for charity and charitable words .... often to 'get off the hook'.

Having lived in a few parishes where my mental illness was known, in my current parish I recognise that I am quite paranoid about it becoming generally known.  I fear the fringes of the daily life of The Church once more especially since I am a single woman living alone, divorced, who suffers bipolar disorder.  My marriage is now many years annulled but often in general Catholic cultural thought, annulment = divorced.

I do fear that my major mistake might have been to inform my pp and our parish secretary of my bipolar condition - I did add that it was then over 10 years since I had been ill.

No wonder I love and admire St Therese of Lisieux.

 

Edited November 9, 2016 by BarbaraTherese

[Nihil Obstat]

Not sure if you were joking... I was not referring to you. 

[Guest]

14 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

Not sure if you were joking... I was not referring to you. 

Howdy Nihil - I'm not too sure if the above is addressed to me, but if so I did realise you were not referring to me nor sufferers of any sort of disability, but because the 'rather handy hook seemed present, I decided to hang my laundry on it'   And no, I wasn't joking.

I do, of course, realise that those aspiring to the priesthood would be granted by God gifts indicating vocation i.e. of strength, health and goodness in order to carry out the demanding duties of priesthood.  

Any exceptions proves that rule of course.

[Nihil Obstat]

Excellent.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, Nihil Obstat said:

Excellent.

Gosh, if the above ....um.....er.......is for me.......... then goodness me it's near on top marks from the best methinks!