Folks apparently not leaving the Catholic Church quick enough

[Chronos]

Everyone knows that the Catholic Church is seeing bad times right now, and many are leaving the Church. But my mom (an active and practicing Catholic) recently told me about some events in the Diocese of Cleveland that make it look like they're not leaving fast enough for some in the church hierarchy, and need to be pushed out the door.

The backstory: The diocese is currently downsizing, due to low attendance at masses and a shortage of priests. The way the bishop, Richard Lennon, decided to implement this downsizing was to group the churches in the diocese into clusters of three, based on geography, and then decreed that one church in each cluster would be closed, and told the congregations to work it out amongst themselves which one would be closed. But St. Peter's, a church that's actually doing pretty well, both monetarily and in number of attendees, was put into a cluster of only two churches... The other one being the cathedral, which of course isn't going to be closed.

So, what the parishioners of St. Peter's did was they established a non-profit to continue their various ministries, and started holding Masses in a building the non-profit leased. The bishop's response? He's threatening to excommunicate them all, for holding Mass in a venue that he personally didn't approve of.

My mom knows several of the key people involved, including Fr. Robert Marrone, the pastor of St. Peter's. She says they all want to remain Catholic, but they're not flinching. If this keeps on, the Catholic Church is going to lose several hundred more members at one fell swoop, and it'll all be because of the foolishness and ego of one bishop.

[hotflungwok]

My parents live in West Park, and there's still a lot of people upset over St Pat's & OLA (?) closing and everyone being expected to move to a smaller church. Sounds like he really is trying to get people to leave faster.

[BrightNShiny]

Did your mom file her TPS reports on time?

[Chronos]

To be clear, my mom isn't a parishioner of St. Pete's, she just knows people there (I think my mom knows everyone worth knowing in Northeast Ohio). Her church was also scheduled to be closed, but they managed to fight that off. St. Colman's can remain open, as long as they can raise the funds for some building repairs by next year.

Oh, and did I also mention that the bishop is running a capital campaign for the diocese, and has forbidden individual churches from running their own capital campaigns in that time, so as not to interfere with the diocesan one?

[tomndebb]

Lennon is clearly tone deaf, but he is not the criminal in this case. Bishop Pilla should have gone through this exercise in the 1980s when all the other rust-belt diocese were doing the same thing. Instead, Pilla chose to simply ignore the problem until he retired, then left a festering financial wound for his successor.

Lennon clearly has bungled several of the issues, but he came in from the hot seat that is Boston, where he faced a different set of horrible issues, and I suspect that some of the mindset he developed there has carried over to how he feels he needed to handle Cleveland. It is interesting to note that his declaration of the possibility of excommunication was delivered as a general statement of church law, (there really are rules in place regarding where one may worship or establish a parish), but his reaction to Marrone and compnay's deliberate flouting of his authority was not a declaration of excommunication, but a call to meet with him to discuss the issues.

He ain't my favorite guy, but I am willing to cut him some slack until the whole matter has been hashed out.

(The matter of closing one in three of the parishes is slightly misleading, as well. All the parishes in the diocese, (including suburban and rural), were grouped according geography with an attempt to include cultural relations, and told to find ways to use common resources more effectively. In the inner city and inner suburbs, that did, unfortunately, result in an order to close a number of parishes--paying three priests and heating three churches and three rectories through a Clevelend winter for a handful of parishoners while other parishes up to six time the size get by on a single priest/church/rectory setup is prohibitively expensive. St. Peter's may consider themselves to be "large enough" to be self-supporting, but I do not know what their actual numbers might be. And, since Lennon was brought in from outside, he is, to a certain extent, relying on the advice of others to explain the situation, both financial and cultural, and I do not have any inside information on how good his staff might be or what background feuds might be affecting the information regarding Marrone.)

[Smitty]

So a bunch of Catholics wants to defy the church hierarchy and worship as they want? Doesn't that sort of make them Protestants?

[Chronos]

tom, the problem with the clustering of the parishes is that, in several cases, all of the parishes in a given cluster had good arguments for staying open, and in others, more than one of them might have needed closing. If it had been "close the bottom 1/3 of the parishes Diocese-wide", there'd be much less problem with it: Sure, you'd still have quibbling right at the margin, but not in every single parish. Even better, set some hard standards, like a parish must have X number of registered parishioners, Y total weekend attendance, and Z weekly collections, and if every parish in the diocese manages to meet those standards, then good for them.

So a bunch of Catholics wants to defy the church hierarchy and worship as they want? Doesn't that sort of make them Protestants?

No, it's not about how they want to worship: In that regard, they're still completely Catholic. It's just that they want to worship at all. The bishop's criticizing them for worshiping in a non-approved space, while also not approving any space for them.

[Squink]

Originally Posted by Chronos

St. Peter's, a church that's actually doing pretty well, both monetarily and in number of attendees, was put into a cluster of only two churches... The other one being the cathedral, which of course isn't going to be closed.

How badly is attendance at the cathedral lagging?

[qpw3141]

Isn't excommunication just the tiniest bit of an overreaction?

(Serious question since I know nothing of church law.)

[astro]

Originally Posted by Chronos

tom, the problem with the clustering of the parishes is that, in several cases, all of the parishes in a given cluster had good arguments for staying open, and in others, more than one of them might have needed closing. If it had been "close the bottom 1/3 of the parishes Diocese-wide", there'd be much less problem with it: Sure, you'd still have quibbling right at the margin, but not in every single parish. Even better, set some hard standards, like a parish must have X number of registered parishioners, Y total weekend attendance, and Z weekly collections, and if every parish in the diocese manages to meet those standards, then good for them.

No, it's not about how they want to worship: In that regard, they're still completely Catholic. It's just that they want to worship at all. The bishop's criticizing them for worshiping in a non-approved space, while also not approving any space for them.

Snark aside, isn't it part and parcel of being Catholic that the Church gets to decide these things in a top down fashion.

[crazyjoe]

I think the Catholic Church is still getting used to the idea that an educated population will recognize the difference between edicts from the Bible and adminsitrative functions, and are likely to question Church policy on the latter instead of simply going along with it.

Parishoners are no strangers to mismanagement, but as a college degree becomes more of the standard education, and more and more people are educated in financial awareness, I think more people come forward and question just WTF is going on.

[smiling bandit]

Originally Posted by qpw3141

Isn't excommunication just the tiniest bit of an overreaction?

(Serious question since I know nothing of church law.)

Massively. If he actually tried it, he'd get stomped so hard by his superiors it'd make his Baptism spin. In fact, he can't excommunicate people for worshipping in a consecrated space IIRC. He doesn't have the authority, period. Dunno what his problem is.

[kunilou]

The situation sounds a little like the debate over St. Stanislaus Kostka parish in St. Louis. St. Stan's had been the "Polish church" in the area for decades. As the building got older and the later-generation Poles showed less loyalty to the parish, rumors started that the church would be closed. The parishoners insisted that they controlled the local parish, not the Archdiocese.

The archbishop responded by transfering the priest from the parish, and the parishoners countered by hiring their own priest. At that point the archbishop declared the parish to be "in schism."

Originally Posted by qpw3141

Isn't excommunication just the tiniest bit of an overreaction?

(Serious question since I know nothing of church law.)

You'd think so, except for what happened next. The new priest, being an outlaw and all, went beyond just saying Mass in Polish and started "reaching out" to various disaffected groups, including officiating same-sex marriages. That upset a lot of the old-line Polish members, who really only wanted a gaurantee that they'd always have their "Polish church." And it brought in a whole group of parishoners whose identification as "Catholic" is really just loyalty to an "outlaw priest."

Now it may be that the Cleveland archbishop is just looking long and hard at the numbers and has decided that St. X church will be a huge financial drain while Our Lady of Y can hang on a good deal longer. And it may be that, after hearing the story of St. Stan's, he's decided that the "let us take care of ourselves" line of thinking leads to "give 'em an inch and they'll take a mile."

[Giles]

Originally Posted by Chronos

... The other one being the cathedral, which of course isn't going to be closed. ...

While the practicalities of this situation may be that the cathedral won't be closed, it's not impossible to close a cathedral. A bishop can decide that a cathedral no longer meets the needs of the diocese, and either make another church in the diocese the cathedral or have a new cathedral built.

[doreen]

Originally Posted by Chronos

tom, the problem with the clustering of the parishes is that, in several cases, all of the parishes in a given cluster had good arguments for staying open, and in others, more than one of them might have needed closing. If it had been "close the bottom 1/3 of the parishes Diocese-wide", there'd be much less problem with it: Sure, you'd still have quibbling right at the margin, but not in every single parish.

You'd still have problems, and possibly worse ones. For example, I live in the Diocese of Brooklyn. If there was a decision to close the bottom 1/3 of parishes, I can almost guarantee that certain areas will not have a single open parish within a reasonable distance while other areas will have six open parishes within a 10 minute drive.

It's absolutely true that the leadership of the Catholic Church has still not gotten used to the idea of an educated laity questioning policy - but it is also true that the laity often has a parochial view and isn't concerned with the problems of the rest of the diocese. They object to the closing of their parish or their school and that is the extent of their interest. In one school case I know of, it wasn't even really a matter of the school closing. There would still be a Catholic school , in the very same location. Instead of being the principal reporting to a single pastor, the principal would report to a board made up of lay people and the pastors of the three parishes now associated with the school. The problem was , the name of the school was changed as it was no longer a part of the individual parish. There were candlelight vigils, and protests and talks of lawsuits - all because of a name change.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by Chronos

tom, the problem with the clustering of the parishes is that, in several cases, all of the parishes in a given cluster had good arguments for staying open, and in others, more than one of them might have needed closing.

I am not about to make a blanket defense of the diocesan actions. I just noted that the "one-in-three" comment was a bit misleading to folks who have not heard any of the story before now. I suspect that the effort was made with good intentions, but that as with any bureaucracy, they set up some rules at the beginning and have tripped over the results on several occasions. I am sure that there have been a few brilliant choices and a number of execrable ones.

Originally Posted by qpw3141

Isn't excommunication just the tiniest bit of an overreaction?

(Serious question since I know nothing of church law.)

Church authority flows, (in the ideal world), in two directions, (up) with bishops being selected from the people (down) to become the pastors of the people from whom they were selected. Priests and parishes are the practical means by which a bishop administers to that people whom he cannot pastor due to restrictions of time and space. No priest can perform any sacramental function without the authority of the local bishop. (If your uncle from out of state stops by for a family gathering and the family wishes him to preside at a mass at the reunion, he has to get perission from the local bishop to do so, even though such permission is now a pro forma activity that is routinely granted.) When a "parish" decides that they are no longer going to abide by that association, they are truly not in communion with the church, whatever their personal beliefs. When a priest decides that he can perform his sacramental duties without regard to the authority of the bishop, he is in direct conflict with the church.

Again, note that Lennon, whatever his failings in the decisions regarding which parishes to close, is not waving the big stick in regards to the specific issue of St. Peter's or Fr. Marrone. The initial statement regarding excommunication, (which may or may not have been issued by his office without his direct intervention), is the sort of statement that he needs to make so that if it goes as far as the parish in St. Louis, mentioned above, no one can come back, later, and say "But they never said it was a matter of excommunication!"
(And the folks in the St. Louis parish, whatever emotional attachment they may have, are simply wrong. Every parish is incorporated as a property and a facility owned by the diocese that is administered by the bishop. If one searches the title on any of that land, one will find that it is held by the bishop in the name of the diocese.)

[CurtC]

Originally Posted by doreen

For example, I live in the Diocese of Brooklyn.

Cool, a Doreen from NYC - there's a song about you.

[Chronos]

You'd still have problems, and possibly worse ones. For example, I live in the Diocese of Brooklyn. If there was a decision to close the bottom 1/3 of parishes, I can almost guarantee that certain areas will not have a single open parish within a reasonable distance while other areas will have six open parishes within a 10 minute drive.

But the places with no Catholic church nearby would be the neighborhoods with a low Catholic population. You'd be inconveniencing some people, sure, that's inevitable, but you'd only be inconveniencing a small set of people. On the other hand, if a neighborhood has a large enough Catholic population that it really can support three churches, and you close one of them just because it's one out of three, then you're inconveniencing a large set of people.

[doreen]

Originally Posted by Chronos

But the places with no Catholic church nearby would be the neighborhoods with a low Catholic population. You'd be inconveniencing some people, sure, that's inevitable, but you'd only be inconveniencing a small set of people. On the other hand, if a neighborhood has a large enough Catholic population that it really can support three churches, and you close one of them just because it's one out of three, then you're inconveniencing a large set of people.

If you are going to base it on standards such as "X number of registered parishioners, Y total weekend attendance, and Z weekly collections" you would most likely be closing the parishes in the poorer areas while keeping those in the wealthier areas open. I don't know if your mother's bishop made the right decision simply because I don't know enough about the situation, but the Catholic Church doesn't operate on the sort of congregational level that many other religious institutions do. And I for one, don't believe it should. My diocese should not close all of the parishes in East New York and Brownsville so that I can continue to walk five minutes north to my parish rather than five minutes south to the adjoining one. And it really is a five minute walk to either one.

[Triskadecamus]

Wherever three or more of you are gathered in His name.

You could look it up.

Tris

[The Flying Dutchman]

Originally Posted by Triskadecamus

Wherever three or more of you are gathered in His name.

You could look it up.

Tris

I think you misquoted. "two or more" is more correct.

[Paul in Qatar]

Oddly, my aunt in Wheeling, West (by God!) Virginia is complaining about the same thing. They closed her parish so she went to the next-nearest parish she liked. She was told she ought to go to another parish.

She told them to shove it.

[waterj2]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

(And the folks in the St. Louis parish, whatever emotional attachment they may have, are simply wrong. Every parish is incorporated as a property and a facility owned by the diocese that is administered by the bishop. If one searches the title on any of that land, one will find that it is held by the bishop in the name of the diocese.)

The Wikipedia article linked in the previous post states that the deed to the church belongs to the parish corporation, not the archdiocese.

[Captain Midnight]

I would respectfully ask that you and your mother leave Catholicism altogether.

It's a false religion. In brief, Catholicism is merely the bastard child of the old Roman pagan religions. The pagan religion did not really pass away in the 5th Century, it was more or less merged with Christianity.

There is nothing in the Bible that states that a leader of a church cannot be married and have children. Nothing. As a matter of fact, Peter, to whom the Catholic Church calls the first pope was actually married. Because of the celibacy requirements, you are now seeing the sexual problems of a lot of the priests WORLDWIDE.

If she is interested in Christianity, she needs to read her Bible at home, and believe on that alone. If she reads the Bible, instead of doctrines of mankind, she might find that the Catholic Church is a bunch of phony baloney tainted by evil and a lot of blood.

She can start here: http://www.eaec.org/html_bible/B54C004.htm#V1

I would also advise her to just avoid churches. Read the Bible everyday. Pray. Let her seek God.

[Nava]

Originally Posted by Captain Midnight

I would respectfully ask that you and your mother leave Catholicism altogether.

It's a false religion. In brief, Catholicism is merely the bastard child of the old Roman pagan religions. The pagan religion did not really pass away in the 5th Century, it was more or less merged with Christianity.

There is nothing in the Bible that states that a leader of a church cannot be married and have children. Nothing. As a matter of fact, Peter, to whom the Catholic Church calls the first pope was actually married. Because of the celibacy requirements, you are now seeing the sexual problems of a lot of the priests WORLDWIDE.

Excuse me, but why do you think that 5th century paganism was a direct influence on a 12th century legality? There were 7 centuries in between, if I remember my math.

(The recommendation of celibacy for priests comes from the Lateran Council, 1123, and became a rule during the Council of Trent, 1545-1563)

[Merneith]

The way the bishop, Richard Lennon, decided to implement this downsizing was to group the churches in the diocese into clusters of three, based on geography, and then decreed that one church in each cluster would be closed, and told the congregations to work it out amongst themselves which one would be closed

It sounds like this is the root of the problem. He told them to work it out for themselves and the people of St. Pete's did - only not the way he expected. Now he's acting like a bad teacher who's been outsmarted by his students, being pissed off and feeling threatened when he should be applauding their creativity. They did a good thing; they made their parish self-supporting. A good leader would work with that.

A bad leader would get pissed off and feel his authority eroding. It was bad leadership in the first place to issue that "work it out for yourself" directive if instead he wanted everyone to toe the line. Instead he tried to weasel out of being the bad guy where a better leader would have made the straightforward argument "we can't afford this" and the situation would have been understood (albeit unhappily.)

[monavis]

Captain Midnight, I am not a Catholic, but if it is a false religion, then so are all the rest of the Christian religions, It was Constantine who had the Bishops gather and select what writings were inspired and what were not. The creed for being Christian was written at that time or there abouts,and most of who were called Christians followed that creed, "I believe in the holy catholic church" was part of being a Christian. So if the Catholic church is a false religion then so are all Christian religions!

The Othodox and Romans split in 1,000. Martin Luther was a Catholic priest and split from the Roman church,then there was many splinter churches from that. The Bible writings that most religions use was decided by the Bishops in about 325 AD.

[kittenblue]

I have watched the Cleveland closings from a distance here, living in the 'burbs as I do, and though I haven't researched things as closely as many of you, it seemed that a lot of churches that were told to close had active community outreach programs that benefited the poor and the children in their neighborhoods, regardless of their religious affiliation. I have long grumbled under my breath, when hearing the uproar from these Catholics about the loss of these services to the community, that they should just break away and continue doing the good works under a non-denominational umbrella. If they were raising enough money as a parish to support these programs without aid from the diocese, and they were truly committed to providing these programs, and the diocese wasn't interested in continuing them on their own, then I felt they were overlooking a very painful, but logical step. But then, I'm a Protestant whose mom was excommunicated from the church back in the 40's, so maybe I just have a different mindset! Glad to hear at least one parish is trying to do this.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by waterj2

The Wikipedia article linked in the previous post states that the deed to the church belongs to the parish corporation, not the archdiocese.

Interesting. I wonder how many other parishes around the country have the same arrangement and what was the history behind that one? That is outside church norms and I wonder whether it had anything to do with the fact that it was being built for an immigrant community.

[pseudotriton ruber ruber]

Just wanted to thank you for doing the Lord's work and spreading the good news. Made my morning.

[tomndebb]

Originally Posted by kittenblue

I have long grumbled under my breath, when hearing the uproar from these Catholics about the loss of these services to the community, that they should just break away and continue doing the good works under a non-denominational umbrella. If they were raising enough money as a parish to support these programs without aid from the diocese, and they were truly committed to providing these programs, and the diocese wasn't interested in continuing them on their own, then I felt they were overlooking a very painful, but logical step.

Actually, nothing prevented the merged parishes from continuing the same efforts even while staying in the church. They would actually be free to spend more money on outreach since their operational costs would have gone down. (For the most part, that is how those parishes that accepted the mergers have proceeded.)

Whether one wants to attribute it to spiritual or emotional bonds, it will be pretty rare for a large number of Catholics to simply stop being Catholic while turning to another denomination. Even groups such as the Old Polish National churches, (who have been in schism for over 125 years), and the Pius X crowd would still consider themselves "Catholic."

[Polycarp]

Originally Posted by tomndebb

[
(And the folks in the St. Louis parish, whatever emotional attachment they may have, are simply wrong. Every parish is incorporated as a property and a facility owned by the diocese that is administered by the bishop. If one searches the title on any of that land, one will find that it is held by the bishop in the name of the diocese.)

Except that in the case of St. Stanislaus's, it wasn't. The parish owned their building. The archdiocese tried to force them to deed it over to the archdiocese, in the middle of the squabble, but in point of fact title to the property did lie with the parish. (An oddball exception to the general rule in Catholic parishes, to be sure -- but this is the SDMB; fighting ignorance generally may be taking longer than we thought, but we're fast with the nitpicks! )

[CurtC]

Originally Posted by Captain Midnight

There is nothing in the Bible that states that a leader of a church cannot be married and have children. Nothing.

But see, you're looking at it from a Protestant perspective, where you consider the Bible to be the source of knowledge about your religion. Someone who's Catholic doesn't start with that premise - the Church is just as authoritative as the Bible, and the Church said priests aren't supposed to marry. They see it as Jesus handing off the reins of leading the Church to Peter, who handed it off to the next Pope, on down the line to the current Pope, in an unbroken succession. You can't convince a Catholic of anything using the argument that something's not to be found in the Bible.

Read the Bible everyday. Pray. Let her seek God.

I agree:

"Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
— Isaac Asimov

[Chronos]

It should be noted here that, while celibacy for priests is indeed a rule in the Catholic Church, it's not a fundamental rule, and there are in fact a handful of legitimately-married, legitimate Catholic priests.

[Shot From Guns]

Originally Posted by Chronos

It should be noted here that, while celibacy for priests is indeed a rule in the Catholic Church, it's not a fundamental rule, and there are in fact a handful of legitimately-married, legitimate Catholic priests.

AFAIK, not ones who started as Catholic priests. I.e., there are married priests who became Catholic and stayed married, but there are no priests who were ordained in the RCC and then were also allowed to marry and stay as priests in the RCC.

[Elendil's Heir]

Originally Posted by qpw3141

Isn't excommunication just the tiniest bit of an overreaction?...

Well, I would say so, but the story goes that Pope Sixtus IV threatened excommunication for anyone who didn't return books on time to the Vatican Library. You'll have to decide for yourself if that was taking a nuke to a housefly.

Cecil on excommunication: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/...excommunicated

[Chronos]

Incidentally...

Just wanted to thank you for doing the Lord's work and spreading the good news. Made my morning.

Coming from Pseudotriton ruber ruber, I'm not quite sure how to interpret that.

[alphaboi867]

Originally Posted by Shot From Guns

AFAIK, not ones who started as Catholic priests. I.e., there are married priests who became Catholic and stayed married, but there are no priests who were ordained in the RCC and then were also allowed to marry and stay as priests in the RCC.

The Eastern Catholic Churches recognize Papal authority, but follow the same custom policy on clerical marriage as the Orthodox Churches. Priests cannot marry, but married men can be ordained as priest (ie if they want a wife they have to take time-off from seminary to find one). He cannot remarry if his wife dies. Married priests are prefered for parish duty (so that they can serve as a "model" for the couples in their parish & can better give marital advice), but bishops are drawn from the ranks of monastics (who never married) and the occasional widower.

[t-bonham@scc.net]

Originally Posted by Chronos

tom, the problem with the clustering of the parishes is that, in several cases, all of the parishes in a given cluster had good arguments for staying open, and in others, more than one of them might have needed closing. If it had been "close the bottom 1/3 of the parishes Diocese-wide", there'd be much less problem with it: Sure, you'd still have quibbling right at the margin, but not in every single parish. Even better, set some hard standards, like a parish must have X number of registered parishioners, Y total weekend attendance, and Z weekly collections, and if every parish in the diocese manages to meet those standards, then good for them.

My mother's church in rural Minnesota faced a similar financial/priest shortage* situation a few years ago.

But they came up with a solution that seems much better.

Five parishes (within about 25 miles) now share 3 priests. Masses are scheduled so priests can travel on Sundays to cover all the parishes. And they can easily cover for a sick or vacationing priest. And after a couple of years, the parishes chose to go to a combined Sunday Bulletin, with common stuff and then a page or half-page for each parish (much reduced printing costs). And they have combined some activities (youth trips, combined choir concert, etc.). I understand they have also coordinated some backstage activities, like joint purchasing of supplies, etc.

It seems to have worked well for them. In the smaller parishes, they are only really 'open' 2-3 days per week. Savings on heating & other maintenance costs has really helped their budget. But the biggest cost was the priest, and a parsonage for him to live in. By sharing the 3 priests salaries & living expenses, the parishes save a lot of money.

And by not closing any of the parishes, none of the congregations was upset. Elderly people (a big part of some of the smaller parishes) did not have to travel to a different parish, especially problematic during Minnesota winters.

Seems like a much better solution than the one this bishop tried to force on his parishes.

*Mother gets upset when I say it, but a shortage of priests seem inevitable when the church starts out eliminating half of the population from consideration (women), and then forces the remaining half to suppress their inherent biological drive for reproduction to apply for the job.

[Bricker]

Originally Posted by t-bonham@scc.net

*Mother gets upset when I say it, but a shortage of priests seem inevitable when the church starts out eliminating half of the population from consideration (women), and then forces the remaining half to suppress their inherent biological drive for reproduction to apply for the job.

I assume Mother is a biologist, and is shocked at your apparent belief that there is a genetic marker somewhere for priesthood.

[tomndebb]

Bricker, you forgot your smiley.

Everyone, let's not derail this discussion with a separate discussion of celibacy, please.

[Shot From Guns]

Originally Posted by alphaboi867

The Eastern Catholic Churches recognize Papal authority, but follow the same custom policy on clerical marriage as the Orthodox Churches.

My glib reply was going to be, "Doed he recognize them back?" But I actually read the link, so it looks like he does. Ignorance fought. Of course, it's debatable whether or not these are Roman Catholic churches, in the most nitpicky sense.

[UDS]

Originally Posted by Shot From Guns

Of course, it's debatable whether or not these are Roman Catholic churches, in the most nitpicky sense.

Not very debatable. They're in communion with the Church of Rome, which is pretty much what "Roman" means. The part of the Roman Catholic churches which follow the Western rather than the Eastern tradition is called the Latin church.

[Chronos]

My mother's church in rural Minnesota faced a similar financial/priest shortage* situation a few years ago.

But they came up with a solution that seems much better.

Five parishes (within about 25 miles) now share 3 priests....

They're already taking measures like that around here in Montana, but it's getting to the point where even that isn't enough: The parishes are just too far apart for it to be practical to shuttle the priests around. Some far-flung churches only get a true Mass once a month or so, with the other weeks having services using pre-consecrated hosts, and officiated over by deacons or nuns.

And the priest shortage can't be blamed on priests being male only, nor on celibacy, given that both of those rules have been in place for many centuries, and it's never been a problem before now.

[aruvqan]

[quote=doreen;12840435]

Originally Posted by Chronos

The problem was , the name of the school was changed as it was no longer a part of the individual parish. There were candlelight vigils, and protests and talks of lawsuits - all because of a name change.

So name every catholic school in the country St Pius the <nth>, no problem =)

[Polycarp]

Originally Posted by UDS

Not very debatable. They're in communion with the Church of Rome, which is pretty much what "Roman" means. The part of the Roman Catholic churches which follow the Western rather than the Eastern tradition is called the Latin church.

Well, yes and no. The Ukrainian, Greek, Melkite, and other Eastern Catholic churches largely use the Byzantine Rite. The church which uses the Latin Rite is called the Roman Catholic Church.

This usage needs to be carefully distinguished from the one, originated among Anglo-Catholics in England, that insists on calling that whole church in communion with the Pope, which calls itself the Catholic Church, as the Roman Catholic Church, trying to draw the distinction between that and Anglo-Catholicism. Catholics tend to get grumpy about that usage, with good reason.

[monavis]

Originally Posted by Polycarp

Well, yes and no. The Ukrainian, Greek, Melkite, and other Eastern Catholic churches largely use the Byzantine Rite. The church which uses the Latin Rite is called the Roman Catholic Church.

This usage needs to be carefully distinguished from the one, originated among Anglo-Catholics in England, that insists on calling that whole church in communion with the Pope, which calls itself the Catholic Church, as the Roman Catholic Church, trying to draw the distinction between that and Anglo-Catholicism. Catholics tend to get grumpy about that usage, with good reason.

I believe the reason for that was,Henry the 8th broke away from the church of Rome and set himself up as head of the Anglo Church,since the Roman Catholic Church doesn't accept the fact that Henry had no authority to do so, they consider it no longer part of the catholic church. although I believe they do consider the ordinations valid, because of the Bishops who also broke ranks with Rome, but had authority to ordain Priests.

[Chronos]

although I believe they do consider the ordinations valid, because of the Bishops who also broke ranks with Rome, but had authority to ordain Priests.

For the most part, yes, but any women who are ordained break the chain in the eyes of the Catholic Church. This is actually currently the single largest barrier to reconciliation between the Anglicans and Catholics (though there are also plenty of smaller barriers).

[glowacks]

Part of being (Roman) Catholic is accepting the hierarchy of the church, from the Pope to Arch-bishop, to bishop, to priest. I've always taken it that the Eastern Catholic Churches maintain their own hierarchy while agreeing to all the doctrine put forth by the Pope, and part of this is a long tradition that includes using a different form of Mass (if I understand it correctly).

The Society of St Pius X was excommunicated more for their leader's rogue bishop ordinations than their staunch traditionalism, even if those traditionalist feelings were the reason the ordinations were not approved by the Vatican. Some members broke with the society and formed a new order with the same traditionalist beliefs, but willing to accept orders from the Pope. Interestingly enough, a cousin of my mothers was ordained into SSPX just about the same time the order was excommunicated, which has led me to investigate this subject somewhat.

Congregations are in some sense free to break with church hierarchy as long as they recognize that they're no longer Roman Catholics. Directly refusing certain orders of a superior in the church leads to excommunication, but that doesn't mean you're going to hell - it just means that you're no longer a member of the RCC. Keep in mind that excommunication is not something the church confers about and makes a ruling - it is something that they state you have done yourself by violating Canon Law and are making explicit that you are no longer welcome. "Threatening excommunication" generally means "I'm going to give you another chance to do the right thing, this time making explicit that not following this particular rule is a violation of Canon Law with the effect of excommunication." If the congregation has a strong enough case they may be able to go to the arch-bishop or higher to see if they can get a superior to their own bishop to agree with them, but I'm not sure if that kind of thing ever happens. Of course, I'm not sure if what they're planning on doing actually is a violation of Canon Law (I'm certainly not versed at all in it), but this situation definitely could lead to some sort of schism based solely on organizational issues.

Keep in mind that while the Anglican church effectively separated from the Roman Catholic Church because Henry VIII wanted an annulment, one of the main reasons he didn't get it was that his supposed-never-wife was the sister of the guy who effective had the Pope imprisoned. These sorts of annulments were supposedly given all the time, and effectively the only reason why the annulment didn't happen was circumstance that had nothing to do with doctrine. Since he couldn't get his simple adminisitrivia done correctly, he decided that the Catholic Church in England was no longer ruled by the Pope, with effectively no doctrinal changes. There certainly have been since then, and as mentioned they interfere with reconciliation, but the initial schism was almost all organization-based.

I will state that I might be completely and utterly wrong about most of this due to it being mostly personal recollection and self-investigation of the subject matter. I will gladly submit that I am wrong if someone has more experience in how these things work.

[Shot From Guns]

Originally Posted by Chronos

And the priest shortage can't be blamed on priests being male only, nor on celibacy, given that both of those rules have been in place for many centuries, and it's never been a problem before now.

Women used to be viewed a lot differently, though (at least outside the RCC--the views on women there don't seem to have changed much). So it might not necessarily be the direct cause (women who feel they have a vocation to the priesthood can't be ordained) as an indirect one (people, male or female, who feel that women should be able to be priests leave the RCC).