A Life Link Dawns

When I marked twenty-five years as an ordained priest, one of my four sisters shouted:

"To a hell of a life," as she toasted my classmates and me.

Another ten years have passed since those words ring in my mind.

And, as loud resounds my joy for service among people, but my disdain for leadership who dub those of us ordained around '76, and earlier as "Councilior or Vatican II priests." As "outsiders," like the women hypocrites dubbed as not counting.

And, so the party divide began . Schism sounded. John Paul II priests vs. Vatican II clergy.
Go figure. And, Washington, D.C., thinks it has problems. Fracture is doing a terrible thing on us all.

To stop the bleeding from isolation, abandonment, passive-aggressive behavior from bishops who refuse to respond, and, in some cases, fail to acknowledge correspondance, US priests are forming a new national association.

To illustrate my point, for example, a letter I wrote decades ago, cast me into the group of priests who are ignored and left unresponded to, sad to admit. Welcome to reality, no? (Jesus got it a lot worse from the hypocrites, and, his example of love and class is worthy of emulating).

I just joined. $50 membership dues were sent to info4@uscatholicpriests.us, Association of U.S. Catholic Priests: AUSCP, P.O. Box 263, Calumet City, IL 60409-0263

While collaboration and collegiality among all the people of God was fostered at the Second Vatican Council of '62-65, the reign of the late Pope John Paul II and new canon law put priest councils and collaboration in the domain of the bishop of the diocese who is to lead the community of faith, guide it, teach it, and make it holy.

If priests can't talk and get muzzled about any important issue about collabortion, support, celibacy,imagination, lonliness, abandonment, or ordination of others, for example, what does leadership expect? Shame on them.

Families must talk and be given the encouragement to do so. Strange behaviors poke out
when stifling is the aim.

One priest I spoke with seemed silent about supporting this new association. Who wouldn't think twice. Vatican II has been deleted, it seems, and, in turn clergy my age who are products of Vatican II, no fault of our own.

If the new association fails to get the attention and ears of bishops, and challenges little, I will go back into a deepened sense of disappointment from a church that is supposed to be about the abundant life of Jesus, the leader who began this enterprize and had the following to prove its effectiveness despite martyrdom for those who stood up to the emperors.

Applause to the clergy who stand up and speak up! Strange that we're asking for a voice in America, land of the free, home of the brave!

What year is this?

For a link that dawns hope, write jaydavidson7@gmail.com, dcooper@stmatthias-miw.org, or call Rev. Bill Petron at 586 228 1316.