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CAMELI-PRIESTS Oct-23-2006 (840 words) xxxn
Chicago priest calls for priests with 'wisdom and intelligence'
By Catholic News Service
SCHAUMBURG, Ill. (CNS) -- The church needs priests with "wisdom and intelligence" to preach the faith effectively amid the challenges of today's culture, Father Louis Cameli told the National Catholic Educational Association's annual seminary convocation in Schaumburg, a Chicago suburb.
Father Cameli, a pastor in Norridge and former Chicago archdiocesan director of ongoing formation for priests, suggested that the two main models of priesthood often discussed in U.S. church circles over the past four decades have not put enough emphasis on the intellectual demands of the priesthood.
"It seems that the intellectual capacity of priests is of lesser importance than it was in years past," he said. "It also seems that the exercise of intellect in the course of ministry is not so prominent as it might have been previously."
Father Cameli received the NCEA's John Paul II Seminary Leadership Award during the convocation. He was chief editor of the fifth edition of the U.S. bishops' Program of Priestly Formation, which was published this summer after receiving Vatican approval, and of the National Plan for the Ongoing Formation of Priests adopted by the U.S. bishops in 2000.
In his talk he said one view of priesthood, often linked with those ordained between 1965 and 1985, was the servant-leader model, or the pastoral person who "brings not special teaching or a privileged body of knowledge but rather a knack for support, affirmation and solace when needed."
He said another view, often associated more commonly with priests ordained in the past 20 years, is the cultic model, that "priests act in the name and person of Jesus Christ, shepherd and head of the church," especially in the celebration of the sacraments.
The second view is certainly theologically correct, he said, but it can lead to "a confused personal identification with Christ."
He reminded his listeners that immediately after pronouncing the words of consecration and raising the host, the priest genuflects before it. "This gesture that follows so quickly his acting in the person of Christ says that he is not Christ, that he falls in adoration before his crucified and living Lord," he said.
One problem with both those widely used models of priesthood is that they do not address the question of a priest's intellectual engagement, Father Cameli said. "He only needs to be who he is. If ideas are required, he has available to him the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the Code of Canon Law. ... The issue is not thinking but repeating the relevant texts."
"We very much need a priesthood and priestly ministry that is marked by a strong and integral intelligence," he said, because priestly ministry is where church teaching and theology meet the issues of the world "on the front line."
Since the era of Constantine the church has been moving in the direction of what has been called "'massive Christianity,' baptizing large numbers with the hope that catechesis and formation would follow initiation," he said. He said that worked after a fashion in Christian-infused cultures, but in a culture more hostile to the faith "we are shifting and calling people to a more intentional and deliberate Christian commitment."
He said a priest needs a deep understanding of the faith to assess the complex questions raised by those issues and to act effectively.
He cited the issues of resistance to culture and accommodation to it as another area requiring priestly intelligence. "It is a complicated dance to make faith come alive in a culture and at the same time to critique and purify that culture, to embody faith in culture and to resist the culture prophetically," he said. "All this takes wisdom and intelligence. And it is a task that daily confronts a knowing priest."
He said morality is another issue that calls for great wisdom from priests. "Although our moral principles and directives are clear and correct, we have not been so clear and helpful in providing people with a moral infrastructure for living them out," he said. "A moral infrastructure means those resources and supports that enable persons to deal with the challenges of embodying the values of the Gospel, most especially in a nonsupportive world."
Some of the "ferocious hostility of gay activists toward the Catholic Church has something to do with the moral position of church teaching, but even more perhaps with the church's failure to provide a moral infrastructure to live out the values that the church enunciates," he said.
In that connection he praised Father John Harvey, the Oblate of St. Francis de Sales who started Courage, a network of Catholic support groups dedicated to helping homosexuals live chastely. "Some might question his specific strategies, but his outreach is a rare and practical example of what I mean by providing a moral infrastructure," Father Cameli said.
He said priests face similar complex challenges demanding intellectual engagement on a variety of other issues, ranging from abortion, artificial contraception and divorce and remarriage to just wages and immigration issues.
END
Copyright (c) 2006 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
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