Joan Chittister's Treatise for New Seminarians

Larry at Acts of the Apostasy has some fun with Joan Chittister's Ticking Time Bomb of Lay Involvement.

Joan connects the dots between weapons of mass destruction and lay people rebelling against the teachings of the Church since the Second Vatican Council.

Joan tells of how readers of hers ran into a priest who mentored a newly ordained priest:

Now we are dealing with another kind of time bomb. This one’s in the church. Few noticed when this one was planted either. Few people saw the power in it.

In the revised Code of Canon Law that followed Vatican II, someone planted what, at that time, read like a welcome invitation -- an openness to participation by the laity in the organizational development of the church. Little was made of the statement and little expected to come from it.

Canon 212 gave laity “the right and the responsibility” to make known to their pastors their needs. It was a bell waiting to be rung. In fact the bell went off in my mail a couple of weeks ago.

As I understand the situation, the local pastor of a parish in Santa Fe, N.M., gave an enthusiastic homily on the importance to the church of a recent ordination in the diocese. Then he ended his remarks by reporting to the congregation his own advice to the newly-ordained.

“I told him to remember that his duty was to serve God,” the pastor said, “not the people.”

Horrified by the idea that you cannot serve God and mammon,  Canon 212 immediately 'exploded' in the heads of Joan's followers. Laity has the right and responsibility to let the pastor know of their needs.

They went home to fire off quite an interesting list indeed.

Sound teaching, homilies that inspire repentance, availability of the Sacrament of Confession and Eucharist, Adoration, the safety of children, you ask?

Not to the Second Vatican Council Code Crackers.  You'll find the list here that she says quotes with a little advice she calls to 'seminarians attention'.

The list is not only an impressive one but it is a realistic one. In fact, I realized as I read it that it describes a great number of the great priests among us who have held the church together this last 50 years -- in a time of major transition -- by both enabling its growth and revering its traditions in new and creative ways. It says clearly to the newly-ordained: “We don’t need to have you go back; we need to have you go on......The number of lay people who, after Vatican II and at their own expense, got degrees in theology, liturgy, Scripture and canon law -- and wrote letters like this one to their pastors -- are clear evidence of their commitment to the church....tick, tick, tick

Read what Larry has to say.

I'll give you a little bait:


If the Catholycs are IED's, then she'd better hold onto her Birkenstocks and polyester pants, because the faithful, orthodox Catholics are a neutron bomb waiting to go off. 

Enjoy.