Denver, Colo., Apr 9, 2017 / 04:02 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- In 1970, there was one priest for every 800 Catholics in the United States.
Today, that number has more than doubled, with one priest for every 1,800 Catholics.
Globally, the situation is worse. The number of Catholics per priest increased from 1,895 in 1980 to 3,126 in 2012, according to a report from CARA at Georgetown University. The Catholic Church in many parts of the world is experiencing what is being called a “priest shortage” or a “priest crisis.”
Last month, Pope Francis answered a question about the priest shortage in a March 8 interview published in the German weekly Die Zeit. The part that made headlines, of course, was that about married priests.
“Pope Francis open to allowing married priests in Catholic Church” read a USA Today headline. “Pope signals he’s open to married Catholic men becoming priests” said CNN.
But things are not as they might seem. Read a little deeper, and Pope Francis did not say that Fr. John Smith at the parish down the street can now ditch celibacy and go looking for a wife.
What the Holy Father did say is that he is open to exploring the possibility of proven men (‘viri probati,’ in Latin) who are married being ordained to the priesthood. Currently, such men, who are typically over the age of 35, are eligible for ordination to the permanent diaconate, but not the priesthood.
However, marriage was not the first solution to the priest shortage Pope Francis proposed. In fact, it was the last.
Initially, he didn’t even mention marriage.
Pressed specifically about the married priesthood, the Pope said: “optional celibacy is discussed, above all where priests are needed. But optional celibacy is not the solution.”
While Pope Francis perhaps signals an iota more of openness to the possibility of married priests in particular situations, his hesitance to open wide the doors to a widespread married priesthood is in line with his recent predecessors, St. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, as well as the longstanding tradition of the Roman Catholic Church.
So why is the Church in the West, even when facing a significant priest shortage, so reticent to get rid of a tradition of celibacy, if it is potentially keeping away additional candidates to the priesthood?
Why is celibacy the norm in the Western Church?
Fr. Gary Selin is a Roman Catholic priest and professor at St. John Vianney Seminary in Denver. His work Priestly Celibacy: Theological Foundations was published last year by CUA press.
While the debate about celibacy is often reduced to pragmatics – the difficulty of paying married priests more, the question of their full availability – this ignores the rich theological foundations of the celibate tradition, Fr. Selin told CNA.
One of the main reasons for this 2,000 year tradition is Christological, because it is based on the first celibate priest – Jesus.
“Jesus Christ himself never married, and there’s something about imitating the life our Lord in full that is very attractive,” Fr. Selin said.
“Interestingly, Jesus is never mentioned as a reason for celibacy. The next time you read about celibacy, try to see if they mention our Lord; oftentimes he is left out of the picture.”
Christ’s life of celibacy, while compatible with his mission of evangelization, would not have been compatible with marriage, because “he left his home and family in Nazareth in order to live as an itinerant preacher, consciously renouncing a permanent dwelling: ‘The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head,’” Fr. Selin said, refering Matthew 8:20.
Several times throughout the New Testament, Christ praises the celibate state. In Matthew 19:11-12, he answers a question from his disciples about marriage, saying that those who are able by grace to renounce marriage and sexual relations for the kingdom of heaven ought to do so.
“Of the three manners in which one is incapable of sexual activity, the third alone is voluntary: ‘eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs [emphasis added].’ These people do so ‘for the sake of the kingdom of heaven,’ that is, for the kingdom that Jesus was proclaiming and initiating,” Fr. Selin explained.
Nevertheless, it took a while for the “culture of celibacy” to catch on in the early Church, Fr. Selin said.
Christ came to earth amid a Jewish people and culture who were instructed since their first parents of Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply” (Gen. 1:28, 9:7) and were promised that their descendants would be “as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore” (Gen. 22:17). Being unmarried or barren was to be avoided for both practical and religious reasons, and was seen as a curse, or at least a lack of favor from God.
The apostles, too, were Jewish men who would have been a part of this culture. It is known that among them, at least St. Peter had been married at some time, because Scripture mentions his mother-in-law (Mt. 8:14-15).
St. John the Evangelist is thought by the Church fathers to be one of the only of the 12 apostles who was celibate, which is why Christ had a particular love for him, Fr. Selin said. Some of the other apostles likely were married, in keeping with Jewish customs, but it is thought that they practiced perpetual continence (chosen abstinence from sexual relations) once they became apostles for the rest of their lives. St. Paul the Apostle extols the celibate state, which he also kept, in 1 Corinthians 7:7-8.
Because marriage was such an integral part of Jewish culture, even for the apostles, early Church clergy were often, but not always, married. However, evidence suggests that these priests were asked to practice perfect continence once they had been ordained. Priests whose wives became pregnant after ordination could even be punished by suspension, Fr. Selin explained.
Early on in the Church, bishops were selected from the celibate priests, a tradition that stood before the mandatory celibate priesthood. Even today, Eastern Rite Catholic Churches, most of which allow for married priests, select their bishops from among celibate priests.
As the “culture of celibacy” became more established, it increasingly became the norm in the Church, until married men who applied for ordinations had to appeal to the Pope for special permission.
In the 11th century, St. Gregory VII issued a decree requiring all priests to be celibate and asked his bishops to enforce it. Celibacy has been the norm ever since in the Latin Rite, with special exceptions made for some Anglican and other Protestant pastors who convert to Catholicism.
A sign of the kingdom
Another reason the celibate priesthood is valued in the Church is because it bears witness to something greater than this world, Fr. Selin explained.
Benedict XVI once told priests that celibacy agitates the world so much because it is a sign of the kingdom to come.
“It is true that for the agnostic world, the world in which God does not enter, celibacy is a great scandal, because it shows exactly that God is considered and experienced as reality. With the eschatological dimension of celibacy, the future world of God enters into the reality of our time. And should this disappear?” Benedict XVI said in 2010.
Christ himself said that no one would be married or given in marriage in heaven, and therefore celibacy is a sign of the beatific vision (cf. Mt 22:30-32).
“Married life will pass away when we behold God face to face and all of us become part of the bridal Church,” Fr. Selin said. “The celibate is more of a direct symbol of that.”
Another value of celibacy is that it allows priests a greater intimacy with Christ in more fully imitating him, Fr. Selin noted.
“The priest is ordained to be Jesus for others, so he’s able to dedicate his whole body and soul first of all to God himself, and from that unity with Jesus he is able to serve the church,” he said.
“We can’t get that backwards,” he emphasized. Often, celibacy is presented for practical reasons of money and time, which aren’t sufficient reasons to maintain the tradition.
“That’s not sufficient and that doesn’t fill the heart of a celibate, because he first wants intimacy with God. Celibacy first is a great, profound intimacy with Christ.”
A married priest’s perspective: Don’t change celibate priesthood
Father Douglas Grandon is one of those rare exceptions – a married Roman Catholic priest.
He was a married Episcopalian priest when he and his family decided to enter the Catholic Church 14 years ago, and received permission from Benedict XVI to become a Catholic priest.
Even though Fr. Grandon recognizes the priest shortage, he said opening the doors to the married priesthood would not solve the root issue of that shortage.
“In my opinion, the key to solving the priest shortage is more commitment to what George Weigel calls evangelical Catholicism,” Fr. Grandon told CNA.
“Whether you’re Protestant or Catholic, vocations come from a very strong commitment to the basic commands of Jesus to preach the Gospel and make disciples. Wherever there’s this strong evangelical commitment, wherever priests are committed to deepening people’s faith and making them serious disciples, you have vocations. That is really the key.”
He also said that while he’s “ever so grateful” that St. John Paul II allowed for exceptions to the celibate priesthood in 1980 – allowing Protestant pastor converts like himself to become priests – he also sees the value of the celibate priesthood and does not advocate getting rid of it.
“…we really do believe the celibate vocation is a wonderful thing to be treasured, and we don’t want anything to undermine that special place of celibate priesthood,” he said.
“Jesus was celibate, Paul was celibate, some of the 12 were celibate, so that’s a special gift that God has given to the Catholic Church.”
Fr. Joshua J. Whitfield is another married priest, who resides in Dallas and is a columnist for The Dallas Morning News. He recently wrote about his experience as a married priest, but also said that he would not want the Church to change its celibacy norm.
“What we need is another Pentecost. That’s how the first ‘shortage’ was handled. The Twelve waited for the Holy Spirit, and he delivered,” Fr. Whitfield told CNA in e-mail comments.
“Seeing this crisis spiritually is what is practical. And it’s the only way we’re going to properly solve it…. I’m simply not convinced that the economics of (married priesthood) would result in either the growth of clergy or the Church.”
A glance at what the priest shortage looks like in the United States
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles is the largest diocese in the United States, clocking in at a Catholic population of 4,029,336, according to the P.J. Kenedy and Sons Official Catholic Directory.
With 1,051 diocesan and religious priests combined, the archdiocese has one priest for every 3,833 Catholics – more than double the national rate.
Despite the large Catholic population, which presents both “a great blessing and a great challenge”, Fr. Samuel Ward, the archdiocese’s associate sirector of vocations, told CNA he doesn’t hope for or anticipate any major changes to the practice of priestly celibacy.
“I believe in the great value of the celibate Roman Catholic priesthood,” he said.
He also sees great reason for hope. Recent upticks in the number of seminarians and young men considering the priesthood seems to be building positive momentum for vocations in future generations.
The trend is a national one as well – CARA reports that about 100 more men were ordained to the priesthood in 2016 than in 2010. Between 2005 and 2010, there was a difference of only 4.
In the Archdiocese of New York, the second largest diocese in the United States, there is a Catholic population of 2,642,740 and 1,198 diocesan and religious priests, meaning there is one priest for every 2,205 Catholics.
“I think we’re probably like most every other diocese in the country, in that over the past 40-50 years, the number of ordinations have not in any way kept pace with the number of priests who are retiring or dying,” said Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the archdiocese.
It’s part of the reason why they recently underwent an extensive reorganization process, which included the closing and re-consolidation of numerous parishes, many of which had found themselves without a pastor in recent years.
“Rather than wait for it to hit crisis mode we wanted to be prudent and plan for what the future would look like here in the Archdiocese of New York,” Zwilling said.
Monsignor Peter Finn has been a priest in New York for 52 years, and as rector of St. Joseph’s Seminary for six years in the early 2000s, he has had several years’ experience forming priests. While he admits there is a shortage, he’s not convinced that doing away with celibacy would solve anything.
“After 52 years of priesthood I’m not really sure it would make any big difference,” he told CNA.
That’s because the crisis is not unique to the vocation of the priesthood, he said. The broader issue is a lack of commitment – not just to the priesthood, but to marriage and other vocations of consecrated life.
Fr. Selin echoed those sentiments.
“It goes deeper, it goes to a deep crisis of faith, a rampant materialism, and also at times a difficulty with making choices,” he said.
So if marriage won’t solve the problem, what will?
Schools, seminaries, and a culture of vocations
The Archdiocese of St. Louis, on the other hand, has not experienced such a drastic shortage. When compared with other larger dioceses in the country (those with 300,000 or more Catholics), the St. Louis Archdiocese has the most priests per capita: only 959 Catholics per priests, in 2014.
John Schwob, director of pastoral planning for the archdiocese, said this could be attributed to a number of things – large and active Catholic schools, a local diocesan seminary, and archbishops who have made vocations a pastoral priority.
“…going back to the beginning of our diocese in 1826, the early bishops made repeated trips to Europe to bring back religious and secular priests and religious men and women who built up strong Catholic parishes and schools,” he told CNA. “That has created momentum that has continued for nearly 200 years.”
These three things also ring true for the Diocese of Lincoln, which has a smaller population and a high priest-to-Catholic ratio: one priest for every 577 Catholics, which is less than one third of the national ratio.
As in St. Louis, Lincoln’s vocations director Fr. Robert Matya credits many of the diocese’s vocations to Catholic schools with priests and religious sisters.
“The vast majority of our vocations come from the kids in our Catholic school system,” Fr. Matya said.
“The unique thing about Lincoln is that the religion classes in all of our Catholic high schools are taught by priests or sisters, and that is not usually the case … the students just have greater exposure to priests and sisters than a kid who goes to high school somewhere else who doesn’t have a priest teach them or doesn’t have that interaction with a priest or a religious sister.”
The diocese also has two orders of women religious – the Holy Spirit Adoration sisters (or the Pink Sisters) and discalced, cloistered Carmelites – who pray particularly for priests and vocations.
Msgr. Timothy Thorburn, vicar general of the Lincoln diocese, said that when the Carmelite sisters moved to the diocese in the late ’90s, two local seminaries sprang up “almost overnight” – a diocesan minor seminary and a seminary for the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter.
“Wherever priests are being formed the devil is going to be at work, and cloistered religious are what we would consider the marines in the fight with the powers of darkness, they’re the ones on the frontlines,” Msgr. Thorburn told CNA.
“So right in the midst of the establishment of these two seminaries, the Carmelite sisters… asked if they could look at building a monastery in our diocese.”
A commitment to authentic and orthodox Catholic teaching is also important for vocations, Msgr. Thorburn noted.
“I grew up in the ’60s and ’70s and ’80s, and many in the Church thought if we just became more hip, young people would be attracted to the priesthood and religious life … and the opposite occurred. Young people were repelled by that,” he said.
“They wanted to make a commitment, they wanted authentic Catholic teaching, the authentic Catholic faith, they didn’t want some half-baked, watered down version of the faith; that wasn’t attractive to them at all. And I’d say the same is true now. The priesthood will not become more attractive if somehow the Church says married men can be ordained.”
Pope Francis’ solutions: Prayer, fostering vocations, and the birth rate
Pope Francis, too, does not believe that the married priesthood is the solution to the priest shortage. Before he even mentioned the married priesthood to Die Zeit, the Pope talked about prayer.
“The first [response] – because I speak as a believer – the Lord told us to pray. Prayer, prayer is missing,” he told the paper.
Rose Sullivan, director of the National Conference of Diocesan Vocation Directors, and the mother of a seminarian who is about to be ordained, agrees with the Pope.
“We would not refer to it as a ‘priest shortage’ or a ‘vocation crisis.’ We would refer to it as a prayer crisis. God has not stopped calling people to their vocation, we’ve stopped listening; the noise of culture has gotten in the way,” she said.
“Scripture says: ‘Speak Lord for your servant is listening.’ So the question would be, are we listening? And I would say we could do a much better job at listening.”
Another solution proposed by Pope Francis: increasing the birth rate, which has plummeted in many parts of the Church, particularly in the west.
In some European countries, once the most Catholic region of the world, the birth rate has dipped so low that governments are coming up with unique ways to incentivize child-bearing.
“If there are no young men there can be no priests,” the Pope said.
The vocations of marriage and priesthood are therefore inter-related, said Fr. Ward.
“They compliment each other, and are dependent upon one another. If we don’t have families, we don’t have anything to do as priests, and families need priests for preaching and the sacraments.”
The third solution proposed by Pope Francis was working with young people and talking to them directly about vocations.
Many priests are able to trace their vocation back to a personal invitation, often made by one priest, as well as the witness of good and holy priests that were a significant part of their lives.
“A former vocation director took an informal poll, and he asked men, ‘What really got you thinking about the priesthood?’ And almost all of them said ‘because my pastor approached me’,” Fr. Selin related.
“It was the same thing with me. When a priest lives his priesthood with great joy and fidelity, he’s the most effective promoter of vocations, because a young man can see himself in him.”
Msgr. Thorburn added: “There is no shortage of vocations.”
“God is calling a sufficient number of men in the Western Church, who by our tradition he gives the gift of celibacy with the vocation. We just have to make a place for those seeds to fall on fertile ground.”
[…]
Another broccoli haired boy who should not have had access to guns. Instead of addressing the actual problem everyone and their mother will wring their hands and say he was “such a nice boy if not a lone wolf and mental illness is to blame.” And the “male loneliness epidemic” Because America loves letting teenage white boys off the hook when they commit violent crimes. Nothing matters. Nothing will change. But thoughts and prayers will really, really be what fixes it this time I’m sure. 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄x a million
Yup. Another “trans female”. Oh, wait, that’s not the narrative you want to advance, is it, Timmy?
But Robert Westman needs our prayers now, as do the two innocents he murdered.
So much hate, Timmy. You should seek help.
Part of the problem may be the effect on the brain of those sex change drugs that our “health” doctors give to “help” the young (not to make money of course…).
That’s an interesting idea, but I suspect we were dealing with a mentally ill individual even before the drugs.
There is a lot of profound sadness in many people who go down that path. I don’t mean depression; I mean something more akin to despair. The whole bit about such lifestyles being “gay” is a lie, sort of like whistling past a graveyard. At the very least, the gaity is a veneer, meant to distract the individual as much as to deceive others.
@Timothy Finn:
Rolling your eyes at the notion of prayers being efficacious?
Pray tell, what are your actual beliefs? (And why are you larping as a Catholic on a Catholic news site?)
Also, re: your racist statement–just what are you proposing?
I’m glad you are referring to the shooter as male, Timmy. We can agree on that.
Timmy: Name the occasion, just one, when any jurisdiction allowed a “white boy” off the hook for violent crimes. And name the occasion of a collective American response that praised the event.
Among the many sorrows, it is sad that the local mayor took the occasion to shout his beliefs about eliminating gun ownership. It requires active mental resistance to not reflect on the consequences of a national culture that treats objective morality with venomous contempt and the amoral responses of the depraved.
That has been the status quo for many years. Remember Bill Clinton trying to blame the NRA for the Oklahoma City Bombing?
I don’s remember that specifically but it sounds about right, considering.
I do remember the “it depends on what your definition of “is” is.
The left has been disassembling longstanding societal norms for generations, without any evidence whatsoever of the effects such wholesale rupturings might have on individuals or cultures.
Well, we’ve been living with those effects for decades now — destroyed lives, destroyed families, destroyed communities, destroyed cultures.
Recreational drugs, the celebration of gay, the acceptance of sex without commitment, a majority of children raised in single-parent families, abortion by the millions, “transing,” vilifying males — no previous human society has ever experienced such upheavals, so there is no way to predict their effects.
Well, now we’re seeing that individuals subjected to these failed societal experiments are driven to desperation and despair on a level humanity has never seen.
Unfortunately, thanks to the diabolical left, we are stuck with those effects until the insane progressive genie can somehow be coaxed back into its vile, dispiriting bottle.
Edward: Guns kill people, A bombs kill people. People use guns and bombs to kill people. Should people have guns and bombs so they can kill people? Is it wrong to try to limit access to weapons that can kill people? Why demonize those who are trying to prevent meaningless violence? You can work on other means to curb this violence, and this is good; but don’t knock those who are trying to keep guns out of the hands of the wrong people.
James Connor: Just look at all the nitwits who have weighed in against augmenting the police in Washington DC with National Guardsmen. And then take note of all the hundreds of guns being confiscated. Then take note of all those woke cities run by the Democrats who made a campaign of defunding the police. Then take note of the nitwits in our culture who insist on normalizing very obviously deranged thinking such as “I am a woman in a man’s body”. Take away all the guns you want but when you conspire with insane thinking the results will always be predictable.
No, guns do not kill people anymore than hammers, wrenches, kitchen knives, motor vehicles, jumping off buildings, or intentional overdosing legitimate medications. Only people perform murder, including their own.
I do not “demonize those who are trying to prevent meaningless violence.” I try to avoid lowering myself to the lies they seek to live with, and I don’t judge people. I do judge evil behavior, as Jesus called us to do, and stupid thought that falsely identifies what is evil in the human condition.
Stupid things include willful acts of moral displacement, affecting a phony display of moral concern as a way of continuing to repress a conscience, individually and collectively, that ignores the realities and causes of evil. Have you never noticed how frequently the most fanatical pro-aborts display a need to thump their chest over their love of animals, a desperate sort of act that the repression of conscience requires. Murderers always contrive ways to identify themselves as blamelessly good. And it is doubly ironic that self-proclaimed “animal lovers” are frequently abusive of their pets.
I don’t “demonize” the purveyors of panaceas,I demolish their childish arguments.
People have been killed by planes, trains and automobiles, knives, clubs, bottles, saws and pitchforks, water, prescription and nonprescription drugs.
We can’t ban everything, because then we’re back to rocks and spears.
Yes, it’s a he. Not much of a man, but he was born XY. The media will soon be referring to him as Robin Westman and using female pronouns. After all, in today’s society it’s considered bad to shoot and kill kids in a church, but even worse to refuse to use the killer’s preferred pronouns.
Waiting to hear the identities of the murderers of the innocent.
This will happen again and again as long as we don’t identify mental illness as such and provide treatment. If the truth be known, the carriers of this mental illness is our culture at large.
Those who are sane and who should have been speaking out (especially Catholics) have remained silent. What’s needed in our society is people who seek to know the Truth and speak it aloud…unabashedly.
Cowards need to go find and hole and crawl in it.
Yes, and thank you. The mental health system has been a failure for much too long. Those who have tried to bring attention to this have been practically silenced by the media, certain professionals, and one small but vocal group of so-called democrats. This is one aspect of the problem, and the trans movement should have been stopped at the beginning by the medical, psychiatric and psychologial professions. Problems have escalated as a result. Whoever evaluated this young man ought to have their licenses revoked – at the least. I cannot at present recall the rationale for closing most of the state mental institutions during the 1970s, but that was another profound mistake. There is likely a national secular/atheistic undercurrent pushing for anything goes. This is one of the horrific things that happen when anything goes: two children are dead and others are bruised physically and/or mentally, all the families are traumatized and trying to find meaning, a young man who didn’t know who he was is also dead, and the mayor saw fit to share his useless ideology in his speech. Throughout the day he continued on cable programs – adding to this horrific tragedy instead of helping. He did the usual focus on guns only, so unwise and unhelpful! The Archbiship’s and the Pope’s messages offered some hope. I can’t wait to see how this gets played out in the secular world – not really! Prayers for everyone involved in this tragedy. I include the mayor who might need more prayers than anyone else!
Trans children are mentally abused children. They are being abused by adults who should be punished for abusibg children.
What is not included, or maybe unknown, when this was posted is that the man changed his name Robin, had created a manifesto that was pulled off the web. The media will be silent on this. The truth will be hushed up. Questions like was he or had taken drugs for transition from boy to girl and did these drugs in any way impact his brain. What therapy was he given, who gave it and should be know about his mental treatment etc. But the media will hype the fact that he had guns, so it, the media, will push gun control.
In the meantime 2 small children are dead, my heart breaks for the parents and family. This should not have happened, but it did. It did because essentially the trans movement, the meds given to support etc are immune from any real examination.
The individual was a trans woman, as the Wall Street Journal alone has reported in plain language. Watch carefully how this story is covered in mainstream media.
If the WSJ is calling Robert Westman a woman, it is not describing him honestly either. There is no such thing as a “trans woman.”
Remember, “trans” should be pronounced “not a”.
A “trans woman” is of course a construct and not an actual woman. The WSJ made it plain that the shooter was a natal man who had “transitioned.” (No indication if drugs or surgery were involved.) The Minneapolis police chief referred to the perp as a man. Mainstream feeds such as one from the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis ever so carefully avoids using any pronoun. The trans angle on this story will be conveniently buried lest it disturb the Narrative. But coverage of this ghastly tragedy is an important example of how news is distorted. I think that angle is worth studying.
“natal man”
Which is pronounced “man.”
I am pleased to note than the UK newspaper “The Telegraph” has not made a single error in this regard. The article on the front page today, titled “The transgender gunman who opened fire on praying children”, does not have even one instance of the word “she”.
Every single adult who practiced or promoted any “trans-sexual” psychological, pharmaceutical or medical services in this “man-pretending-to-be-a-woman” case should be brought to civil court and sued for every cent snd every piece if property they own, and the “medical” and “psychological” and “pharmaceutical” companies involved should be sued into bankruptcy, and the buildings bull-dozed.
And that goes for all of the attorneys and law firms making their trans-sexual-abuse possible.
And which political party is responsible for supporting these hideous “transing” procedures?
And for promoting “gender” dysphoria by inserting gay literature into primary school libraries and curricula?
And for spreading their intense hatred of the Catholic Church and Donald Trump?
The Democratic Party is a death cult. Democrats and the Catholics who vote for them are responsible for this monstrous act.
Can we take a break from singing doxologies to your favorite politicians for a bit? We’ve been through this before, and the politics isn’t going away, but no politician is actually trustworthy, and even if one were, he could not solve the spiritual problems of this country.
Trump was on one of the three firearms, I believe.
brineyman, time to start calling a spade a spade. It’s time for feckless woke Catholics to come to terms with truth. (But I have little hope we’ll see much truth emerging from the Church these days).
Do you know, of your specific knowledge, that his medical treatment caused his actions Wednesday morning? My speculation would be a lack of proper medical treatment was more likely the underlying factor that led to his spiral into such a state that he could commit such a heinous crime. How else could a person assassinate, or attempt to assassinate, small children (and the elderly) at Mass?
Do you follow the news? People kill all the time for reasons that could not be corrected with drugs or therapy. Just look at what is happening in Nigeria, among other places.
This tragedy is almost unbearable: two innocent children, slain at the very moment of the Mass, and a soul lost in suicide. We can only grieve with their families and commend them to the mercy of God. Yet we must also face what violence really is: the most despicable form of evil, irrational and opaque, that humiliates, enslaves, and even seeks to objectify the creature made in God’s image. Contemporary culture tries to substitute remorse with “complexes,” as if guilt itself were blindness; in truth it is the decision for evil that is blind. Only the Father remains when every human support collapses; we turn to Him last because we know He will still be there when all else fails. The Church is His ark in the shipwreck of existence, the guardian of hope, truth, and love. But she often appears harsh or lifeless to those coming from the wilderness of despair. And yet it is only in her house that the children of God find the arms of the Father waiting.
How very beautiful.
Thank you, Rebecca — I’m glad it touched you. I was in fact inspired by a work written at the age of 23 by the one who, years later, would become Cardinal Giacomo Biffi — the very man who was said to have received the solitary vote of Cardinal Ratzinger in the conclave that would instead elect himself.
The real problem is the evil that has infected our nation. Our churches are empty. Locked up tight after every Mass. When, as a nation we deny God,the Enemy prowls about seeking the ruin of souls. Lord, have mercy.
To Kathy Donnelly – AMEN!!!
I find myself in complete agreement with this author, so will not duplicate his commentary, but rather provide the link (below). Fr. Andrew.
https://hildifons.substack.com/p/repost-the-truth-about-transgenderism
Good post
Yes. The media’s reporting (or non-) will be revealing.
The manifesto of this he/she substantiated that he/she hated God, that the he/she hated his/her neighbors as he/.she hated herself/hissle in a complete and total rejecting of the Greatest Commandment which IMHO is the defintiaion of total depravity which is unfortunately the glide path of aberrant sexual behaviors the least of which is defined as an abomination for having rejected God’s gift of your sexuality.
Transgender imposition on the human body and psyche is a violation of their nature. A transgendered person is prone to react to this violation with violence. The UK, which previously supported transgender procedures, of late based on medical psychological findings now prohibits transgender transition as barbaric.
Every cell in your body has either XX or XY chromosomes. You cannot change this. Surgical removal of genitalia does not change this. You wonder why this “sexual reassignment surgery” ever took hold, but perhaps like so many other things in our for profit health care system, the motivation is financial.
I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that transgender people go through that would motivate them to subject themselves to sexual mutilation. Perhaps we should take the profit out of this by having insurance refuse to pay for it? The money wasted on this would be better spent providing basic health care for poor children.
Indeed.
We live in strange times. Today, many people will claim that they do not believe in the existence of the soul, yet those same people are apt to agree with someone claiming he is a female soul in a male body, or vice versa.
Somehow related to this, we live in an unprecedented period of hatred for our own bodies. Sex-change surgeries and hormone treatments are among the more extreme measures, but rampant tattooing seems to be a milder expression of the same self-loathing. For crying out loud, if you want to support a team or a cause or whatever, BUY A T-SHIRT. When you are inevitably disappointed that your team crashes or your cause betrays you — or you just outgrow the cartoon — you can throw away the shirt. Hats work, too. https://youtu.be/WCEZXJYsFVw?t=54
Seriously, look at our science fiction. It mocks the idea of God, angels, and demons, but it also has human souls “downloaded” into computers. There is something weirdly Gnostic going on — different than, but just as weird as, the Gnostics of old.
William: It is not about money. Don’t blame economic freedom for everything demonic. This is about a culture dedicated to self-worship, and this would include support from more compassionate than thou Christians, worshiping themselves for “heroic tolerance,” uncaring of the consequences. Trans ideology is simply a more grotesque expansion of homosexuality, which might have begun as a coping mechanism for shameful concessions when young, then habitualized to dulling the moral senses to become a way of life.
If health insurance companies refused to pay for transgender procedures, there would be less of them, so money does matter.
You don’t know that. You don’t know that if insurance companies refused such surgeries, that it would not result in provoking political and social forces compelling them to provide more.
Only moral responses can resolve moral problems, never politics. Liberals turn to government worship as their first and last line of refuge because they do not want to think of how the necessary demands of moral courage might impose sacrifice and discomfort in their own lives to address problems with personal involvement and commitment. It’s easier to sit on the couch and complain that the government is not doing enough to control the singular forces they project as the source for all evil. And governments can never put an end to moral evil. Sin can not be engineered.
I understand what you’re saying but the argument is valid; stop paying for birth control, abortion-on-demand and slice and dice and infuse our confused youth and a lot fewer mistakes and worse will be committed – mathematics.
No reply button to Knowall, so I make it here. No, it is not simple mathematics. As I implicitly said. a social ethos can not be engineered. You cannot affect a socil force to do what even God cannot do. You cannot alter collective evil human behavior. It people experience pressure to end one sort of evil, their evil corruptions of suul will simply be forced to find another sort of evil to replace the former evil. Social engineering cannot work. Are you really oblivious to how contraception indisputably leads to more abortions?
William writes: “I cannot imagine the pain and anguish that transgender people…”
William, there’s no such thing as a transgender person. Personhood is not defined by psychotic thinking.
Jesse waters states the facts (link to be posted next)…DEMO PARTY LEADERS DEMAND SILENCE…the cost of their “TRANS-PSYCHOSIS” must be paid by the normie children of the breeder class…because DEMO-TRANS-PSYCHOSIS = VIRTUE, and their “heroic” medical and legal TRANS-ABUSERS must be allowed to monetize their new TRANS-ABUSE enterprises, because…country club dues are high, and a vacation in St. Barts in on the line.
Jesse Watters on DEMO-KRAT-MEDIA TRANS-PHILIA to rage against school children:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/08/27/jesse_watters_the_trans_clan_has_a_militant_wing_fake_compassion_is_getting_people_killed.html
Oh, how cute. You’re pretending that the GOP is still the party of Reagan. Would that it were!
But no, ISLAM is more correct on this than your chosen party. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t3OjuGqa9g
Islam is not the answer. Episcopalianism is not the answer. The GOP is not the answer. Unless … the god you truly worship is Ganesha, because “Elephants are always good”?
Let’s give up on that. YOU WILL NOT FIND THE TRUTH IN ANY OF THESE PARTIES, BECAUSE THEY ARE ALL WILLING TO TRADE TRUTH FOR POWER, however short-lived that might be, and however much a curse it might prove in the future.
You will not find a prophet in politics. Saying that the other party will be in a lower circle of hell than your own is not enough. Let’s try to miss hell altogether.
So your “answer” involves insulting sociological determinist categories, and rejecting the souls of individuals?
This man, Robert Westman, realized that his parents lied to him about his sexuality by not speaking the truth to his insane notions that he was woman and not a man. Once he realized he’d been let down, he became enraged and acted out.
This man, Robert Westman, realized his Catholic Church, his priests, his bishops lied to him by not telling him the truth about his deranged notions that he was a woman. Once he realized they’d let him down, he became enraged and acted out his rage.
This man, Robert Westman, realized his society, his culture, his government, the media he was exposed to, his friends they all lied to him by going along with his deranged notion that he was a woman. Once he realized that he’d been snookered by everyone, he felt a fool, became enraged and lashed out at anyone and everyone.
To everyone listening: Continue lying and not confronting what you see around you and know to be false. Continue your path of “going along to get along.” Continue placating the deranged notions that dominate our culture. If you continue to do these things, it just might be your own family members who get mowed down in the next massacre. And then we can all go about our merry way after we’ve complacently blamed it on “those guns.”
And this should include speaking out forcefully against high prelates, including the highest of prelates, who side with leftist nonsense and lie to us. Calumny is not speaking out.
In this tragedy, are their complicit parents, are ther complicit clergy who want to accompany rather than teach?
Fr Ratzinger wrote that the early Church opted for the God of the philosophers against the gods of the zeitgeist.
The Church Fathers opted for the truth of Being itself and nothing else.
How long must the faithful wait for our Church shepherds to teach tough love and recover the option for faith and reason and not milquetoast faith and mawkish empathy?
Sad, indeed. We may never overcome the gun violence mentality. The powerful NRA gun lobby sets the stage for continued violence. They argue that gun legislation will outlaw all weapons. Not true.
We just received an email from my sister, whose US Senator, John Barrasso is the Republican Whip. He said, “Trump’s BBB will remove restrictions on silencers, short-barreled rifles, and short-barreled shotguns.” He demonstrates the NRA gun ideology. He mentions nothing of the military style weapons like the AR-15 and the high magazine Glock that were touted as the killer’s rifle and pistol of choice.
Robin Westman was identified as the killer. He carried three weapons to the church where children were attending Mass. What must we do to detect this mentality early? Offering condolences and prayers has been discounted since it is reactionary. The Red Flag Law attempts to have some proactive protection.
Reuters: “Red Flag laws specifically address parents and other family members by giving them a legal way to intervene when a loved one is in crisis.” I ask, might the parents be held accountable if they ignore the Red Flag law? Is the age of the offspring a negating factor?
I prepared an email for Cindy to be forwarded to Barrasso detailing our serious objections to his stance. Maybe you should approach your elected officials.
More cut-and-paste NPR/DNC talking points. Par for the course for MorganD. The shooter was a deranged transgender progressive. Guns have nothing to do with it.
Athanasius, at least some of us are sane.
Guns had nothing to do with it? This twisted person could not do this much damage with a knife. He should not have been able to purchase firearms.
Mentally ill transgender progressives who want to do harm don’t need guns to hurt people. In the absence of guns, they’ll make use of something else. Access to guns isn’t the problem; that’s a lie and an NPR talking point. Being a disturbed transgender progressive is the issue.
Do you really think that this sick, twisted person should have been able to buy guns?
Should convicted felons and mental patients be able to buy guns? Should private citizens be able to buy automatic weapons?
By the way, the 2nd Amendment does not prohibit the States or Federal Government from enacting reasonable gun control.
Actually, in this case he could have effected as much tragedy with a knife. Regardless, your entrenched liberal reflexes appear to lead you to avoid appreciating that liberal “plumbing solutions” do not and can never resolve human problems. Ethics do. A social ethos is improved or weakened in accord with the character of its people, what they value and what they tolerate. You do not end abortion with birth control. You increase it. You do not protect children from predators by trying to indoctrinate them to adopt “tolerance” with “story hours” given by sexual deviants. You do not create more effective uses of energy by having ignorant and childishly spiteful bureaucrats penalize energy producers, conducting research to make energy usage more efficient, simply out of hatred for economic freedom.
As much damage with a knife? Really? Why then did the Marine Corps issue me an M-16 and not a switchblade? Your logic is flawed.
No reply button below yours William. Your logic is flawed. I clearly did say “in this case.” There wasn’t anyone strong enough to stop him if had done the same thing running wild with a knife. My opinion has no relation to your premise of noting obvious qualitative differences between knives and guns.
people are in love with what they can do with firearms; look at what that accountant did at that concert
“The powerful NRA gun lobby sets the stage for continued violence.”
Really MorganD? How? First, the most savagly and culturally insulted free association group is “powerful” only in the minds of those with an interest in distorting history.
With what little influence they have, they have supported mandatory gun safety and supported background checks. The second Ammendment was conceived to protect the God given right of self-defense, including defense from a tyrannical government, for which you’ve created the impression, over time, you would prefer.
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
It’s the guns…
No, it’s your stupid, woke, deranged, sick, lying, perverse, psychotic, evil thinking that’s to blame. Just keep blaming the guns. But let’s pray that the next victims aren’t our own families because as long as you keep on insisting that “It’s the guns”, you can rest assured that there WILL be another mass shooting. And, Satan loves it.
Got enough negative adjectives? So guns have nothing to do with it? Curious logic.
William: Guns don’t kill people. What kills people is evil, deranged, woke, psychotic, perverse, stupid, sick, liars.
William, over 65 MILLION human lives in the USA alone since the 1970s have been killed in abortion. The weapons used are suction machines, scalpels and forceps in the hands of doctors. I’m not hearing any calls from you and your friends to outlaw any of these instruments of death. Why not? They’re equally as lethal as any gun.
Why do you assume that I support abortion when I advocate for red flag laws to prevent psychotics from buying guns? A curious vector off the subject. I do not support abortion and I think we need to prevent psychotics from getting guns. I am sure that many people agree.
Wolliam, tou keep on deflecting and seemingly purposefully not get the point. The assumption you make is this: “Remove the guns and the killings will stop.” That’s utter nonsense.
By the way, William, possessing guns is against the law in NYC and elsewhere. I guess there are no gun murders in those places, huh?
I think our current medical privacy laws allow some of these very troubled souls to stay under the radar.
Red flag laws sound good objectively but they have a potential to become a political weapon.
Jacob Frey, mayor of Minneapolis is correct. We shouldn’t exploit this tragedy as a rationale for hatred against Trans people. Likewise we are obliged to treat transgender as a serious disorder, rather than a liberal cause celebre.
Well, Father, we then need to speak out very clearly that it is a disorder every time the dominant culture wants to shove it down our throats as normative.
tell him that
I’m not sure that people are using this event as an opportunity to hate or as justification for hating people. Transgender people are deeply disturbed individuals, however, and that makes them dangerous. We need to stop coddling them.
And politicians shouldn’t politically grandstand by assuming that noting the distorted psychology of a transexual constitutes an act of hatred when there is no evidence for it.
Dear Father. We see the word HATE used in much of the dialogue here.
You say, “We shouldn’t exploit this tragedy as a rationale for HATRED against Trans people. Our Federal Government has taken the lead on that very word. I feel that HATRED leads to ISOLATION and despair, not enlightenment and hope. Brinyman spews just that hatred when he says, “The Democratic Party is a death cult. Democrats and the Catholics who vote for them are responsible for this monstrous act.”
PBS: Federal information about what Trump calls “gender ideology” was removed from federal government websites. Trump’s initial executive order called for transgender women in federal custody to be moved to men’s prisons.
The State Department promptly stopped granting requests for new or updated passports with gender markers that don’t conform with the new definition.
In the executive order, the president asserted that being transgender “conflicts with a soldier’s commitment to an honorable, truthful, and disciplined lifestyle, even in one’s personal life.”
When any LGBTQ soldier was dismissed from our Platoon, the discharge was classified “UNDESIRABLE”.
My parents taught us never to hate. Some of the dialog here tests that edict.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/6-ways-trumps-executive-orders-are-targeting-transgender-people
“My parents taught us never to hate. Some of the dialog here tests that edict.”
Yet you consistently post your hateful comments about Trump here on a regular basis. I guess irony is lost on some people. A little self-awareness might go a long way.
There seems to be a rule that we should not ask any questions about the shooter’s parents and family life. We do know that his mother consented to his name change. Presumably, she also approved or accepted his make believe sex change. We should also know how matters related to sexual morality, particularly the trans lunacy, have been handled at Annunciation School. Is deviancy tolerated or promoted there as it has been at so many Catholic schools? These are important matters and neither his family nor the school have any right to have their “privacy respected.” What they taught, didn’t teach, celebrated and condemned may have played a very large role in what Robert Westman turned into.
Re Tony above (4:09 p.m.) – Good questions. The silence on family background is unusual. (I’d be cautious about assuming mother supported the so-called transition).
As the family goes, so goes society. John Paul II.
The Church understood this once.
Our lukewarm emasculated ecclesial communions fail to teach the fundamental importance of Christ based solidarity and subsidiarity.
Our pagan zeitgeist is a much more powerful teacher.
Now about another imposition upon us these days of confusion. That is the topic of security. As the local Bishop pointed out, you can read it on Catholic News Agency, the request for funding for security that is given to public schools, was denied by the governor and legislature of Minnesota to the Catholic Church. Then after this tragedy, the Governor Grandstands the scene. To me this is as disgusting as it gets. How do we get passed this? Praying, then work to undo this discrimination against religious freedom and the protections it deserves commensurate with the protection the public schools get. The mental health issue needs deep examination.
“If the world hate you, know ye that it hath hated me before you.”
We see this played out time and again. Whether our own children are poisoned against themselves & their anguish is eventually directed against the last bastion of Truth, or our African brethren are struck down as they gather for Pentecost—the Church will always be the center of the Enemy’s attacks. Did we not see it with the Eucharistic Pilgrimage this summer when Protestants came out specifically to taunt and mock the faithful?
Banning certain weapons won’t change this fact. The Enemy will always target the Church because his time is short. This attack was so evil, it’s almost unbearable…but we know how this story ultimately ends.
Let us not be afraid. Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis.
It’s no longer a matter of hands on heart with chin held high demanding that “God love America”. Rather it should be hands clasped in prayer humbly pleading that “God save America”. The necessity for ownership of guns should have been abandoned over 100 years ago when the rest of the world grew up and realised that the days of Billy the Kid. Wyatt Earp and the Dalton brothers were over. But then I suppose it is difficult to remember that when so many are raised by the fantasies presented as essential fodder by the make believe world of Hollywood and Disney land!
More of the usual distractor, “It’s the guns!”
No, it’s the woke, evil, deranged, sick, lies that results in people’s deaths. And it’s those who continue to placate, conspire with, condone and/or remain silent in the face of woke, deranged, unnatural, psychotic and evil notions who are also to blame for the deaths of innocent victims.
If you call yourself a Christian, it means you’re a follower of Christ. Christ called Himself the Truth. If you are a follower of Christ you must of necessity be striving to live in Truth at all times and in all ways. If you consort with Lies, you are no follower of Christ. It’s all very binary: You are either striving to live in the Truth or you are living in Lies. The two are mutually exclusive. And, lastly, you cannot be striving to live in the Truth passively and silently. That, too, would be a lie.
So,if you want red flag laws regarding guns, you are evil, deranged, etc? Is that what you are saying?
Those more inclined to label others as evil are those liberals quick to identify themselves as persecuted, especially when their arguments are devoid of reality. In turn, they vilify anyone who simply disagrees with their premises as lacking what they imagine to be supreior concern.
“Red flag laws” already exist in every state and at the national level. Calling for things that already exist is more likely to be an exercise of more-compassionate-than-thou virtue signaling. Condemning those who point out the very real consequences of moral nihilism, the real problem, is not in any way virtuous.
Mr. Frawley: It is impossible for the world to “grow up.” Sin and continuous renewals of the self-delusions necessary to sustain sin, never slow down. There is no such thing as human “evolution.” Shifts in common perceptions of what is evil do not alter the reality of what is evil.
Engaging in historical caricatures to trivialize, reduce, and disparage the views of those who recognize that evil is personal, not instrumental, is not helpful.
And I sincerely hope you don’t consider exponential growth in the crimes against humanity through the mass murder of the unborn and exponential increases of willful submissions to tyranny examples of “growing up.”
I am not advocating banning guns for law abiding citizens. There should be red flag laws for criminals, psychotics,illegal aliens and people deemed dangerous by the courts. You seem to think that anyone should be able to legally buy guns. Is that correct? Why do you think this? Is it the idea that if the worst of us can buy guns, then we will all somehow be safer? Please explain your logic.
Those laws already exist.
Those laws need to be strengthened. The sicko in Minneapolis should not have been allowed to buy guns.
William: Don’t dare put words in my mouth. Ever. I never said I endorse guns for everyone who wants them. Besides the criminals, psychotics and illegals you mention, I’d add to that group progressives who should never own a gun.
What I said and what you are most obtuse in comprehending is that limiting gun sales will not end killing. If you can empirically demonstrate that it will, show the evidence. Theŕe are numerous places in the USA that ban ownership and carrying of guns that still have rampant murders. Can you cite for us here the laws governing the carrying of guns in LA, NY and Chicago? And after doing that, can you give us the number of gun murders in each of those cities.
Reasonable red flag laws will not end gun related homicides, but will likely reduce them.
So your logic is that unless something totally eliminates all gun homicides, it is not worth doing? What if the red flagl law reduces gun homicides by 50%? Would that be worth doing?
So I am obtuse because I cannot read your mind? I’ve noticed so many of the posters to this website resort to personal insult, which does not really help their case. But perhaps that’s all you’ve got?
WILLIAM: By your own worda you admit that more stringent laws against gun ownership and possession resulting in fewer murders is pure speculation. You have no evidence to back up your assertion – just more wishful thinking and pious platitudes.
Here’s one more hypothetical: Robert – the sexually deranged murderer- was denied the purchase of a gun. He had a mother or father who legally owned a gun. Robert took his parent’s gun and ammo and shot and killed two Catholic school children. Now tell me about your more stringent laws against the sexually deranged purchasing guns.
So, are you saying that the sexually deranged should be able to buy guns? How do you feel about the Federal ban on automatic weapons? Perhaps we should just let anybody buy anything?
Please define “sexually deranged”, William. What does that even mean in today’s society?
Transgender.
In days to come, which are nearly upon us, God will deliver to Himself martyrs from our time, to counter and make atonement for the perverted, emasculated clergy and unfaithful fathers and mothers who have brought so much death, devastation and destruction to our families, communities, parishes, states, countries and humanity as a whole.
The punishment will be as painful as it is just.
satn is the enemy. Recognize the foul fool as such. Stop blaming each other, but, let us take responsibility for each of our own actions and failures to act, our sins and offenses before Almighty God and before each other. Only then can we hope to be reconciled with the Lord of all.