Life Of Priests Research Articles

Occupational Stressors and Flourishing among Roman Catholic Priests: The Eucharist as the “Source and Summit”

The main objective of this study is to examine the trials and tribulations in the lives of priests through an examination of work-related stressors, including feeling disrespected in one’s role as a priest, feelings of overwork, thoughts of leaving the priesthood, and a lack of trust in one’s Bishop, who plays a central role in the daily lives of Catholic priests. This study also assesses how a priest’s relationship with the Eucharist may buffer the effects of these occupational stressors. Drawing from a national sample of priests ( N = 3,515), results show that, in order of magnitude, priests who did not feel respected, those thinking of leaving ministry, priests who perceived that their job required them to do things beyond their vocational calling (overwork), and priests with low levels of trust in their bishop all had lower flourishing scores. Eucharistic centrality buffered the deleterious associations between each form of stress and flourishing. Future research on Catholic priests should continue to explore faith-based resources that can promote flourishing across the domains of human life.

Материальное обеспечение приходского духовенства Кольского Севера в последней трети XIX века

The article deals with the little-studied question of the financial situation of the rural clergy of the Kola North in the last third of the XIX century, in other words, after the introduction in 1873 of a new staffing list of parish churches in the region. The main source of information for the study was the clear sheets for 1884, which had not been previously involved by researchers. They were preserved in the fund of the Third Deanery District of the Kemsky uezd (county) of the Arkhangelsk province, which then included parishes located on the Karelian and Tersk shores of the White Sea. The main sources of income of local clergy are determined; information on the state salary of the white clergy is analyzed; the degree of security of clerics with different lands is revealed. Based on the revealed data, it is concluded that there is a significant difference in the welfare of individual parishes of the Kola North. Special attention is paid to the housing problem that existed in almost all parishes and significantly complicated the daily life of priests and clergymen.

El sacerdocio en san Agustín: Communio y Confessio

The article addresses the theme of priesthood as communio and confessio, showing first of all how the priest must make his life a prolonged Eucharist by becoming not only the minister of the Eucharist, but also how his life must be transformed into bread broken and shared for his brothers and sisters. On the other hand, the union of the priest with the cross of Christ is highlighted, and the Augustinian image of the olive oil mill and the commitment to bear good fruit for God is developed. Following the text of Conf. 10:39, the importance of the priest living in union with Christ is emphasized. Communion implies a participation in the cross of Christ and the four dimensions of the cross of Christ according to St. Augustine and its implications in the priestly life are pointed out. The importance of the priest as an agent of communion and unity within the Church is also highlighted. All these ideas are illustrated with the figures of some of the most famous priests of universal literature.

Features of Religious Organizations Activity in Ukraine

Over the past hundred years, the secularization thesis has allowed religion to be left aside when analyzing economic development, evolution of political regimes, or, for example, the peculiarities of state structure in any country. But today religion is becoming an increasingly significant force, the church is regaining its lost positions. Scientists have counted four stages of desecularization, the last of which began on September 11, 2001 and has been continuing to this day.
 The World Wide Web has challenged the Church by creating an otherworldly (surreal or virtual) world. And the church humbly accepted its existence, just as it recognized the presence of a man in space, next to God. And all this follows one goal — to be close to the own flock. The massive fascination of people with computers, gadgets and the virtual world, including believers, led the Church to understand the obvious fact: the virtualization of being is a long process and can become useful.
 Using the examples of religious organizations activity on the Internet, the question is investigated: what will ultimately result in their presence in the virtual world — in a person’s cognition of a new (digital) formation in order to effectively keep it in his bosom, or will it become a reason for a new wave of desecularization in the post­industrial world?
 The analysis of the content of the sites of the main confessions in Ukraine showed a more secular nature of the activities of religious organizations in comparison with the time before the emergence of the Internet. Their relations with all spheres — government, business, army, society have become public and stronger. The author came to the conclusion that the Church, as the personification of the main confessions, accepted virtual reality as a fact because believers have loved it. For the first time in the history of the Church, the attitude to a new phenomenon — virtual space — was dictated to her by believers. 2. In pre­Internet history, the Church fought for the “souls” of people. With the adoption of virtual space, human brains became its target. Using information technologies, computers, gadgets, smartphones and virtual space, the Church is fighting to remain an influential force in our time. 3. The content of the sites of religious organizations in Ukraine reflects a different level of trust (internal resistance, self­censorship) to the World Wide Web. They can be conditionally divided into three types. The first one — organizations fill websites like personal diaries, inspiring confidence with texts and illustrations of the church life of priests and parishioners. The second one — organizations use websites only for posting sermons, information about holidays, rituals, testimonies of a righteous life and so on. The third type of sites is a business card, which only declares the presence of an organization on the Internet: information about the chapter, about the organization, the schedule of current events and contact information. Accordingly, the first type has the highest traffic (site traffic), the latter has the lowest. 4. Common to all of them (with the exception of the UOC­MP) is the attitude towards the armed conflict in the East of the country (support for the institution of chaplaincy, guardianship of family members of military personnel who died in the combat zone, support of civilians that are suffering from hostilities, etc.) and to the unification of Orthodox communities into a single local church — the OCU (with the exception of the UOC­MP and the UOC­KP).

SPIRITUALITY OF THE DIOCESAN PRIEST: CLINKS TO MAKE THE CRISIS A KAIROS IN LATIN AMERICA

The topic addressed is the spirituality of the diocesan priest, impacted by the sociocultural reality that generates crises and opportunities for a more and more profound experience of his own vocation and mission. The pillars on which the concrete proposal rests are: 1) The perception that dissociation is the cause of the loss of unity in the lives of priests; 2) The identifi cation of the existential theological category of following Jesus in the dynamics of pastoral charity as a giver of meaning and unity to the life of priests; 3) The eff ort to overcome the conceptions of the spiritual life that do not allow to harmonize the external activity with the interiority, proper to the diocesan priest. The “common thread” proposed for the spirituality of the diocesan priest, which can give unity to the various elements of his spiritual life, is pastoral charity that “eucha-ristizes, mercies and anoints” in his receptive dynamism and donations.

Der Klerus der Erzdiözese Wien 1880 bis 1918

From 1880 to 1969 a pious association for priests in Vienna edited a periodical called Correspondenz der Associatio Perseverantiae Sacerdotalis (CAPS). It contains over 800 obituaries of deceased members. In order to elucidate some aspects of everyday priestly life in the archdiocese of Vienna between 1880 and 1918, this article relates a selection of these obituaries to issues of such everyday priestly life.

Jozef Kazimierz Kossakowski and the Everyday Life of Priests in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Period of Enlightenment

Abstract. In the late eighteenth century, the distance between the changing norms and values and the unchanging material conditions of priests’ everyday lives grew rapidly. The aim of this article is to explore and understand the life and work of the bishop of Livonia, Józef Kazimierz Kossakowski. He was the author of Ksiądz pleban [The Parson], one of the most acknowledged parenetic books promoting new social obligations of priests, however his actions were far from the ideals he promoted. His case is especially interesting because he also wrote a diary describing his life from the childhood to becoming a bishop. Keywords: Parish clergy, the Catholic Enlightenment, everyday life, diary, the Polish- Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Same-Sex Attractionand the Priesthood

Should a person with same-sex attraction live chastely? Can a person with SSA live celibately? Should a person with SSA be ordained? Care has to be taken in asking such questions, remembering that the person with SSA should be treated fairly and with equality. We could also ask these questions of heterosexual persons. In line with current pronouncements of Church teaching, the priestly life appears unsuited for persons with deep-seated SSA. If the SSA is transitory or passing, and the candidate is open to be formed, then there may be no impediments to future ordination. Where the same-sex feelings lie somewhere in between, careful and prudent discernment (as for heterosexual candidates, too) is needed.

Kapłan sługą miłosierdzia. Refleksja moralno-pastoralna w kontekście Nadzwyczajnego Jubileuszu Miłosierdzia (8 grudnia 2015 – 20 listopada 2016)

The Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy announced in the bull Misercicordiae vultus by the Holy Father Francis, becomes an opportunity to reflect on the priestly vocation in the context of the truth about mercy. The practice of authentic mercy is a fundamental task of priestly life. In this perspective it seems that the mercy as the style of the priestly life requires to be presented again with new enthusiasm and with renewed pastoral activity. This is a key task for the Church.Therefore, the moral-pastoral reflections included in this publication aim to - in the light of the documents of the Church, especially the writings and statements of popes: John Paul II, Benedict XVI and Francis - encourage in the Holy Year to rediscover and revive the sense of identity and essential tasks of priestly ministry fulfilled primarily in preaching and practicing the virtue of mercy.

Knowledge, Attitude, Practice (KAP) and Health Related Quality of Life of Priests with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Thailand

Knowledge, Attitude, Practice (KAP) and Health Related Quality of Life of Priests with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Thailand

Posłuszeństwo jako istotny element duchowości kapłańskiej według Dyrektorium o posłudze i życiu prezbiterów z 11 lutego 2013 roku

Posłuszeństwo rodzi postawę dyspozycyjności. Kapłan posłuszny biskupowi nie szuka siebie i swej woli, ale woli Chrystusa i dobra Kościoła. Nie ma posłuszeństwa bez ascezy, pracy nad sobą, bez ducha modlitwy i wyrzeczenia. Tylko ten jest zdolny do pełnego posłuszeństwa, kto wciąż przełamuje swój egoizm, chęć szukania siebie, swej woli i swej chwały.Kongregacja ds. Duchowieństwa, opracowując odnowione Dyrektorium o posłudze i życiu prezbiterów, starała się położyć akcent na najbardziej znaczące aspekty nauczania kościelnego dotyczące świętej posługi, odwołując się do zasadniczych dokumentów papieży: Jana Pawła II oraz Benedykta XVI. Wśród tych aspektów znalazło się zagadnienie posłuszeństwa. Artykuł podejmie jedynie wybrane elementy posłuszeństwa, jakimi są dyspozycyjność prezbitera, jego posłuszeństwo wobec przełożonego, szacunek dla norm liturgicznych oraz ubiór kościelny.

The Lives of Priests

The Lives of Priests John C. Seitz15 One of the lamentations that inevitably and justifiably arises when instances of clerical sexual abuse and its cover-up are exposed is some version of the question “what kind of person could do such a thing?!” There is more than mourning and protest in this question; there is also deep historical wisdom in it. In this brief essay, I want to suggest different ways that the question “what kind of person?” can become a spur to a specific line of historical inquiry, one that includes studies of sexual abuse and cover-up (which will continue to call out for historical investigation), but also reaches beyond that topic and into other questions about the Catholic past. No longer rhetorical lament or protest, and no longer the sole province of psychologists, the question in historians’ hands can be literal and specific: how are priestly lives made and unmade in particular places and times? The crisis – which brought Catholic clerics to our attention in a particularly intense way – alerts us to certain gaps in our understanding, in particular about the everyday lives and the emotional and moral worlds of parish priests. For sure priests have been in our histories, but they have been there with less texture and full humanity than ideal. This has been a gap in some of my own scholarship, and so I feel this challenge acutely. In addition to scores of priestly biographies and autobiographies, Leslie Tentler, James Fisher, Michael Pasquier and others have produced recent cultural and social histories of priests. These stand as refreshing exceptions to a tendency toward flattening or even ignoring priests, especially priests’ daily lives.16 In part with the inspiration (and also heeding the warnings) of these scholarly forerunners, the crisis has prompted me to turn my [End Page 18] attention to priests, and in particular the contexts and contours of their “formation.” Over the past few years I have been spending much of my research time (such as it is) with priests and former priests from the Archdiocese of Boston. My conversations with these men, all of whom were in the seminary during the mid-twentieth century, have pressed upon me the urgency of moving from the simple observation (which has not always been as obvious as it might seem) that “priests are people” toward a posture of historical responsiveness to that affirmation. That means discovering what priestly personhood looked like in different places and times. There will be several challenges along the way. Perhaps the most serious difficulty has to do with sources and methods. Archives orient us quite often toward institutional and away from personal narratives. They offer wonderful avenues for “following the money” but frequently only rough side roads and dead ends in the pursuit of stories about everyday life and the emotional contours of priestly experience. And our discipline too may unwittingly discourage us from braving those rough historical paths: as an editor of a book series on Catholic practice in the U.S. I have learned that biographies – one kind of writing that might help us see the textures of everyday priestly experience – are a tough sell. I agree that narrow biographies are not the answer, but I am enthusiastic about the possibility of works that combine intimate portraits of priests with broader attentiveness to the social, theological, and cultural forces that produce the emotional communities in which priests of various eras and geographies have traveled. The idea of discerning and mapping “emotional communities,” a phrase I borrow from medieval historian Barbara Rosenswein, strikes the right balance between intimate personal stories that can shed light on things like desire, joy, fear, love, and anger and inquiries into the ways the various worlds people live in both shape and respond to those feelings.17 This may mean more focused studies precede broader synthetic evaluations. We may need to find ways creatively to pair less traditional historical sources – novels, spaces, objects – with more traditional sources such as parish records and diocesan correspondence. We may also want to open the pathway to more creative uses of comparison: can conversations and ethnography with contemporary priests shed light on the history of the priesthood...

Rola świadectwa w życiu i posłudze duszpasterzy w świetle nauczania Benedykta XVI

The objective of the Year for Priests proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI was to urge priests to interior renewal and more incisive witness to the Gospel in today’s world. Although the witness to Christ and his Gospel is a common responsibility of all Christians, this primarily refers to the pastors. The central problem of this study was expressed in the question: What is the function of testimony in the life and mission of pastors? Its main source is the teaching of Pope Benedict XVI on the priesthood. The article consists of three parts: (a) the biblical basis of Christian witness (martyria); (b) the spiritual life of priests as a foundation of their testimony; and (c) several ways to implement martyria in the ministry of pastors.

“Light Even More than Love”: The Irony of the Cross in J. F. Powers’s Wheat That Springeth Green

In the flourishing of American Catholic literature during the 1950s and 60s, no author outranks the inimitable Flannery O'Connor or Walker Percy. However, one peer of these two masters--J. F. Powers--earned high praise from O'Connor, who wrote of his short stories, Those that deal with the clergy are as good as any stories being written by anybody. (1) Indeed, if Powers is remembered in this estimable group of masters, it is because of his many short stories detailing the ironic lives of priests and monks populating the Catholic suburbs of Minnesota. His oeuvre does surpass his peers in one particular regard: the publication of his second novel Wheat Springeth Green in 1988 reflects the radical changes to American Catholicism after the Second Vatican Council. While Percy's later work acknowledges those changes within American Catholicism, his increasing cynicism seems to lament the lost idyll of 1950s and 60s America, particularly in the darkly horrific Thanatos Syndrome; by contrast, Powers's literary vision precludes nostalgia for the forgotten days of Catholic unity prior to what Mark Massa calls the American Catholic Revolution of the 1960s until now. His fundamentally comic vision of human nature pervades this second novel and highlights the simultaneously biting and charitable satire that makes it a literary masterpiece. When read against the ecclesial divide resulting from Vatican II, Wheat Springeth Green employs Powers' masterful sense of irony in one scandalizing image that haunts the characters attempting to perform the work of the Church faithfully and efficiently: the Cross pervades this novel's pages, calling its protagonist Father Joe Hackett to receive failure as a gracious witness to the scandal of a complacently divided American Catholic Church. To explore this haunting image of the Cross within Powers's last novel, this article will be divided into three major sections. The first will review the critical conversation that has developed around Powers's small body of work with the intention of reaching critical consensus about his fundamental artistic achievement, namely his adaptation of an ironic humor to a deeply Catholic understanding of the lived experience of the Church. The second will then contextualize Powers's second novel within the unique historical moment immediately following Vatican II. This is necessary for the reader to see how Powers's irony is a way of addressing the world of his own time and one that still pervades contemporary Catholic America. Lastly, will offer a reading of Wheat Springeth Green through the nexus of Powers's irony and the historical contextualization developed in the first two sections. This framework provides a particular way of reading the novel's central and recurring image, the Cross, as an icon of faithful failure and holy limitation as the means to achieve holiness. As early as 1964, in an interview for American Benedictine Review, Powers identified himself as a comic writer, although he often deals with religious figures like priests and monks. Indeed, he states in this interview, I write about priests for reasons of irony, comedy, and philosophy. They officially are committed to both worlds in the way that most people officially are not. (2) tension, which results from the priest's simultaneous commitment to the work of the Church as a spiritual body and to the Church as a job, is Powers's central concern, and the irony of a character trying to honor both commitments with the same life propels the comedy of Powers's works when these figures inevitably and humorously confront their limitations. However, for Powers, writing about such characters is not solely about practicing his great skill as a humorist; instead, Powers's focus on priests as main characters mirrors what he believes to be the situation all Christians face in the modern world. He states, That is, of course, one of the big ironies. Here we are, Christians, and here we have the clergy who are descended spiritually from the apostles. …

Priestly Celibacy and Identity: The Rocky Reception of Vatican II’s Presbyterorum Ordinis

The Second Vatican Council’s 1965 decree, Presbyterorum Ordinis (On the Ministry and Life of Priests) received an unwelcome reception within the Church. Priests, principally in the United States, Canada, and Europe, believed the document inadequate because it had not resolved the debate on mandatory clerical celibacy and priestly identity. The immediate aftermath of the council saw large numbers of priests leave active ministry and fewer men in formation for priesthood. Presbyterorum Ordinis ’s unresolved questions led to the 1971 Synod of Bishops on the Ministerial Priesthood. After a lively debate, clerical celibacy was reaffirmed and by the late 1970s the controversies surrounding priestly life and ministry were in decline.

Assessing and Meeting the Health Needs of Roman Catholic Priests in the Archdiocese of Chicago

In 1985, the Bishops' Committee on Priestly Life and Ministry recommended bishops form holistic health boards for their priests based on the results of a 1982 U.S. survey of Catholic priests. In 1995, a holistic health committee was formed under the office of the vicar for priests for the archdiocese of Chicago. One of the committee's first actions was to survey the priests of the archdiocese of Chicago to identify baseline health behaviors and needs. Survey results (n = 524; 52% response rate) revealed the need for the committee to promote health education, preventive care, and annual physicals. The committee conducted a series of health fairs, improved the insurance benefit for an annual physical, and conducted a series of health-related talks targeted to priests. A follow-up survey in 2006 (n = 389; 46% response rate) indicated improvements in health behaviors of the priests. Comparisons to statewide and national data indicate that overall, engagement in healthy behaviors is higher for priests than for men who are not priests.

Fathers on the Frontier, French Missionaries and the Roman Catholic Priesthood in the United States, 1789–1870 (review)

American Fathers on Frontier, French Missionaries and Roman Catholic Priesthood in United States, 1789-1870. By Michael Pasquier. (New York: Oxford University Press. 2010. Pp. xii, 295. $74.00. ISBN 978-0-19537233-5.) With a fine command of rich array of primary sources, Michael Pasquier has crafted a distinctive narrative of experience [s] (p. 61) of French missionaries in United States from French Revolution to Civil War. He is committed to presenting the Private Lives of Priests (p. 19), symbolized by eighty-five pages of endnotes with citations of their letters and diaries. Pasquier's chapters are organized topically with more than a nod to chronology. The Sulpicians, who arrived in Baltimore in 1791, play various roles in narrative. They passed on ideals of priesthood in practical service of Church. Although Pasquier frequently refers to Order, Society of St. Sulpice, founded in France in 1642, is actually a community of diocesan priests on leave from their bishops to teach and form seminarians according to Sulpician ideals. In contrast to other seminaries that appointed one spiritual director for all students, Sulpician seminaries provided each student with his own spiritual director within context of sacrament of penance. This process forms a meaningful bond between director and penitent. Letters from priests of Sulpician seminaries voice a deep concern with missionaries' commitment to a life immersed in sufferings of Christ. Pasquier focuses on Benoit Joseph Flaget and Jean-Bap tiste David, Sulpicians on Kentucky frontier; Simon G. G. Brute in Emmitsburg, MD; and Louis G. B. Dubourg in New Orleans. Other prominent figures such as Bishop Jean-Baptiste Blanc of New Orleans and Jean-Marie Odin of San Antonio and later of New Orleans also are featured. Although seminaries were formative of vocations, they had not prepared these men for harsh realities of frontier. These French priests often failed to maintain integrity of their missionary ideology. . . . Hunger, sickness, fatigue, boredom, loneliness, isolation, indifference, all these physical and emotional states affected how French missionaries lived throughout dioceses of trans-Appalachian West (p. 61). Few in number, they became demoralized by scandalous behavior of other French priests, particularly in Louisiana and Texas. …

Book Review: The Paschal Paradox: A Meditation on the Contemporary Challenge of Priestly Life

Book Review: The Paschal Paradox: A Meditation on the Contemporary Challenge of Priestly Life

Peaceful considerations on the life of priests

No abstract available. Revista latinoamericana de teología, Vol. 27, No. 81, 2010: 375-387.

The lives of priests reflected in the "Directory for Priests" in 1858

The lives of priests reflected in the "Directory for Priests" in 1858