Interesting Teaching About Priest's

[colombiano]

There is this unhealthy strain of Romanticism concerning veneration of priests that is really disturbing and does not coincide with the reality of Catholic teaching, common sense and charity. 

For instance, if you get solicited by a priest in the confessional, if he makes overtures to you in any fashion of a sexual nature, you are obligated to turn him in, your absolution is  automatically suspended and contingent upon your reporting this priest to your local ordinary and his superior. 

It seems people are taking the emotional hyperbole of great saints and turning them into doctrinal teachings. 

Catholics have to learn to separate the poetic musings of saints and blesseds and mystics from the clear, solid teaching of the Church.  Let that teaching be your guide and not sentimental musings of saints that wrote rhapsodic prose on days where everything was going a certain way. 

If forget which visionary it was that Our Lord appeared to onlly after she had reached the end of her rope and said, "We don't need enemies with friends like you."  (Anyone remember who I'm referring to?)  Obvioiusly she didn't literally mean it or it would have been the worst of blasphemies, but we all know we "feel" that way on occasion. 

are you referring to St. Teresa of Avila who complained to Our Lord about something.....to which Jesus said "this is how I treat my friends" to which she replied "no wonder you have so few of them"...?

[Gerard]

So, what you are saying is that we should ignore the saints and listen to you instead?

If I'm repeating the truths of the Church, then listen to me.  If a saint is telling the truths of the Church listen to them.  If I'm rhapsodising about some contingent scenario concerning humans and I'm making absolutist statements directing you to act as I say and not the Church, then take it as hyperbole.  The same with any saint.  St. John Vianney is exquisite to read for a good sermon and a shot in the arm for your zeal.  Just check him against St. Thomas Aquinas when it comes to some assertion here or there.  I was just reading the other night from Vianney's little catechism on Penance. He said,

 "If one said to those poor lost souls that have been so long in Hell, "We are going to place a priest at the gate of Hell: all those who wish to confess have only to go out, " do you think, my children, that a single one would remain? The most guilty would not be afraid of telling their sins, nor even of telling them before all the world. Oh, how soon Hell would be a desert, and how Heaven would be peopled! Well, we have the time and the means, which those poor lost souls have not. And I am quite sure that those wretched ones say in Hell, "O accursed priest! if I had never known you, I should not be so guilty!"

Now, we know that the assertion of St. John V, does not accurately state the disposition of the damned.  If they were allowed out of Hell, they would not go. Their sins are already exposed and they are in a state of permanant hatred of God. And St. John knows and accepts the permanance of Hell, but his unorthodox speculation has to be clarified by his main point which is orthodox and pastorally valuable .   But it's a great yarn in order to engender zeal for the sacrament of Penance. But I wouldn't repeat it or treat it as doctrinally accurate.

[Crusading Philologist]

So, what you are saying is that we should ignore the saints and listen to you instead?

If I'm repeating the truths of the Church, then listen to me.  If a saint is telling the truths of the Church listen to them.  If I'm rhapsodising about some contingent scenario concerning humans and I'm making absolutist statements directing you to act as I say and not the Church, then take it as hyperbole.  The same with any saint.  St. John Vianney is exquisite to read for a good sermon and a shot in the arm for your zeal.  Just check him against St. Thomas Aquinas when it comes to some assertion here or there.  I was just reading the other night from Vianney's little catechism on Penance. He said,

 "If one said to those poor lost souls that have been so long in Hell, "We are going to place a priest at the gate of Hell: all those who wish to confess have only to go out, " do you think, my children, that a single one would remain? The most guilty would not be afraid of telling their sins, nor even of telling them before all the world. Oh, how soon Hell would be a desert, and how Heaven would be peopled! Well, we have the time and the means, which those poor lost souls have not. And I am quite sure that those wretched ones say in Hell, "O accursed priest! if I had never known you, I should not be so guilty!"

Now, we know that the assertion of St. John V, does not accurately state the disposition of the damned.  If they were allowed out of Hell, they would not go. Their sins are already exposed and they are in a state of permanant hatred of God. And St. John knows and accepts the permanance of Hell, but his unorthodox speculation has to be clarified by his main point which is orthodox and pastorally valuable . But it's a great yarn in order to engender zeal for the sacrament of Penance. But I wouldn't repeat it or treat it as doctrinally accurate.

I'm not sure that's a good example. St. John is obviously not addressing some deep theological question here. He's just preaching a sermon. So, obviously one must consider the context, but it still seems that we ought to believe the words of a saint unless we have reason not to.

[Gerard]

are you referring to St. Teresa of Avila who complained to Our Lord about something.....to which Jesus said "this is how I treat my friends" to which she replied "no wonder you have so few of them"...?

Probably, a priest mentioned it to me in confession and said it was St. Catherine of Sienna but I couldn't find any refernce to it related to her.  I just looked up Teresa of Avila and there it is.  Thanks.  

[Gerard]

I'm not sure that's a good example. St. John is obviously not addressing some deep theological question here. He's just preaching a sermon. So, obviously one must consider the context, but it still seems that we ought to believe the words of a saint unless we have reason not to.

Well, I think we can agree that there is a hierarchy of acceptance, a visionary supposedly giving instructions from Our Lord, (they may be just for that one person and not for the whole Church) that are opposed to the general moral teaching of the Church is one thing, a priest giving a sermon is higher but not infallible, a doctor of the Church is higher than that, a Council's infallible decrees and papal magisterially infallible decrees are of the highest order. (Short of Our Lord Himself at the Second Coming)

[francisco]

Does this also include priests ordained without the permission of the diocesan bishop?

[Walty]

There is this unhealthy strain of Romanticism concerning veneration of priests that is really disturbing and does not coincide with the reality of Catholic teaching, common sense and charity. 

For instance, if you get solicited by a priest in the confessional, if he makes overtures to you in any fashion of a sexual nature, you are obligated to turn him in, your absolution is  automatically suspended and contingent upon your reporting this priest to your local ordinary and his superior. 

It seems people are taking the emotional hyperbole of great saints and turning them into doctrinal teachings. 

Catholics have to learn to separate the poetic musings of saints and blesseds and mystics from the clear, solid teaching of the Church.  Let that teaching be your guide and not sentimental musings of saints that wrote rhapsodic prose on days where everything was going a certain way. 

If forget which visionary it was that Our Lord appeared to onlly after she had reached the end of her rope and said, "We don't need enemies with friends like you."  (Anyone remember who I'm referring to?)  Obvioiusly she didn't literally mean it or it would have been the worst of blasphemies, but we all know we "feel" that way on occasion. 

So, what you are saying is that we should ignore the saints and listen to you instead?

Don't be so flippant. 

Priests should be respected, especially for their office.  But this notion that one ought never to say a bad word about something that a priest does is absolutely detrimental to the faith, and is a line of thought which the neoCatholics have taken to an extreme, thus allowing the rot of Modernism and sin in the Church to spread.

If a priest does something wrong, he ought to be reported.  If a priest says something erroneous or heretical, he ought to be reported and it is our duty to inform those close to us who have been exposed to him of his error, so that they may not be lead astray.

There is no one who deserves more respect than God and Truth.

[Cindy]

The dignity of the Priest.
http://en.gloria.tv/?media=261714

[Gerard]

The dignity of the Priest.
http://en.gloria.tv/?media=261714

That would be nice if priests themselves lived up to the dignity of their priesthood.  But we have to function appropriately with what we have and sometimes, they need a reminder. 

http://www.tumblarhouse.com/audio.php#Anticlericalism

lecture available from Charles Coulombe and Williams Biersach on "Anti-clericalism"

[Vetus Ordo]

Criticism Of Priests
Our Lord's revelations to Mutter Vogel

These are not "revelations" but just theological musings of a nun.