I have never been to Rome. People keep telling me I have to go to see St. Peter's, the Vatican, the plethora of liturgical wonders and beautiful art, and experience the history of our faith. After twenty three years as a Catholic, it is a bit strange that I have never really had the desire or inclination to make the trip.
I don't know if this is a conscious or unconscious dis-inclination. I'm not a history buff, though I am open to learning in order not to be ignorant. I can appreciate fine art, but can't say I'm a connoisseur by any means. And most of all, I'm really not a "churchy" guy.
I have to qualify with that, because I have been writing about the Faith for half my life so one would think a love of all-things-church would go hand in hand with trying to live a life of faith. But I've always found myself following the St. Benedict Joseph Labre / St. Francis / St. Juan Diegos of the world in my journey of faith, rather than hanging around gold-gilded ambos or immersing myself with Church or diocesan events. It has just never been a draw.
So I was a little out of my element when our family was asked to formally greet and welcome the new bishop of our diocese at his installation Mass this afternoon. I also suffer from severe liturgical stage fright (which is probably why I was never an altar server and bombed out of being a lector at our old parish). Liturgical pomp and circumstance is not my thing.
But this was a big deal. It was the first time in over one hundred years that a priest (a monsignor in this case) would be ordained a bishop in our diocese (His predecessors had all been ordained as bishops prior to being assigned here). In addition to every single priest in the diocese being present at the Mass and ceremony, there was a large cadre of bishops, two cardinals, and a Vatican nuncio present. It was as close to a pontifical type ceremony as I would probably experience apart from being in the Eternal City itself.
Complicating things a little was the fact that this was only the third Novus Ordo Missae I had been to in almost three years; though I had retained the muscle memory of it over the years, my children were largely unfamiliar with the New Liturgy, having been raised up in the TLM exclusively. We didn't play a large role in the ceremony, obviously, but we were still a part of it, and my kids were on the same knowledge level of the NOM as 5th graders in a CCD class.
Complicating things a little more was the fact that this is the President's home diocese, and while it was not the focus of the appointment and ceremony (and rightfully so), it has to be in the back of people in the larger Catholic world's mind--just what is his intention in addressing the "issue at hand" that the USSCB is discussing? Just what (if anything) will he do as bishop? Will he be "one of the good ones?" Etc.
People are savagely critical concerning "the bishops" and not always without good reason always either. But this is our home diocese, and we have a new shepherd who is new in the role, in a new part of the country, in a political-sensitive situation that is the envy of no one. As more traditionally minded Catholics who have come to love and cherish the traditional liturgy, we have a stake in the game on the local level, especially as talk of the motu proprio looms large. We want to see Tradition thrive and grow. And so, I reasoned, the least we can do is extend a warm welcome on a basic human level to this successor to the apostles as members of his flock, and be the best representatives of joyful traditional Catholics we can be, to let him know we are here--not as a "force to be reckoned with" but simply as sheep in his care among a diverse flock.
Though I don't know much about him, after meeting and talking with him briefly, the new bishop seemed to have a genuine, pastoral spirit, was approachable, and seemed to be an overall good man. Again, this is just first impressions base on limited knowledge. It's okay to say such things though, I think--to extend a degree of courtesy on a basic human level and not immediately cut a man of the cloth at the knees just because you don't think he's doing enough or is "spineless" or what have you. At least give the man a chance to get settled for a day or two and get his bearings before unloading on Catholic Twitter if you feel the need to do so. Ha!
My wife and daughter veiled as they usually do, though they were pretty much the only ones I noticed who did so, and we all received Communion by dropping to our knees on the marble and receiving on the tongue (which was not an issue, though most received in the hand). The Mass and ceremony was almost four hours long. I was running on two hours sleep, and our kids were champs but were begging to melt near the end due to churchy overload, not to mention hunger and tiredness. My three young kids were three of....four. In the entire church. There were some older teenagers, but largely it was middle age and older (sometimes much older) Catholics in attendance. I was thinking, "Where are all the families?" only to realize a four hour ceremony in the middle of the day on a Tuesday may preclude fathers who are working or young mothers with young children who may not have survived it.
As the bishop addressed and thanked all the dignitaries and ecclesial members that came before him and who formed him as a priest, and spoke to the religious communities and laity of the diocese that he is to serve, and as I looked at row after row of priests, bishops, cardinals, etc. (whom I am grateful answered God's call to Holy Orders), it occurred to me that every last one of them came not from some spontaneous ecclesial progeneration, but from a family--a mom and a dad who were called to the married state. They not only gave these men life, but formed them in the faith so that they might respond to the call from Our Lord to be shepherds of, well, other families. From Our Lord Himself to St. Peter, the first pope, to the Apostles on down, it was the same story--they came from families. Families are the building blocks of societies.
I'm fond of the saying, "No Priests, No Church." But another saying also holds: "No Families, No Priests!" Families are the stock from which our Lord calls his priests out, to leave father and mother and forsake marriage and families (in most cases) to respond to his call and follow him.
When looking around the church at all these ecclesial V.I.P.'s, I caught myself from time to time during the ceremony thinking, "I'm just a husband and father, a layman." Of the hundreds of other people in the church among the laity, it was just me and another dad there with small kids (in his case, one son). Our priests are aging--so many elderly priests! Most Catholics parishes are aging as well, and not being infused with new life. But the hallmark of a traditional parish is just that--lots of lots of families, young families, with kids (sometimes lots of them!). Sometimes, often, they are also shepherded by young priests, with young seminarians stepping on deck. It's not a demographic cliff being rote, but a sign of hope and rebirth. And at the root of it is--you guessed it: the family.
Bishops don't exist in vacuums. They aren't formed in test tubes. They are born of families, they are formed by their fathers and mothers, and they also have to learn their jobs and how to pastor as well from their brother priests. There can be a symbiotic relationship I think between our celibate clergy and the families they serve when the families themselves live out their vocation as witnesses to the faith proper to their vocation, and the priests see it and are fortified in their own vocation when they know who it is they are serving and shepherding.
It's not an easy job to shepherd. Sheep are constantly straying, and you have to keep them in line with the firmness of a father who disciplines those he loves without being so heavy-handed that it borders on abuse. In a culture of relativism and lukewarmness and religious ignorance, it becomes even harder. I realize there are lousy bishops out there who do damage to the Church and her witness by their ecclesial malfeasance. But I also think there are good men just trying to do a hard job, and to do it for the Lord when there's often no instruction manual.
We don't expect them to be supermen, or solve all the local diocese's problems, or simply serve as the whipping boy or target for our angry letters (although that's how we treat them sometimes). We just want them to shepherd us as a spiritual father so that biological fathers like me can raise our own kids in the faith and live our vocation in marriage in a way that pleases God and serves the Church. That may mean more faithful families as offshoots of the family root (grandkids! great grandkids!), or it may mean supplying the Church with the men who go on to become seminarians, priests, bishops, cardinals, and even popes. To the degree we do that well, as fathers of our families, is the degree to which we re-infuse the Church with the faith, and supply the clergy from healthy spiritual stock for future generations. Let's be sure to remember to pray for our bishops, both the good ones and the bad ones.
No families, no priests. No priests, no bishops. No bishops, no Church. No Church, no hope!
