ARTICLES

Priests Read

AGAINST A BLURRED IMAGE

When we approach our priests to ask about liturgy, dogma or morality, we often get a different answer depending on who we talk to. In San Diego, a group of eight priests are working to change this through a study group known as the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy.

Members currently include Father Richard Perozich, pastor of Our Lady of the Sacred Heart in City Heights; Father Bill Lawson, pastor of St. Anthony's, National City; Father Bill Kernan, pastor of St. Stephen's, Valley Center; Father Michael Tran, from St. Rose of Lima in Chula Vista; Father Bert Boudoin of St. Mark's, San Marcos; Father Harry Neeley, Augustinian Latin teacher from St. Augustine High School, and two retired priests, Father Jim Boyd and Father Vince Lorenz. They meet once a month.

According to local coordinator, Father Perozich, "We gather for some general chitchat and conversation and then we pick some document that the church has issued...." Usually one priest prepares a presentation for the others each month on a rotating basis.

Father Perozich: "We've done several [documents] from Bishop Brom, because he's passed on to us a very good article regarding the sacrament of Reconciliation, very good guidlelines on the placement of the tabernacle, and he passed out some superb guidelines on ministry to persons with homosexual inclinations. We've also studied Fides et Ratio , certain instructions regarding the laity's collaboration with the sacred ministry of priests, and several things on ecumenism."

Begun by a priest in Chicago in the 1970s, the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy was started in San Diego by Father Perozich in 1998. He had been attending meetings in Los Angeles, but the distance and the needs of his fellow priests here inspired him.

"The demands of parish life are a lot. With all the people knocking at the door, all the things we have to do and structure and everything else, reading gets put down at the bottom of the list, unless you're really an intellectual person."

After a synod of European bishops this year, Dario Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, prefect of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, said, "At the end of the millenium there is evidence of a loss of identity, as though the Church is turning a blind eye to the blurring of her image in order to enter a pluralist, secular, individualist and autonomous culture known as 'overdue modernity'." His solution: a world with priests who are truly "men of God". Father Perozich agrees: "There has been a 'dumbing down' of the priesthood, in my opinion, that we are just one voice among many. Particularly by some church ministers whose idea of collaboration is 'one person, one vote.' Priests are sometimes not given the respect of their priesthood. Some people in our chancery office call us priests by our first names even when they are not personal, long-time friends. While this is not an offense, it is a familiarity that does by its very nature fail to recognize the difference between priesthood and laity. If they are calling Bishop Brom 'Bobby', then I can understand their familiarity with priests. But if not, then the fact that we are different, that we are the collaborators with the bishop in the presbyterium, needs to be recognized. I use this only as an example to show that the priesthood may not be receiving the recognition natural to it."