Ending Sabbatical

I have been on formal sabbatical from my priesthood since September of last year. And it is finally time to come home.

I felt so much stress from so many areas; work, my mom’s health, my familial relationships, the continuing pandemic, dropping out of chaplaincy courses, my own personal feelings of unworthiness toward my ministerial vocation. One day where I was feeling particularly desperate (a very poor state in which to be making major decisions), I simply texted my bishop, told him my troubles, and asked for sabbatical status. I think it took him by surprise, but honoring my decision, he gave the go-ahead. My family was as surprised as the church.

I entered a time of relative isolation, made easier by the pandemic to be sure and punctuated by my time quarantining with Covid.

I spoke to God.

I spoke to my ancestors.

I cried – a lot.

Finally, mindlessly scrolling through Twitter (ugh I wish I could remember the account) I saw a quote that made me sit up in bed and take notice. I had seen other quotes – hell, hundreds – like it. But this tweet and this particular time snapped me out of my slumber:

“One does not need to be worthy. One only needs to be willing.”

OK. That is something I could build on.

Whether I am a priest or a minister or whatever I am calling myself this week, I can be willing to go where I am led. I know God’s voice in contrast to my own. My feelings of vocational unworthiness can be ignored if I trust in where I am being led and by whom. And I do.

Calling up my bishop and telling him my good news was a bit humbling as well; he directed me to contact each of our church’s clergy and discuss my sabbatical and my experiences with them. While I was wondering why, he read my mind and said, “We are church, Tom. We are community. We get through our joys and trials together. Depend on us, just as we will depend on you.”

Community. Church. Together.

I am in the midst of said calls, and my fellow clergy have been nothing but loving, supportive and welcoming. So much so that I am forced to wonder if wrestling with my angels alone during sabbatical would have even been necessary had I bothered to ”tag” one of our community into the Battle Royale of religious life!

I love the Latin Mass ... and it needs to go

I love the Latin Mass. And it’s better for the Roman Catholic Church that it goes away.

Coming from a non-Roman Catholic priest, this opinion does not really carry much weight, I get that. But after reading through Pope Francis’s Traditionis Custodes which limits the celebration of the Tridentine Mass in the Roman church and his reasoning for it, I thought I would share a few thoughts anyway.

As the blog title suggests, I LOVE the Latin Mass. I have only attended one in my life, but it simply knocked me down with the beauty and reverence. The profound recognition of what was being celebrated and why. The Latin, while I did not understand it, added a mystical quality to the celebration that one seldom finds during Mass in the vernacular. Receiving Communion on the tongue whilst kneeling at the altar rail, a paten under my chin “lest He strike His foot against a stone”, was nothing short of moving.

With all of that said; somehow, some way, the major advocates of the Latin Mass are some of the cruelest, most exclusionary people I have ever had the misfortune to meet, read, and listen to. When Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI liberalized the use of the Latin Mass in Ecclesia Dei and Summorum Pontificum respectively, the idea was to bring the Body of Christ closer together by “giving the people what they want”. Those preferring the vernacular would continue to do so, and those attached to the Latin Mass would have the opportunity to celebrate Mass in their preferred fashion as well.

That’s not what happened unfortunately. The Latin Mass advocates have sneered at the vast majority of the Church celebratingMass in the vernacular/Ordinary form as being nothing more than Protestant. Ironically they protest louder and louder about the invalidity of the Second Vatican Council, emboldened by their newfound freedom. They, lay and clergy alike, wall themselves off in rapidly multiplying Latin Mass societies and began/continued celebrating the old rite exclusively rather than in tandem with the Ordinary Form. Many who had been critical of the Vatican in the past are now louder and openly hostile to it, especially after the less liturgically/more pastorally minded Francis was elected Pope. The traditionalists find more common ground with schismatic groups like The Society of St. Pius X than with the Vatican. 

It simply had the opposite of the intended effect. Instead of closing the gaps, they have widened into chasms.

The backlash from Traditionis Custodes has been harsh from those you’d expect (Cardinal Raymond Burke, Church Militant, Una Voce, etc.). The true fallout remains to be seen.

I will be sad to see the Latin Mass fade away; it is indeed beautiful liturgy. But beauty is not a good enough reason to sustain it. The Church is fractured enough without the Vatican giving further ammunition to those who prefer to isolate and treat others with arrogance and contempt. Instead of embracing others with love.