Does the Amazon, Does the World Need More Priests? Married Priests?

I think NOT! It is not about numbers: I would rather encounter one holy priest...radiant with love, humility, sanctity...once yearly, than encounter half a dozen mediocre priests daily. What we do need, desperately, is two realities: the Eucharistic presence of Christ and the Word of God.

The Eucharist is sum and summit of Catholic life; but I am going to say something to upset our liturgists. Even more than the celebration of the mass, I am personally consoled by the abiding presence of our Eucharistic Christ in the tabernacles of the world. It is the permanency, the reliability, the constancy that I cherish! Let's be honest: daily mass is over in 28 minutes; Sunday mass in 58 minutes. Most of the time my own mind is wandering. Even when I focus on the paschal mystery being enacted my intellect and emotions remain dull and not equal to the event. But I take great consolation that Jesus abides in our midst twenty-four seven, every day of the year except for late Good Friday through Holy Saturday. He is with us: As we scurry about on a million errands, He is there! When we sleep, He is there! When we wander into sin, He is there! Always present to us! Always waiting on us! Always patient and available and merciful!

Let's play overrated/underrated! What is, absolutely, the MOST UNDERRATED reality in the history of our cosmos? No-brainer! The Eucharistic Presence! Christ present is the most wonderful thing imaginable, and yet He is almost entirely ignored. That indifference and neglect extends also to liturgical fashion after Vatican II in that it emphasized the liturgy as banquet and experience and downplayed the abiding physical presence of our Lord in the tabernacle.

The first thing the Amazon and the entire world needs is a craving for and delight in our Lord's physical presence. I imagine a remote village in the jungle that sees a priest once a year. They await him eagerly with joyous anticipation: it is the highlight of the year! Throughout the year, however, they find time to abide with the Eucharist, in silent adoration as well as shared prayer including communion services. Every month a group does pilgrimage to where the priest is to confess, celebrate Eucharist, receive instruction and encouragement, and return with the Body of our Lord for reception at regular gatherings. The theologically correct criticism of this approach is that it seems to minimize or marginalize the actual event-encounter celebration of the Eucharist. Fair point. We need balance here! My hope, however, is that the silent adoration and the deprivation of the actual celebration will feed a hunger and eventually an increase in genuine priestly vocations. In this way the Church grows in Eucharist adoration and craving.

The second, absolute necessity is the Word of God. In this we do well to emulate our Pentecostal brothers and sisters. In the Amazon area and throughout Latin America there is concern about the exodus of Catholic into Pentecostal churches. I do not share this concern: I greet it happily. For the most part, those "converting" are coming closer to Christ in a fervent act of surrender, an intenser form of ecclesial communion, and a devotion to the Word of God. Pentecostalism is spreading like a forest fire...and without eco-conversion, without liberation theology, without married priests, without pagan syncretism. They are spreading because they love Christ, live in close communion, and listen to the Word of God. They should be our best friends and role models. In a Church with fewer priests I imagine an emergent laity, a la Pentecostalism, on fire with the Word of God...let thousands of Scott Hahns flourish!

The two paths of renewal suggested here are quite different: the first, a revival of late-Tridentine love for the abiding Eucharistic presence; the second a radical ecumenical communion with the fiery Pentecostal movement. Both, however, center in the person of Jesus Christ, in sacrament and word. The Church need not moan and groan about numbers of clergy; She needs to delight in her Lord in His physical presence and in His Word!