It is Time To Close All the Seminaries - Part 2

Jesus Christ spent over three years with his apostles teaching them what it means to truly love and serve God and His people.  He taught them how to be evangelizers in the fullest sense of the word, not being afraid to get down in the dirt with people in order to lift them up.

Our Lord did this by walking and living among the people, going into their homes, going out among the outcasts, the lepers, the rejects of society.  He laughed with the people and He cried with them. He healed them and even brought them back from the dead.  Finally, He died for them.

But since the time of the Reformation, the Church has decided that the best way to prepare men for the priesthood, for a life of serving God and His Church, is by shutting them away in buildings, regimenting their lives, and teaching them history and philosophy.  Seminarians may occasionally venture out among the people, but it is only on the rare occasion.

To use the words of Pope Francis, our seminarians never get the smell of the sheep on them.

It Is Time To Close All the Seminaries

We are at a crisis point in the Church that rivals anything in our 2000 year history.  Yet another sex abuse report came out today, this one from Germany.

A study commissioned by the German Bishops Conference examined 3,677 cases of abuse allegedly perpetrated by clergy nationwide, German magazine Der Spiegel reported on Wednesday. The universities of Giessen, Heidelberg and Mannheim were involved in the research, which implicated 1,670 priests in sexual abuse spanning from 1946 to 2014.

This is a worldwide scandal in the Church.  It seems to be happening everywhere and has been for decades.  Most likely it has been happening much longer than that, but was much more easily covered up in the days before mass communication.

The question is, why is this happening?  What is the common denominator in these scandals?  What do all priests in the Catholic Church have in common?

They all went to seminary.

Can the Laity Save The Church? Or Will The Laity Destroy The Church?

Everything would have been so much easier if Jesus Christ had not given the Church to sinful human beings. I mean, c'mon Jesus! Peter was one of your weakest followers, always acting big and important, but betraying you and slinking away like the coward he was when you needed him most.

And yet Peter is the one upon whom you built your Church!

Jesus, what were you thinking?!

Why didn't you pick your sinless Mother to lead the Church? She would never steer us wrong. Or you could have even chose John, who unlike the others, at least stayed with you and your Mother through your crucifixion.

But no, you have to choose the very weakest to be our earthly leader. And then you actually command us to submit to his authority. In fact, you said that unless we submit to Peter's authority, we cannot belong to your Church.

But now things are really messed up, Jesus. The bishops, the ones we trusted the most, have completely betrayed us. They allowed wicked priests to literally prey upon the weakest and most innocent among us. These priests and bishops used the authority you gave them as a weapon against us.

Instead of looking out and protecting their flocks as a good shepherd does, they protected each other and threw the flock to the wolves. We can't trust these bishops anymore.  How can you possibly expect us to submit to their authority?

Where Peter Is, There Is The Church

Thoughtful men, with hearts craving the truth, have come to seek in the Catholic Church the road which leads with surety to eternal life. They have understood that they could not cleave to Jesus Christ as the Head of the Church if they did not belong to the Body of Jesus Christ which is the Church. Nor could they ever hope to possess in all its purity the faith of Jesus Christ if they were to reject its legitimate teaching authority entrusted to Peter and his successors.

Pope Leo XIII

The Catholic Church in the midst of a terrific spiritual war. This is a war started by those who believe that it is their duty to wrest the Church away from Pope Francis, the Vicar of Christ, whom they believe is trying to destroy the Church.

Those who are engaging in this war against Pope Francis will be the first to tell you that they are actually the most loyal of Catholics. In fact, they believe that they are probably the only true Catholics on earth. They are certainly more Catholic than Pope Francis, whom many of these "most loyal of Catholics" label as a heretic.

But what these saviors of the Church don't seem to realize is that if they succeed, they will actually destroy the papacy and the Church which they claim to love.