Catholic priests have been much in the news this last week. On Friday, Paul Collins discussed a study of parish life in Australia. And there has been much discussion of a new book by Chris McGillion and John O'Carroll on Catholic priests working in parishes.
The discussion of Our Fathers has been colourful. It has retailed pithy quotes from priests interviewed in the book, and highlighted disagreement with church positions, and critical judgments of Roman and episcopal authority. The book and the criticism made of it deserve reflection.
Media coverage of the Catholic Church usually assumes that it is a homogeneous and disciplined body with bishops, priests and laity walking in step with the Pope, and that its uniformity derives from fear of authority. From this perspective the difference of views and plain speaking among Catholics will always be presented like rebellious voices in a strict school, with unspoken anticipation about how the headmaster will deal with the situation.
This way of telling the story is unreal. Priests are more like franchisees than employees. They identify with their parish and are fairly independent in building it up. Like franchisees most have been ready to criticise any authority above them, and always ready to grumble. This need not amount to disaffection.
In this survey the level of dissatisfaction is about what I would have expected. It reflects the tumultuous times priests have lived through, when as a group they have gone from being highly to lowly esteemed, when the church they serve has diminished and aged, and when their own workload has increased with age.
The attitudes to moral issues and to doctrine described in this book are also much as I would have expected, especially given the ambiguity of the statements to which the priests were expected to respond. Most priests learn to use words carefully when dealing with questions about contentious issues of faith and morals.
In the survey, for example, they were offered the options to agree, disagree or be undecided in responding to the statement 'it is always a sin for unmarried people to have sex'. This statement could be understood in two different ways. It might be taken to mean that it is never objectively morally justifiable for unmarried people to have sex. Or it could mean that unmarried people always commit a sin when they have sex (including, presumably, if they are sleep walking, are ignorant that what they are doing