"It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream. Not that I question the reality of my vocation, or of my monastic life: but the conception of separation from the world that we have in the monastery too easily presents itself as a complete illusion: the illusion that by making vows we become a different species of being, pseudo-angels, spiritual men, men of interior life, what have you.
Certainly these traditional values are very real, but their reality is not of an order outside everyday existence in a contingent world, nor does it entitle one to despise the secular: though out of the world, we are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest." - Thomas Merton
When you tell a person you were or were almost a priest, they look at you differently. It does not matter if they are Catholic or not. There is something about the concept that causes them perceive you in a way differently from that moment on.
That's the culture of Catholicism and its effect into the world. That's the mentality at ordination - separated, called, set apart. As much as Catholics may like to believe, the lifestyle of priest radically sets themselves apart and their formation is driven for that purpose.
That is why I now realize why so many want married priests. They want them to fall down from their high towers of security and experience the hell of living in the real world. And no, priests don't live in the real world. They just walk within it unaware of the dangers and perils that ordinary people face.
Priests pray over dead kids, but they never have any. Priests worry about budgets but never worry about what will happen to them. They seek the security of the cloth over the hair shirt of the world.
Certainly these traditional values are very real, but their reality is not of an order outside everyday existence in a contingent world, nor does it entitle one to despise the secular: though out of the world, we are in the same world as everybody else, the world of the bomb, the world of race hatred, the world of technology, the world of mass media, big business, revolution, and all the rest." - Thomas Merton
When you tell a person you were or were almost a priest, they look at you differently. It does not matter if they are Catholic or not. There is something about the concept that causes them perceive you in a way differently from that moment on.
That's the culture of Catholicism and its effect into the world. That's the mentality at ordination - separated, called, set apart. As much as Catholics may like to believe, the lifestyle of priest radically sets themselves apart and their formation is driven for that purpose.
That is why I now realize why so many want married priests. They want them to fall down from their high towers of security and experience the hell of living in the real world. And no, priests don't live in the real world. They just walk within it unaware of the dangers and perils that ordinary people face.
Priests pray over dead kids, but they never have any. Priests worry about budgets but never worry about what will happen to them. They seek the security of the cloth over the hair shirt of the world.