Research captures a fractured, distrustful priesthood in America

[Michie]

NEW YORK – When asked to sum up the state of the American priesthood, Catholic University of America sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan describes it as “fractured,” in that individually priests are doing well, but their assessment of the institutional Church “is not very good.”

What’s more, research conducted by Vaidyanathan and others has found that not only is there a striking deficit in the trust priests feel in their bishop, but there’s also a significant generational mistrust priests have in each other that relates to differing theological and political alignments.

There’s a mutual distrust of each other that is driven by political differences, and so young priests view older priests with suspicion and vice versa,” Vaidyanathan told Crux. “The younger priests are more conservative, and don’t see the older priests as sort of a part of the same program.”

The insight became apparent to Vaidyanathan and other researchers in an analysis of data compiled for “The National Survey of Catholic Priests,” which was published in October 2022 by CUA’s Catholic Project. The survey, the largest of American Catholic priests in over 50 years, got responses from 3,516 priests across 191 dioceses/eparchies.

Continued below.

Research captures a fractured, distrustful priesthood in America

When asked to sum-up the state of the American presbyterate, Catholic University of America sociologist Brandon Vaidyanathan described it as “fractured.”

cruxnow.com

 

[RileyG]

Most priests are good, holy men. It's unfortunate people think otherwise.

 

[Bob Crowley]

So what's new in church circles?

My old Presbyterian pastor had originallly been Methodist. When the Uniting Church formed in Australia in 1977, it was a combination of Methodist, Congregationalist and some Presbyterian Churches. The Methodists and Congregationalists went in holus bolus whereas the Presbyterians voted parish by parish. Some joined, some didn't.

So my old pastor had to become Uniting as he'd been Methodist. I was curious as to why he left and became Presbyterian, so one day I asked him.

He didn't say much about it but one comment he made was that the Uniting Church seemed to play politics with their pastors. They'd put a left wing and right wing pastor in the same parish for example. He was right wing.

Whatever other reasons he had he left and joined the Presbyterians. I don't think he was all that impressed later with the Presbyterians and he used to be somewhat scathing about "Assembly" in his later years.

He couldn't have been Presbyterian all that long before I became Christian in late 1982, as the Uniting Church formed in 1977 and that was only five years before. I think it might have been around 1979 when he made the transition. I know he lost a lot of superannuation as it wasn't portable back then - if you left you lost it - so it would not have been an easy decision.

Fortunately for me the Presbyterians put him in charge of the parish that I was "directed" to so if he hadn't become Uniting and left, then quite possibly we would never have met.

But politics in clerical circles? So what's new?