A long time ago, say 1963-64, many of us began to dream of a new understanding of Church. Bishops, Priests, theological writers, and yes, even laypeople engaged in the Church’s day to day activities at the Parish level, had a sense that something wonderful was happening in the Church and in our lives.  There was hope that new understandings were being offered that would bring about liberation, compassion and healing.  We had a loving, gentle, and honest spiritual leader in Pope John XXIII, and so many thoughtful writers and teachers were being heard, perhaps for the first time  by the average Catholic in the pews.  Vatican11 was taking place in Rome ? just imagine, some 2500 Cardinals, Bishops, Patriarchs, Heads of Orders, theologians and lay advisors from all over the world were meeting to bring the Church into the modern world.

Overtures were being made to peoples of other faiths, religions, and even those professing no faith or understanding of creation as we understood it to be.  For perhaps the first time we felt drawn to those of other Christian Faiths, the Jews, Muslims, Buddhists and others, whose beliefs were to be respected, even appreciated.

During the Fall of 1964, my wife and I were privileged to be invited to spend ten days in Rome, as tourists.  We had an opportunity to attend a couple of “Council Masses”, with all the Council Fathers present, and later to attend one or two de-briefings for the Press, at the end of a day’s Council business.  Of course, we were caught up in the atmosphere, feeling that we were witnesses to something significant and historical.  By then Paul V1 was the Pope when we attended an audience in St Peter’s Basilica, even having front row seats close to the Main Altar.  This was pretty exciting stuff for a young Catholic couple with several children at home, and another on the way.

Returning home to Canada, we continued to read; engaged in programs searching for reform, met with Protestant communities, visited Jewish Synagogues and spent time with people just out there in our town.  We appreciated Mass being said in the vernacular, and the Priest now facing the congregation.  More and wonderful things were on the horizon.  Perhaps Priests would be allowed to marry, and some of the wise and holy women would be ordained to the Priesthood or even become Bishops.  Why not?

About this time, the male dominated hierarchy, for the most part conservative by nature, began to exert it’s reactionary power.  To an outsider (layperson), it seemed that so many were trying to convince us that the Council had been an aberration (mistake), needing to be shut down or short-circuited as quickly as possible.  Many of our priest friends began to leave, mostly to marry, or just left to find their priestly (life’s) work elsewhere.  Some brave Bishops like Remi de Roo have continued to bear witness to what happened when the Holy Spirit was there blowing through the Council.  Unfortunately so many others have found it more convenient to remain in communion with their fellow Bishops and Cardinals who toe the line of conservative thought.  Why is it that serious, mature Bishops, to this day, continue to be intimidated from above, as they wring their hands about the lack of priests, while saying that they are not prepared to even discuss an optional celibacy allowing married clergy or to ordain women. Is it just denial or does this stem from a darker side of refusing to engage in the real dialogue of sexual dysfunction and gender bias within the Church?

My most serious concern is for my adult children and their children who have virtually no contact with the Catholic Church, nor do they seek their spiritual enlightenment in an institutional setting. We find that many of our friends who have come through the same life experience (Catholic schools, married early with lots of kids), in turn enrolling our own children in Catholic schools or Catholic Christian Doctrine courses have exactly the same results.  How many generations are we going to write off before stirring ourselves to make significant changes that will inspire our children and other unchurched  people to find God in their daily lives?  My tone may seem urgent but this lack of inertia has gone on far too long.

So where do we go from here?  Do people of Faith just sit back and wait for even graver loss of responsible leaders or do we look elsewhere among those already proven as Charismatic Leaders who no longer have the right to minister within the Church because of a discipline imposed from above.  Who is going to serve the faithful?

For my part, I do not want to leave the Church, but do have the responsibility of pursuing my own Spiritual Journey.  I want to belong to a community of faith reaching out to all, especially those denied a place at the table: the homeless, the poor, the recovering substance abuser, the imprisoned, and the ones we are most uncomfortable with.  I want to be at the table with those who feel they have no right to be there.  I want to take nourishment from all of the above, and to learn from their sorrow and loneliness.  I feel that this is where I will find the One who sat down with sinners and doubters like me.  I need a community that will help us to find the Kingdom of which He spoke so often.

Can the Catholic Church help us to reveal the Kingdom or must it go through a real Advent before finding it’s way?   Perhaps Corpus can be a witness, but it must not get caught up in endless debate in church protocol.  It must instead, do as Christ himself taught through his actions, just go and do it, no matter what the cost.

Who am I to talk of these matters?  What are my qualifications?  Not much.  Hey, I was never a priest, only a wayward altar boy, who became a caring husband, father, and adult Christian. 

Were we only dreaming, and is the search for the Kingdom only an illusion?

What is to be done? And what does a caring Christian do about a dysfunctional Church whose main concern seems to be in maintaining a previous status quo?  Where is the leadership within the Roman Catholic Church?  When has the Church engaged in matters that concern the average person of Faith?  The only initiatives that have come to light have been originated outside the control of the Roman Curia, and they are soon banned, hidden or discredited out of hand.  Those who have attempted to speak out on those old “chestnuts” i.e. Celibacy, Women’s ordination and responsible family planning have been threatened, silenced or excommunicated, often enough, later to find themselves reinstated, to the embarrassment of all concerned.

For me, the renewal will not come from within the Church, nor from its Hierarchy, but from writers, thinkers and theologians who have long since parted company with the Institutional Church.  Try looking for something to read that will point the way out of the present state of trauma.  You will most likely find it in the writings of resigned priests and teachers, theologians denied teaching privileges, or among the books written by philosophers, psychologists, Buddhists or other people of conviction, but almost never from within the authoritative Church.