Potato Sack Bishops Form Potato Sack Priests

For the rebellious 68er old progressivists, who have the say in today's
modern Church, the potato sack bishop is no danger. On the contrary he serves
as welcome cover.

(Berlin / Vienna / Bern) It is now nearly twelve years since Don Reto Nay, priest of the diocese of Chur in Switzerland, the spiritual father of Kath.net (1999) and Gloria.tv (2006), wrote the essay "St. Pölten is Lays Between Linz and Vienna ". In it he dealt in a section with priestly vocations, seminarians and bishops. His thoughts were related in a special way to the situation of the Catholic Church in the German language. They have lost none of their relevance. The title for the section  was chosen by the editors.

Potato sack bishops produce potato sack-priest

by Don Reto Nay

A bishop who wants to serve real peace, must take care of  order first. How will  notice whether or not he has put his diocesan house in order? It is in Matthew: if the fruits are fine.

And the first and best fruits of a diocese are their seminarians. Therefore, one needs to see when a bishop is good, not to listen to his sermons - paper is patient. You have to take a look into the seminary and consider the seminarians. A tree is recognized by its fruits, so you recognize the Bishop in the seminarians that he has or has not.

Earlier, this may still have been different: But today a young person will only see the diocesan bishop probably twice before choosing a diocese: Election Day is payday here. Of  the old Catholic parties there was a saying that they have a potato sack they can nominate and that this would have been elected without any problems. It remains to be seen whether this would be different today, not only in the Catholic parties. But one thing is certain. In the church, the potato sack policy no longer works. No sensible young person nowadays promises his life to a potato sack in his hands. If a seminarian does anyway, you will need to ask yourself, are there unhealthy motives.

The tragedy is that the potato sack bishop in the Church today is for a long time not a discontinued model, but is considered by those in charge as really a Godsend. It is popular because he stays put in one  and then is no longer to be stirred. It is breathed  that be brings no "unrest" in his immobility - sin of sins transgressing that which is owed to the times - in the diocese. One reason is that he has the press on his side. These praise the potato sack as the father of peace. The fact that Christ came to earth in order to be a sign of contradiction, to bring the peace of God - not of this world -  remains an exegetical detail. In everyday pastoral, one follows another, slightly different Bible verse:  I came to cast tire extinguishers on  the earth.

Why are potato sacks popular with the press? Because they do not go to war. When the wolf breaks into the herd, they will not sound the alarm to produce any unnecessary anxiety. The main thing, the wolf does depend on  his business not being declared from the rooftops. What I do not know will not hurt me. For the rebellious 68er old progressives who have a say in the Church  today, the potato sack Bishop is no danger. On the contrary, he serves as a welcome cover. For a potato sack suppresses only those who have the misfortune to be under him: the obedient.

Only one thing a potato sack bishop lacks: seminarians.

No one will sell his birthright for a dish of potatos. The price to become a priest is high, much higher than for any other profession. A pious, generous and intelligent young man will gladly pay the price for the pearl of the priesthood. But will he be smart enough to distinguish a sham from the original. Here the problem starts. The potato sack-Bishop is a sham, and he represents a fake packaged priestly formation and fake packaged priesthood.

What is to be thought  of a young man, who is resigned to five years of  priestly formation at kindergarten level, five years without complaint to being occupied with theological chat rooms, for whose examination it is sufficient that spend the night before studying in advance, and then voluntarily into a disappearing and wind addicted pastoral  where every smallest renewal attempt is a serious crime, through which one gets into the deadly reputation of being a "conservative"?

Nobody would have ever known the names of St. Dominic, St. Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer or Saint Teresa of Avila today, had these saints then embarked on such a puppet show. St. John Vianney  struggled in his priestly formation even with the Latin language. What hurdles await the modern seminarist, except that it is more difficult from year to year, to get up in the morning? Potato sack bishops produce potato sack priests. But that seems to escape everyone's notice: the main thingis that the sacrosanct peace is not disturbed. This has the disadvantage that no young person who has his mind still halfway together, may reasonably bring himself to take something like this up. A generous intelligent young man rightly expects an intelligent and challenging training and a job that is more than a sandbox game. Of reputable deals in the private sector there are enough!  Would the latter nowadays  operate in the style of our dioceses and parishes, we would have long ago become the grass skirt wearing residents of third world countries.

Don Reto Nay: St. Pölten is Between Linz and Wien, Theologisches, Vol 34, No. 8, August 2004, Sp 463f.

Image: Sant'Alessandro (Screenshot)

Trans: Tancred vekron99@hotmail.com

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