The Art of Sacramental Multitasking.
I admit that sometimes I think a few past popes and their consigliaries must have had ADD. That's attention deficit disorder, formerly known as hyperactivity or other generic learning disabilities. That is the charitable explanation for what has evolved.
They don't do sacramental multi-tasking very well. Everything seems to have a pre-written script and you are not allowed to read outside the lines. Even the litany of Saints during a eucharistic consecration doesn't get recited out of order. I am incredibly impressed by the priests who have memorized all the names in order. (who even heard of Cornelius) They should be actors (some are without trying) because memorization skills like that are at the core of acting. They could make a fortune.
As a lector I had to learn a fair bit of foot-blocking. I had to know precisely when during the mass I approached the Ambo lecturn and precisely when to sit down, kneel down and pass the peace. I had to know when to lead the congregation in precise words of "Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world have mercy on us" at the precise moment that the host was cracked by the priest. There was no deviation allowed.
This ADD or lack of sacramental multitasking appears to be at the root of the inability to piece together what are essentially now defined as two sacraments: that of vocational marriage and that of vocational priest. They have been defined to be mutually exclusive. Because that's how they have been defined. No particular reason for this doctrinal incompatibility. There is nothing intrinsic in natural law or otherwise making it thus except that some persons who are not marriage material find that they can be priests without having to deal with the annoyances of married life.
I am a lawyer and also a singer and also a gourmetish cook. Some days I am also inclined to fool around in watercolors and like to ski. Some of those are states of being, some are activities. "Lawyer" is a 'vocation' because it requires skill, training, higher education, passing exams and getting admitted to the Bar. "Priest" entailed skill, training, higher education, passing exams and getting admitted to the priesthood. Presumably a priest can also cook, sing (some are great singers) and JPII liked to ski. He was also an actor in his youth. States of being and vocation can co-exist peacefully.
Devotion to one's own intimate family and that of a parish are not mutually exclusive and the multitask and emotional adjustment has been made by most all the protestant world ministers who do essentially exactly the same things a priest does. Many protestant denominations believe that they have a transubstantiated eucharist they are distributing also.
That is why, on top of the fictitious historical devolution of the practices, I just don't buy the church's position on mutual exclusivity of marriage and priesthood. I think that the more talented of them would, could and should figure out how to multitask and further that these would be the most loving and talented people who could offer a world of experience that enriched the teaching. The church has crippled itself in my view- and done mental health harm by this enforced disability. They now need an ADA accommodation.
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