LONG BEACH, Calif. (CNS) – The clergy sexual abuse scandal, diminishing numbers of priests and an overemphasis on professionalism may be coloring how the leaders of religious orders think about the priesthood, said a U.S. Redemptorist who has been named to a Vatican post overseeing religious life.
Archbishop-designate Joseph W. Tobin, recently appointed secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, made the remarks in a speech at the annual assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men.
He urged the religious order leaders Aug. 7 to ask God to "put his finger, the Holy Spirit, into our ears and on our tongue" to overcome the figurative deafness caused by such issues.
Citing the Gospel of Mark, Archbishop-designate Tobin compared the abuse crisis, the decline in vocations and the stress on professionalism to the drone of vuvuzelas -- long plastic horns which emit an ear-splitting sound when blown -- that often drowned out all other sounds during some games played during the World Cup soccer tournament in June.
Clergy sexual abuse has provoked repugnance throughout the church and has led some people to see religious leaders as hypocritical and arrogant, said the former Redemptorist superior general.
"The leadership of the institutes of consecrated life has paid a heavy toll in reacting to these scandals," he said, noting that many often talk of nothing else during visits to Rome.
Declining numbers and the increasing age of the priesthood, coupled with commitments to ministry to be maintained, also are a concern to leaders of religious orders, Archbishop-designate Tobin told the religious leaders.
"We religious have been 'hoodwinked into discouragement,'" the archbishop-designate said, recalling the 2006 address of Franciscan Father David Couturier to the major superiors on the status of religious life. "As a result the language of abundance that has traditionally characterized religious life has been replaced by a vocabulary and mode of thinking centered on diminishment."
He suggested that the decline in vocations could end if religious orders offered young men a "clear sense of mission in community while respecting their religious needs, instead of seeking to make them clones of ourselves."
Overemphasizing professionalism, the third factor affecting thinking about the priesthood, comes at the expense of mystical thinking about the future of priestly ministry, he said.
"There is an undeniable, and in my opinion, entirely appropriate value attached to some values of professionalism in consecrated life," he said, citing the need for the intellectual formation of priests and the use of management and organizational strategies in planning and evaluation.
However, he continued, "the problem is when consecrated life is reduced to professionalism, no longer witnessing clearly to ... the folly of the cross."
Archbishop-designate Tobin suggested that the priests recall the healing of the deaf man in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The story, which also was the assembly's focus, placed Jesus in what he called a "religious and social no-man's land, a place where pious Jews would not be comfortable.
"I am convinced that God is calling the consecrated to witness to God and God's kingdom in a similar 'place' today," he said.
"The 'place' for consecrated people today is the space where people are excluded from their full dignity as sons and daughters of God, redeemed by Jesus Christ and sanctified by the Holy Spirit," Archbishop-designate Tobin said.
He called upon the religious leaders to seek assistance from God through the Holy Spirit.
"We must ask ourselves whether we have been deafened by certain master narratives, vuvuzelas, that are particularly forceful because they convey true elements but, if we are to be faithful, can never be allowed to have the final word."
