"Abolish the Priesthood," reads the provocative title of the latest Atlantic cover story, penned by James Carroll. Is it the Brahmin priesthood that has to go? The Shinto kannushi? Ordained Anglican women? (Spoiler alert: No, no, and no.) It is the Roman Catholic Church that must do the right thing and drop her connection with the whole priest business.
This is a puzzling imperative. One can understand a call to fill a need, to address a deficiency by supplying a want. But there are thousands upon thousands of priestless institutions already out there, from Camp Fire Girls to plumbers' unions to Kiwanis clubs; why should the Catholic Church add to their number? On this matter Carroll is as confused as we are. He can point to a diseased and depraved priesthood, but he has no awareness of its healthy state, no comprehension of its authentic purpose.
There is no possibility, as Carroll imagines, of treating the Catholic priesthood like the Beefeaters at the Tower of London, which might be reconfigured as ushers or guides or eliminated altogether, as the exigencies of the moment direct. The theologian Donald Keefe, S.J., put it this way, "It should be kept in mind that the Church has no authority over her sacraments: they cause her; she does not cause them." Abolish the priesthood and, by entailment, not only the sacraments but the Church herself pop like a soap-bubble and cease to exist.
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