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Priesthood Generation Gap? By Msgr. George G. Higgins The Yard Stick September 25, 2000  The Sept. 10 New York Times featured a front-page article by Diana Jean Schemo titled "Priests of the '60s Fear Loss of Their Legacy." The article profiled several New-York-area priests who were moved by Vatican Council II to play a cutting-edge role in various types of social action and social reform. Today, however, as they prepare for retirement, they fear replacement by a generation that does not seem to share their values.  The younger, more conservative generation, the Times article said, is "more interested in sacramental matters and issues of faith, and less moved by secular calls for social justice."  I think the Times article accurately reflects a widespread feeling of unease and concern about what appears to be a developing split between many younger more conservative priests and many of their more socially active elders. Although I thought Schemos' article well done, I would have preferred a more nuanced wording of the following quote: "The younger conservative generation is more interested in sacramental matters and issues of faith and less moved by secular calls for social justice." That could leave the impression that the older priests were moved mainly by "secular" calls for social justice. Not so. As men of faith they were moved by religious, not secular, calls for social justice.In fairness to Schemo, I should note that she makes this clear by emphasizing that the priests profiled in her article were moved by Gospel values as interpreted through the prism of the Vatican II documents.  The more troubling theological issue here is that some of the younger priests appear to be making what I consider a false distinction between a priest's sacramental ministry and social ministry. For some this takes the form of saying that the new evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II should be almost exclusively "spiritual." That's a seductive half-truth.  The priest's role in addressing social and economic problems is admittedly complex and leaves ample room for honest differences of opinion about who speaks for the church, under what rubric and so on. But to state simplistically that the church's evangelization should be almost exclusively "spiritual" finds no support in the entire corpus of Catholic social teaching, from "Rerum Novarum" (1891) to Vatican Council II, and, more recently, John Paul II's encyclical "Centesimus Annus." This encyclical accents the new evangelization's need to proclaim the church's social teaching and says this teaching "is itself a valid instrument for evangelization."  Because some of the more conservative priests of the present generation make a point of emphasizing their devotion and loyalty to John Paul II, I think they owe it to the pope to quote him in full context. We are told by Schemo that some of the older socially active priests "move with self-doubt and a measure of disillusionment" because their social values no longer resonate strongly among many younger priests. But these older priests have good reason to be proud of what they have done to effect the changes described movingly in the following prayer, "Concern for the Poor," which I came across recently in a book by a Spanish Jesuit stationed in India:  "Thank you, Lord, for ... having shaken us out of our complacency with existing orders, out of acquiescence in inequality and temporizing with exploitation. Thank you for the new light and the courage that have surged through your church today to denounce poverty and to right oppression. Thank you for the church of the poor."  This is the lasting legacy of the priests profiled by Schemo in her New York Times article.   Papal Social Encyclicals   Other Catholic Social Teachings General Articles of Interest  Catholic Worker Connection Msgr. George Higgins  Home Page E-Mail: Fr. Sinclair Oubre