For the seminary professor, disunity is a debilitating problem, the biggest crisis facing priests and candidates for the priesthood. Part of it concerns the impossible task of being servant-leader of a deeply divided community. Conservative Catholics often complain that certain topics contraception, for instance are almost never treated in homilies today. One reason is the priests awareness that preaching about neuralgic matters would further divide their fractured congregations. But of course the other side of the coin the priests themselves are divided.
Priests are in conflict over things they think are essential, the seminary professor says.
They know this, the bishop knows it, but it isn t confronted it s just there. You re required to cooperate with people you fundamentally disagree with, and there s no light at the end of the tunnel. There are all kinds of tensions and conflicts, but the situation must be treated with a smile as if it didn t exist. It s an awful strain to pretend there isn t an elephant in the living room when there is. This situation of conflict, between the solidarity required to be good priests and the situation of institutionalized dissent now existing in the Church, worries a lot of seminarians.