When the Smoke Clears
I caught RTE’s spiritual documentary series Would You Believe last night after er.
It focused on a group of seminarians at Maynooth College and their reaction to the new Pope. It was most interesting to see such divergence of opinion from even this small group of trainee priests. What surprised me most was that the younger men’s attitudes were generally much more conservative than the older members.
A couple in particular took a very hard line on contraception which shocked me. Unfortunately, they were not asked about the AIDs crisis in Africa. It would have been interesting to hear them justify their line in that instance. Even over the course of this half hour programme, a few trotted out the same lines again and again in response to each question. As if they could just list the justification for their convictions in one way. One of the older trainees was very liberal, although perhaps this is to be expected from someone who has been around the block and lived enough to realise that life is seldom black and white.
There was also a cautionary tale for students heading off on their travels for the summer. One carefree lad headed off interrailing in the summer of 2002. By chance, his visit to Krakow coincided with that of Pope John Paul II. One distant wave from him was all it took and on his return he suddenly wanted to become a priest - watch out kids 
April 25th, 2005 at 10:55 am
Or possibly the reason the younger ones were so conservative is tht only conservtive minded people are that into religion that they wanna be priests?
April 28th, 2005 at 1:18 pm
Though I’m not religious myself I work as a volunteer for a religious run charity. The religious who work there are in their 50’s and 60’s, and in no way are they conservative. Indeed I have found them to be quite radical in their social,economic and religious ideas. This I feel is as a result of Vatican II. In contrast the reason why so many of the younger religious are consevative is that they follow the teaching of John Paul II, who was a conservative teacher.
April 29th, 2005 at 2:33 pm
Yes, John Paull II inspired these young men, so it’s no surprise if they’re in broad agreement with him. I heard Cardinal Pell of Sydney on television a couple of weeks ago make the same point. The younger priests do not want a married clergy or any relaxation of the disciplines, let alone changes to fundamental teachings and/or doctrine.
May 1st, 2005 at 1:28 pm
interesting feedback guys - what you say certainly makes sense. i still can’t get over how conservative such yound minds can be …