For fifty years, the American Church has been steadily losing communicants. We had already lost Europe. Now we’ve even lost Ireland. Will our leaders now recognize that we need deep pastoral reform and that our dedicated, self-sacrificing priests deserve much better pastoral formation? The hierarchy owes that to priests and to the laity. The Joyful Shepherd Retreat is designed to meet that need.
Much of priest’s difficulty in ministry comes from the fact that the pastoral formation they receive has not adapted to the challenges of a post-Christian society. Each Catholic must respond to the Holy Spirit personally. But the Church must teach Catholics what we need to know and do to respond, exhort and encourage us to do so, and foster environments that support our response. Since Trent, seminary pastoral formation has assumed that our main threat is Protestantism. In the technologically advanced world, however, secularism has replaced Protestantism as our main threat. Previously, almost all of society believed, at least, that Jesus spoke for God, even when it didn’t live up to that belief. The central question was: What is the correct interpretation of Jesus’ teaching?
To counter Protestantism, the Church’s formation of pastors needed to put emphasis on truths distinctive to Catholic (and Orthodox) doctrine. That succeeded in maintaining the Church, though not in spreading the faith, because pastoring could take for granted things that are no longer true: (1) The family could lay the foundation of faith without secularism invading the home itself via electronic media. (2) Outside the home, belief in the most foundational truths, like the existence of God, the Trinity, sin, the Incarnation, the Atonement and the Resurrection, would be supported, and not undermined, by most of society; now they are under almost constant attack.
This retreat seeks renewal in priest’s spirits and struggle with secularism through the clarity of Vatican II’s under appreciated “Hierarchy of Christian Truths.” Seeing how some important truths are based on and need illumination by others shows how pastoring should adapt now that we cannot take its foundations for granted. “A catechesis that neglects this interrelation and harmony of its content can become entirely useless for achieving its end” (Congregation for the Clergy, General Catechetical Directory, 1971, 39). And “What unites Catholic and nonCatholic Christians is greater than what divides us” (St. John XXIII, Ut Unum Sint, 20); “How little divides Catholic and non-Catholic Christians in comparison to what unites them” (St. John Paul II, ibid., 22). For historical reasons that are no one’s fault, the formation of pastors has not reflected the Church’s Hierarchy of Christian Truths as well as it needs to today.
Priests who have made this retreat found new power and joy in their ministry. The retreat has been offered by the Archdiocese of Boston and the Diocese of Pittsburgh as fulfilling priest’s canonical obligation for a yearly retreat. No future retreats are currently scheduled because the retreat team, composed mainly of retired older priests, deacons and laity, soon realized two things: First, as they have aged the energy they need for this project has declined.
But second, and more important, if the pastoral reform of the western Church had to wait until they could give the retreat to enough priests, that reform could come too late to prevent what has already happened in Europe and Ireland from happening in the rest of post-Christian society. So the purpose of this web site has changed from announcing future retreats to making the retreat’s diagnosis of and recommendations for the pastoral reform we need available to all.
The page titled The Retreat’s Premise contains a one-page analysis both of how we came to be in this pastoral crisis and of why it is nobody’s fault, especially not the fault of our excellent priests and seminary officials. The page titled Retreat Outlines provides a detailed outline and commentary for each talk on the retreat. Soon that page will include videos of the retreat talks.
Also soon to be on that page is the “Introduction to the Outlines,” an important document that all who are concerned about pastoral reform should read. Among other things, it points out two demonstrable misconceptions concerning Vatican II that have profound pastoral implications. One concerns Vatican II’s statements that the Eucharist is the source and summit of the “Church’s life” and of the “Christian life,” the other its teaching that priests act in persona Christi. Unless those misinterpretations are corrected all other reforms to pastoral training will be severely weakened.
The page titled Theological Background contains the manuscript of a book from which much of the material on the retreat comes. The page titled Short Study Guide contains the text of a booklet that presents many of the retreat’s main ideas in a format suitable for discussion groups. Soon that page will also contain a compilation of all the supporting statements from Scripture and the Magisterium cited in the booklet.
Permission is granted to copy and use any of this material free of charge. Some may want to put on their own retreat using all or some of this material. If so, we ask you, as a courtesy to your brothers in Christ who designed the retreat, not to do so without first reading the “Introduction to the Outlines.” We also ask you to inform us of any changes you make to the outlines. First, you could easily have better ideas than we do; informing us of them could benefit other readers of this web site. Second, depending on the changes you make, we might ask you not to use the name “Joyful Shepherd Retreat,” if that could cause confusion in people’s minds concerning the original intentions of this retreat.
(Co-founded by Fr. John Randall of Providence, RI)
Comments and questions are welcome. Contact
John C. Cahalan, Ph.D.
cahalanj@comcast.net
978-683-3041
23 Pilgrim Circle, #E
Methuen, MA 01844
USA