There is a new breed of clergy, the parish mission priest. He goes from parish to parish, providing religious entertainment and more. He has little in common with the missionaries of old, who risked life and limb going to inhospitable places to spread the faith. They had no honorarium, no expense account, no transportation, and no place to stay. The parish mission priest is more like a traveling salesman; each one has something to sell on top of the honorarium and the travel reimbursement. Father welcomes them, oftentimes not even knowing what harebrained ideas they will teach to the flock. They walk the walk and they talk the talk and then they turn around and sow heresies among God’s people. Like the guy who thought us “centering prayer”* or the one who had the congregation praying “Our Mother who art in heaven”** for two days. Most of them are charismatic priests through the core; charismatic in a sense of having vibrant personalities and charismatic as in belonging to the Charismatic Renewal. I have yet to meet a mission priest with true orthodoxy. Who invites them anyways?
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*Centering Prayer
**God the Mother comes from pagan sources. The excuse the priest used to pray “Our Mother” was the male AND female aspects of God. Except that God is a spiritual being and not a hermaphrodite. Maleness and femaleness are both aspects of God; however God speaks of Himself in the male pronoun. Jesus Himself talked about God as his Father. So we refer to God as “he” because HE does it so; and to call him “Mother” would be like calling an earthly dad “mom”.
