Another Body-Blow to Priests?

Fr. Richard McBrien reviews problems with diocesan priests' pension plans, then opines on some essential reforms.

... the trend that the late Pope John Paul II put into high gear, namely, of appointing religious priests as diocesan bishops, needs to be reversed. Religious priests have a different vocation and different charisms from diocesan priests. Bishops need to be drawn once again almost exclusively from the diocesan clergy.

This trend accords with the practice in the Orthodox Church. You might wonder why their diocesan priests can live with it but Fr. McBrien thinks ours can't. It's because our diocesan priests are, in his judgment, tiny-minded men who cannot abide the opinions of anyone except other diocesan priests, or at least who dress like one.

And when bishops are appointed, by exception, from the ranks of religious communities, they need to see themselves thereafter as diocesan priests and should dress and act accordingly. Otherwise, diocesan priests will reject their proposed reforms as unreasonable and impractical.