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Any other Catholics who remember Andrew Greely?

pearl

Well-Known Member
I remember him fondly, use to love to read his columns he wrote for the 'Chicago Sun'. He would be laughed at by serious scholars and ignored or considered a heretic by more traditional Catholics. I've read only two of his small 'pocket' books, 'The Saini Myth' and 'The Jesus Myth'. Most of his columns were available on line, that is until he died, after which of course only available on Amazon and the like. Anyway, came across this article and
found it interesting.
Another reason for my attraction to the article is the comment by David Obrien who was a member of our parish.

Father Greeley’s first contribution to America arrived in 1957, when he was a 29-year-old curate at a Chicago parish (his pastor at the time reprimanded him for writing it, presumably because he had not asked permission). Seven years later, during the Second Vatican Council, America published an article of his that became a classic: “The New Breed,” describing the attitudes and psychological profiles of priests who seemed markedly different from their predecessors. Greeley described this new generation as idealistic and obsessed with authenticity, but also resistant to authority and coolly confident in the inevitability of the triumph of their ideas. They were, in retrospect, perhaps very much what one might expect of priests ordained in the 1960s. Here is Greeley:

The non-ideological coolness of the New Breed does not make them easy to deal with. Those who have positions of authority and responsibility over them surely deserve sympathy. The New Breed are frequently groping and inarticulate about precisely what they want, but they know that they want change. Often they seem almost to be hoping that their superiors will refuse their requests so that there may be a clear issue about which to fight, a definite change around which they can rally. They want freedom now—whatever that may mean.

Greely, a writer or a parish priest who writes

The non-ideological coolness of the New Breed does not make them easy to deal with. Those who have positions of authority and responsibility over them surely deserve sympathy. The New Breed are frequently groping and inarticulate about precisely what they want, but they know that they want change. Often they seem almost to be hoping that their superiors will refuse their requests so that there may be a clear issue about which to fight, a definite change around which they can rally. They want freedom now—whatever that may mean.

The answer to the question in the title of this article is that I am a parish priest who writes. I became a priest because the work of the priests in our parish fascinated me when I was a child. It still does. Many priests tell me, triumphantly it often seems, that I am not a parish priest because I do not do “full-time” parish work as they do—as though “full-time” parish work is the epitome of priesthood. If it makes them happy to deny me my identity, far be it from me to contest that joy. Nonetheless, I claim even to be a “full-time” parish priest because all my work—teaching, sociology, commentary, storytelling—is priestly work, indeed parish work. It is an effort to bring the Gospel of God’s love to the ordinary people in the church, whom I view as being like the parishioners in the parishes I have known since 1935. I also say parish Masses and preach, hear confessions, visit the sick, counsel the troubled and bury the dead. I see no conflict among these various forms of ministry, only a common task—the task of enchantment and illumination.

Take storytelling. As John Shea has said, one tells a story not to educate or indoctrinate but to illuminate, to enchant the reader or the listener into the world of the story in the hope that when they emerge from the world of the story, they do so with an enhanced view of the possibilities of their lives. (That is also the function of homilies.)
Andrew M. Greeley | America Magazine
Parish priest, sociologist, novelist: The many imaginations of Father Andrew Greeley | America Magazine
 
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