This month in Groningen, new clergymen

Later this month, on Saturday 21 May, the clergy of the Diocese of Groningen-Leeuwarden will increase with one priest and two transitional deacons. Bishop Gerard de Korte will ordain Tjitze Tjepkema to the priesthood, and Pascal Huiting and Maurits Damst’e to the diaconate.

Maurits Damsté, deacon on 21 May

The names of the first two have been no surprise to me. I have met Deacon Tjepkema once in Utrecht and Pascal is a good friend of friends of mine (among them my girlfriend). Mr. Damsté’s name has been under the radar for me until this year’s Chrism Mass, when the bishop spoke of three men to be ordained this year, “Tjitze, Pascal and Maurits”. I had no idea who this Maurits was at the time, but an article in the Friesch Dagblad revealed his name. Google then located an announcement, dated 24 August 2010, on the website of the parish where Mr. Damsté has been working as a pastoral worker since 2009. The announcement quotes him: “The bishop of Groningen-Leeuwarden, Msgr de Korte, has asked me if I wanted to become a priest. After due deliberation I indeed answered ‘yes’ to this question.” Like Deacon Tjepkema and Mr. Huiting,he studied at the Faculty of Catholic Theology in Utrecht.

The step from pastoral worker to priest is perhaps not too unusual, but it is striking how this happened so unnoticed. In a diocese where priests are rare and new ordinations even more so, you’d expect any man willing to follow his vocation to be deservedly noticed.

While the parishes where Deacon Tjepkema will be appointed are already known – the south of the province of Drenthe – this is unknown for the other two. Mr. Damsté has expressed a desire to remain in the parishes where he is working now, but a priest goes where he is needed, of course. Mr. Huiting has been gaining experience in parishes in the southeast of Friesland.  In recent years, new priests have ended up in the southeast of Drenthe, in eastern and central Groningen and in Leeuwarden. Perhaps new appointments will now be placed in central Drenthe, although much of Friesland is also an option.

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The Vatican Blogmeet: impressions from the outside

Yesterday’s Vatican blogmeet – the second major event (from a blogger’s point of view) in as many days – seems to have been a success. I was unable to follow the live feed provided by SQPN’s Fr. Roderick, but my Twitter timeline was swamped with tweets hashtagged #vbm11 (for Vatican Blogmeet 2011).

From that flood of information (evidence, with the coverage of Sunday’s beatification and the death of Osama bin Laden that Twitter is a serious contender for providing rapid news as it happens) I gather that there have been several important elements to the whole bloggers’ meeting.

One of them is the very welcome positive attitude from Church officials towards the blogging community. Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican press chief, spoke about the importance of service over ego when blogging, but also indicated that the Vatican is listening. He himself spends some time every morning readings several blogs, to prepare for what the day may bring. He also expressed gratefulness to Catholic bloggers who sprung into action when the regular media distorts Church developments. An example is the hubbub around Pope Benedict’s perceived permittance of the use of condoms. Before the Vatican could come with clarifications, Catholic bloggers made sure to correct the media reports and explain what the Holy Father had really said.

Related to that, Thomas Peters (the American Papist) asked why blogs could not be included among the Vatican’s accredited media, so that certain selected bloggers could receive advance copies of important documents and publications, just like newspapers and other media do now. A very valid question, I would think.

The Vatican itself also seems to be moving forward in social media. An advance view of a new news site (www. news.va) triggered much positive comments. I don’t know when that is supposed to be up and running, but a new Vatican news website would be very welcome.

The results of this first blogmeet (I say ‘first’, because I get the impression that several participants would like to see this become an annual event) will become more clear over the course of the coming weeks and months. It will be interesting to see the developments on both sides; will the sense of community in the blogosphere increase in a spirit of service, and will the Vatican, through the Pontifical Councils for Culture and Social Communications make more and more effective use of this enormous resource? And how will the latter take shape? The measure of involvement of local bishops’ conferences and Church communities is still up in the air.

Fr. Roderick Vonhögen participated in the first panel and spoke of how he, as a simple parish priest from the Netherlands, reaches an audience of thousands through social media.

Rocco Palmo moderated the first panel

Father Federico Lombardi spoke about the attitudes of Catholic bloggers during the second panel: service should prevail over ego.

Photo credits: intermirifica.net