Coming and going – Looking ahead at 2016

A new year, so time for a look at what 2016 may bring in the field of new bishop appointments. As ever, reality may turn out different, but we may make some assumptions.

In the Netherlands, to begin with, a new bishop will arrive in the Diocese of ‘s-Hertogenbosch. Bishop Antoon Hurkmans (right) has already has his resignation on health grounds accepted and it shouldn’t take more than a few more months for his successor in the country’s largest diocese (in numbers at least) to be named. Will it be current Auxiliary Bishop Rob Mutsaerts? Who’s  to say.

In Germany, three prelates are expected to retire this year. First of all the long-serving Bishop of Mainz, Cardinal Karl Lehmann (left), who will reach the age of 80 in May. Losing his voting rights in the conclave and his memberships in the Curia, his retirement is expected to follow around the same time. The Diocese has already announced that Cardinal Lehmann will continue to live in his current home, while the former abode of Cardinal Volk, bishop of Mainz from 1962 to 1982. Cardinal Lehmann has headed Mainz since 1983.

In Limburg we may finally expect the arrival of a new bishop. Administrator Bishop Manfred Grothe (right) will be 77 in April and has already retired as auxiliary bishop of Paderborn. In March, it will be two  years since Bishop Tebartz-van Elst was made to retire, and according to Bishop Grothe, the time is just about ready for his successor to be named.

In the Archdiocese of Hamburg, the last auxiliary bishop, Hans-Jochen Jaschke (left) will reach the age of 75 in September. This may mean that Archbishop Stefan Heße will be requesting one or more new auxiliary bishops from Rome, either this or next year.

In Belgium then, Ghent’s Bishop Luc Van Looy (right) will turn 75 in September. The Salesian, who became president of Caritas Europe and was among Pope Francis’ personal choices to attend the Synod of Bishops last year, has been bishop of Ghent since 2003.

In Rome, another Belgian bishop will reach the retirement age in April, Archbishop Frans Daneels (left), secretary of the Apostolic Signatura and a Norbertine priest, may return to Averbode Abbey in Belgium, where he made his profession in 1961.

There are also a number of vacant dioceses which we may assume to be filled in 2016. In Germany these are, in addition to the aforementioned Diocese of Limburg, Aachen, where Bishop Heinrich Mussinghoff retired from in December, and Dresden-Meißen, vacant since Bishop Heiner Koch was appointed to Berlin in June.

^Map showing the three currently vacant dioceses in Germany. From left to right: Aachen, Limburg and Dresden-Meißen.

In Belgium, the Diocese of Bruges is vacant, following the appointment of Jozef De Kesel as archbishop of Mechelen-Brussels. The name of Bishop Léon Lemmens, auxiliary bishop of Mechelen-Brussels, has been mentioned as a successor in Bruges.

Two circumscriptions which have been vacant for  number of years, and which are expected to remain so for the foreseeable future, are the Territorial Prelature of Trondheim in Norway, vacant since 2009, and the Military Ordinariate of the Netherlands, vacant since 1993. Bishops Bernt Eidsvig of Oslo and Jozef Punt of Haarlem-Amsterdam continue to act as Apostolic Administrators of the respective bodies.

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The unseen archbishop

A fairly unseen person, Belgian prelate Frans Daneels (no relation to the similarly named Cardinal Godfried Danneels) has been noticed in Rome nonetheless. The secretary of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, the Curial body overseeing the administration of justice in the Church, has been a bishop since his appointment in 2008. Today, he was elevated to the dignity of archbishop. This makes him one of Belgium’s two active archbishops, the other of course being Archbishop Léonard.

71-year-old Archbishop Daneels belongs to the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, better know as the Premonstratensians, where he made his profession at Averbode Abbey in 1961. He has been a priest since 1966. From 1971 to 1982 he was active in several parishes in the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels. In 1982 he returned to Rome for his order. He has been active in the Apostolic Signatura since 1987.

Archbishop Daneels retains his titular see, being now the titular Archbishop of Bita in Algeria.

Photo credit: An Daneels/KerkNet

Thoughts about celibacy

“Remaining unmarried and living celibate for the Kingdom of God is of great merit. It is part of religious life. With our vows of poverty, obedience and chastity we distance ourselves from our desire for possession, for doing things our own way and for a sexual life. These are natural and human desires, but we want to relativise them out of love for Christ, to fully dedicate ourselves to Him. This must however always be a free and personal choice.”

Wise words from Fr. Filip Noël, a Norbertine at Averbode Abbey in Belgium. Celibacy is often seen, both inside and outside the Church as something that is forced upon priests. But I am certain that a celibate life is doomed to failure if it is not the choice of the priest in question. A good formation during the years in seminary is vital, since celibacy is not a magic cure that will prevent the priest from ever falling in love or succumbing to temptation. No, a priest always remains fully human, of course. The key to celibacy is not avoiding these very human desires and urges, but learning how to integrate them in your priestly life. There are no guarantees of success, but it is a vital part of the priestly identity.

The priesthood is not a nine-to-five job which you can step out of at the end of the working day. No, during ordination, the very identity of the priest is changed. No longer is he just a man among other people: he is now a priest for them, while at the same a Christian with them, to paraphrase St. Augustine. He is called to act in persona Christi during the liturgy and the ministering of the sacraments. It is something that changes every element of his life. Besides a sacrifice given freely and willingly to God, celibacy can be an aid in living that life, confirming the priestly identity as being different from that of other men.

The above quote by Father Noël comes from an article in Belgian weekly Tertio, which looks at the question of how sensible celibacy is. Fr. Noël speaks partly against it, taking a somewhat double position: he doesn’t deny the value of celibacy, but suggests it should be subject to the demands of daily life. “In eastern Christianity the choice between a celibate and non-celibate priesthood remained. And that seems to function quite well,” he says. And, “There are also married priests within the Roman Catholic Church, namely in the eastern rites. Why should all the benefits of celibacy not count for them?”

In my opinion, Fr. Noël reduces celibacy to a simplistic balance between advantages and disadvantages. There is no doubt that, in theory, married priests can function just as well as priests who are celibate. Does that mean that celibacy has lost its value? Of course not. Celibacy is not a dogma, it is not a deciding factor of the Catholic faith. Over the centuries it has grown out of necessity, only then revealing its nature as a sacrifice and a means to show a priest’s dedication to the Church of Christ. Simply saying that non-celibate priests also function well is a negative comparison; it looks at the characteristics that celibacy does not have to say something about what it is. It would be better to do the same comparison based on the characteristics that celibacy does have: not saying what celibacy deprives priests of, but what it adds.

Luckily, Fr. Noël is aware of the downsides of the non-celibate life: “The Protestant tradition has done away with all forms of religious life. But when the clergy consists almost totally out of married men, like in the Anglican church, there is a risk of ‘standardisation’. The radicality expressed in celibate life, may work as a correction of the standardisation of the Church.” The Church does not belong to the world, after all (cf. John 17, 16).

Father Noël further talks about the problems of celibacy for seminarians. He say that he has seen many seminarians and young priests leave because of the problems they had with celibacy. I wonder if that is truly due to the nature of celibacy or to the formation and education they receive?

Celibacy is a free choice, but in order to make that free choice, a future priest must be fully aware of what he chooses. A thorough formation and education is vital for that. And then, if a man decides that celibacy is not for him, we can’t say that celibacy is intrinsically flawed. The only conclusion we can draw from that is that the person in question is not called to a celibate life. We can’t even say that the priesthood is not for him.

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