Celebrate good times, come on!

The Reverend romance-novelist Andrew Greeley cites some studies on the attitudes of priests and tells us good news -- well, at least from our point of view:

My most recent analysis, based on survey data that I and others have gathered periodically since Vatican II, reveals a striking trend: a generation of conservative young priests is on the rise in the U.S. Church.

Now, the "I and others" in that sentence may be a little stretch: the only data he takes from his own organization's polling are 34 years old, so they reflect the "then" part of the comparison, not the "now". Young priests are decidedly different from those of 1970:

These are newly ordained men who seem in many ways intent on restoring the pre-Vatican II Church, and who, reversing the classic generational roles, define themselves in direct opposition to the liberal priests who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s.

The key, perhaps the motivating, issues of the divide are in the understanding of sex:

The divisions created by Vatican II are not new, of course. Caught up in the reform euphoria that followed the council, the lower clergy and the laity almost immediately developed a new ideology based on respect for women and for the freedom (including the sexual freedom) of the laity. On these matters, quietly or loudly, the laity and the lower clergy did resist the teachings of the Church.

The ideology of sexual liberation manifests itself in the usual hot-button issues:

The 2002 Los Angeles Times study reveals that priests of the Vatican II generation overwhelmingly support the idea that priests should be allowed to marry. In the study 80 percent of priests aged forty-six to sixty-five were in favor.... Only about half the priests under thirty-five, however, supported the idea.

The study revealed a clear divide, too, on the ordination of women. Sixty percent of priests aged fifty-six to sixty-five, and at least half of those aged forty-six to seventy-five, supported the idea, but only 36 percent of priests under forty-six did.

...[Y]ounger priests are more than twice as likely as priests aged fifty-five to sixty-five to think that birth control and masturbation are always wrong, and they are significantly more likely to think that homosexual sex and premarital sex are always wrong.

But -- and Fr. Greeley is surprised by this - in spite of the older generations' enlightened liberal views on sex, they don't seem to respect women as well as younger priests do.

And younger priests seem to have a higher general regard for women than older priests do—an attitude demonstrated most clearly in the 1994 Los Angeles Times study, in responses to questions about support for official condemnation of sexism and for better ministry to women, and concern for the situation of nuns. This attitude, which is in line with the views of the laity, explains some of the clergy's resistance to the Church's teachings on sexuality.

I suspect Father's assumption here -- aligning regard for women with moral dissent -- is off-base: he doesn't mention the influence on young priests of Pope John Paul's "theology of the body", which brings together a high regard for women and a stronger adherence to the Church's teachings on sexuality.

Ah, what will we do with these young priests? They even believe that old stuff about an ontological character imprinted by the sacrament:

[Dean] Hoge reports that half the newly ordained priests he encountered believe that a priest is fundamentally different from a layperson—that he is literally a man apart.

Good Heavens, they might even have some elan.

For Greeley, the conflict is all about power, now held by a generation of "moderate men", but soon to be ceded to those unrealistic reactionaries trying to turn back the clock to 1961: those young priests engaged in a "Restoration" -- he writes as if describing a bunch of monarchists (not that there's anything wrong with that, mind you).

The power is slipping away from Greeley's generation, the precious, precious power. We only wants it a little longer.