The cultural changes that rocked Catholicism after the 1960s made it even more of a challenge to answer these kinds of questions. [Archbishop Edwin] O’Brien saw this era up close, since he was ordained in 1965 and, as an Army chaplain with the rank of captain, served a tour of duty in Vietnam.
In the “heady years” after the Second Vatican Council, it seemed that Catholics “saw almost everything go up for grabs” in their parishes and “in Western Culture in general.” Priests were “leaving by the droves” and, at times, he noted, it seemed as if “follow your conscience” stood alone as the “only criterion for morality, heedless of any objective moral truth.” Many seminaries lowered their admissions requirements in an attempt to find more priests.
O’Brien offered a blunt analysis of that decision: “Many of the horrendous sexual scandals, I think, can be traced to the breakdown of seminary formation from 1965 to the early 1980s.”
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(SHNS) Terry Mattingly–The Catholic Church still needs priests
The cultural changes that rocked Catholicism after the 1960s made it even more of a challenge to answer these kinds of questions. [Archbishop Edwin] O’Brien saw this era up close, since he was ordained in 1965 and, as an Army chaplain with the rank of captain, served a tour of duty in Vietnam.
In the “heady years” after the Second Vatican Council, it seemed that Catholics “saw almost everything go up for grabs” in their parishes and “in Western Culture in general.” Priests were “leaving by the droves” and, at times, he noted, it seemed as if “follow your conscience” stood alone as the “only criterion for morality, heedless of any objective moral truth.” Many seminaries lowered their admissions requirements in an attempt to find more priests.
O’Brien offered a blunt analysis of that decision: “Many of the horrendous sexual scandals, I think, can be traced to the breakdown of seminary formation from 1965 to the early 1980s.”
Read it all.