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Church Multi-ritual

Ancient Byzantine Traditions Still An Alternative

Father Anthony Hernandez, 39, is the Pastoral Administrator of St. Basil the great Byzantine Church in Los Gatos. He was ordained on August 17 by Bishop Basil Schott of Parma, Ohio at Our Lady of Peace in Santa Clara, where he had served for years as catechist. Father Hernandez is a graduate of Fremont High School, was born in Sunnyvale, and has six brothers and two sisters. He studied for the priesthood at Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, PA. St. Basil is a parish of the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Church, which is in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church and the Pope. All Catholics are permitted to participate in this Eastern Rite according to its traditions.

San Francisco Faith: Are you married or single?

Father Hernandez: I'm single.

SFF: Do you plan on marrying?

FH: No, in the Eastern Churches, even though the Orthodox priests don't get married, married persons can become priests, but if you're ordained as a single man you have to stay single. It's just like the Roman deaconate. Although a bishop cannot be married, he can be a widower, but he can't be currently married. A bishop is always celibate.

SFF: The question often comes up about the conflict between those who think there ought to be a married clergy due to the crises of vocations in this country and the fact that it's more of a tradition than a dogmatic position, and the fact that the apostles were married men. Since both vocations are demanding, to be good at meeting the needs of both of those would be a rare thing. How do you answer that?

FH: That's one of the major bones of contention between the Roman and Eastern Church. In the Eastern Church in the United States there is a push for a married clergy because the married clergy was suppressed in the 1920s in the Ukrainian and Ruthenian Churches. We've lost a lot of the Byzantine orthodoxy over this issue. It's a pretty bad situation. The U.S. bishops and the Church basically reneged on a promise to the Eastern Churches that they could retain their traditions upon reuniting with Rome. In recent times it seems that we are approaching the point where we might be allowed to have married clergy again. We already have some married clergy.

SFF: That's surprising. I think the perception among many is that one of the greatest differences between Roman and Byzantine priests is that Romans are celibate and Byzantines can marry.

FH: Yes, but in this country, it's not done. Although we had a parishioner here from Connecticut whose father was a priest and her grandfather was a priest, and I think an uncle was a priest. Now, in the Roman Church, it seems like it's the liberals who are pushing for married priests. In the Eastern Church it's not the same thing; it's a different experience. When I lived in Pennsylvania we had a married priest, a good priest. And it was strange at first because the rectories are filled with children and they're built more for families.

SFF: So how would you answer someone's objections to a married clergy?

FH: First I would make a distinction between monastic life and priestly life. They are distinct things. Monasticism is not intrinsic to the priesthood. In the Roman Church it's almost like," Well this is the nature of the priesthood." Not officially, but it's commonly held, I think. Each one is a vocation, but it doesn't have to be one or the other. In the Eastern Church there has always been monasticism, single priests. But since the council of Nicea, there's an old canon where there's an unmarried cleric; he's supposed to live in communion with other clerics. He's not to live by himself. It's only married priests who can have a parish by himself. So in monasticism you have poverty, but you also have a community that supports your monasticism. In the East they continue the community life, living a monastic life in a sense. Not in a strict monastic sense, but in the sense that you're living the single life along with a monastic spiritual life to support this single life. If you don't have that, there's a lot of danger. In the Roman Church the priests follow the monastic practice of celibacy but the whole structure that supports celibacy is not there. There's no real structure for a priest's spiritual life.

SFF: So should the Roman Church have married priests?

FH: The Roman Church should allow the Eastern churches to have the option to be either celibate or married. In the Western Church it would be much harder on a practical level since it's a bigger church. To have the multitudes of families, to house them, is just one of the practical difficulties. Rectories aren't constructed for families. But there aren't any theological problems. But again, on the practical level, it's really hard to carry on an active priesthood and a really active family life, because both require a lot from you. So I see that as being a very big difficulty. But on the other hand, you would still have the sacraments. But on the pastoral care level it would suffer, but that's already going down because of the shortage of priests. So we could continue having the priesthood, but maybe we would have to have a shift in priorities as to what the priest's role is. The priest's role is primarily sacramental and the ministry of the Word, not the temporal affairs of the parish. That's what takes a lot of time for the priest, paying the bills, fundraising, etc. Maybe the shift would involve having a layperson do those things. That way the priest wouldn't have to be everything. But at the same time, the priest's authority could not be usurped in any way.

SFF: Were you raised in this Church?

FH: No, I was raised in the Roman Rite and I was a catechetical director at Our Lady of Peace for 15 years. I served at the altar during high Masses and was always drawn to what symbolism there was and just felt enticed along the way to a form of worship that was richer in symbolism. This is sort of hard to explain. I want to emphasize that my shift wasn't due to any negative experience with the Roman Rite. I just felt drawn to the Byzantine Rite as a richer expression of my own faith.

SFF: Tell me how you were introduced to this.

FH: It started in 1992 when I attended a religious conference in San Francisco called the San Francisco Religious Education Institute. I chose between a workshop on the Eastern Church and a talk given by Matthew Fox. Before that, I hadn't been all that aware of the Eastern Church. After that, in '92 I started to go to the Mass at St. Basil the Great Mission held at the Maryknoll House in Los Altos. I liked it because it seemed more expressive, but not in the 'liberal' sense. I discovered it not through reading as much as through experiencing. The structure of the Mass and the prayers invite you into the mystery. Once I learned more about the prayer structure, I found I liked that better as well.

SFF: Tell me about the prayer structure.

FH: Well, it's very Trinitarian, very Christ-centered. By that I mean that when I pray to Mary, I'm not praying to Mary as Our Lady of Sorrows, or Queen of Heaven, but as Mary, the Mother of God. That is also expressed in the art and iconography of the Eastern Church. Mary is rarely, if ever, shown without Christ, and he's usually depicted as a child to emphasize the Mother/Son relationship. She is seen and focused on as the Mother of Christ.

SFF: How many Ruthenian churches are there in the Bay Area?

FH: Actually, there's only us, and then one in Sacramento, and San Luis Obispo, so we have a lot of ground to cover between us.

SFF: Why is there a Byzantine Rite? What is insufficient with the Roman Rite?

FH: Nothing at all. It's just a different way of expressing certain universal truths. Historically, when Christ chose the disciples, he sent them forth into the world to preach the gospels. So they did, and in doing so found themselves in different cultures. When Christianity spread, it spread into different cultures and it developed into different expressions. They were expressing the same thing, but in a way that is different as an Italian is different from a Pole.

SFF: Meaning that they are two different cultures but still completely human.

FH: That's right. These traditions all go back to the early Church and the spiritual and canonical heritage is distinct among each, although they complement one another. Also, it says in Vatican II that these differences do not take away any of the unity of the Church, but in fact they strengthen it through, and I don't like using this word, but diversity.

SFF: Someone I know is considering conversion, but he doesn't want to participate in the RCIA program at his local parish. He's considering going through a similar program through the Byzantine Church. What are your thoughts on this?

FH: First of all, we would always welcome someone who was interested in converting into the Byzantine Rite. But I don't think that this person's problems are going to be solved by avoiding the Roman RCIA. I think it's wrong to use the Byzantine Rite to get around something someone doesn't like about the Roman Rite. They're such different things that one doesn't necessarily translate into a deeper understanding of the other. You should really commit to one on the other because you're drawn to it, not to avoid one or the other.

St. Basil the Great is located at 14263 Mulberry Ave. Los Gatos. Father Hernandez hears onfessions on weekdays from 5:00 p.m. until 5:30 p.m. On Sunday he hears confessions from 9:30 a.m. until the office of the first hour at 9:40 a.m. followed by the Divine Liturgy at 10:00 a.m. He can be e-mailed at pastor@stbasil.org.

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