Making doctrine out of pastoral theology is like making limbo for unborn children into a doctrine. Limbo has a better chance to become dogma, pastoral theology, not so much and these photos will tell you why. My 1970's seminary had several pastoral theology classes, basically situational ethics. An an attempt to turn pastoral theology into doctrine is having a resurgence today as is 1960's and 70's protests and riots. Any correlation? Yes, an unruly desire for going backwards rather than forward.
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The idea of Pastoral Theology and Pastoral Liturgy comes from the influence of one person, from the Jesuit Josef Jungmann, whom Bugnini and most others in the liturgical movement and pro-gressive theology departments (Nouvelle Theologie) held in esteem as if he were a god. All this new emphasis on pastoral stuff can be traced back to him as Ms Byrne has rightly suggested:
https://www.traditioninaction.org/HotTopics/f104_Dialogue_25.htm
Bee here:
I suppose these priests are trying to be hip and funny, but really, the image of a priest pointing a gun, even a fake gun, at a baby in a church or while wearing liturgical or clerical garb is frightening. Don't these guys see what others see?
Where's the respect for the parents, or the child, or even the ritual?
Someone needs to tell them it's not funny.
God bless.
Bee
Indeed, from the moment a priest is vested for Mass, or any other sacrament, his focus should be only to faithfully celebrate that sacrament in the customary way using only the words he's directed to say. Unfortunately, it isn't just the older priests who fail to do this: I remember one Sunday not too long ago, in my own Savannah parish, when a younger priest, who was already fully vested for Mass, wearing a chasuble with Christ crucified on the back, walked into the church before Mass began, then went to a pew, knelt down, and began having a conversation (including laughter) with the people in the pew. That priest, thankfully, is now gone, but he's still in the diocese, and presumably still still behaving in the same inappropriate manner in his new parish.
Bee,
It just shows that even priests can be jackasses
Yeah, I’m gonna guess these pictures are acts of comedy and not really baptisms. Am I right? I m not sure !
You can shut down the squirt gun thing immediately by squawking that it promotes gun violence and accidental shootings. Even in my own childhood over half a cemtury in the rear view mirror, there were families with WWII vet fathers who would brook no pointing of toy guns at their children, even by other children. And such attitudes far more widespread today.
I have no problem with the water guns as they are obviously toys. When I was young, virtually every kid I knew had either cap pistols or water pistols. "Cowboys and Indians" and "Cops and Robbers" were played by everyone, everywhere. I know of none who turned out to be serial killers. Guns have neutral morality; they are neither good nor evil. The issue is that those who use them for hunting, competition shooting, plunking cans, etc. are not bad people by any means, but certainly people who use them to injure or kill other people are bad. George Floyd was killed by a knee, not a gun by the way. The problem I see is clergy making light of a sacrament. That is very disrespectful, if not sometimes bordering on blasphemy. Water guns for the Rite of Sprinkling at Mass and for "social distancing baptisms" even for a posed "joke" picture are just plain nasty. Is it too much to ask for reverence and some semblance of solemnity in our rituals? Do all the joking around in the church hall while having coffee and donuts; not while celebrating the Church's liturgies.
JR,
Spot on. I think clergy who do this have a serious case of arrested development. Sad, very sad.
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