Peace, Penitence, and Prayer

The second of October is the memorial of the Holy Guardian Angels. One of the first prayers Catholics (and others) learn: 

Angel of God, my Guardian dear, / to whom God’s love entrusts me here, / Ever this day be at my side, / To light, to guard, to rule, to guide.

That God creates a custom pure-spirit protector for human beings is not a mandatory Catholic belief, but it is not a mere fable either. Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition refer to angels who gaze upon the heavenly Father’s face (Mt 18:10), yet have enough eyes to look out for us—more eyes than a mother, a teacher, or a nun.

Writer Mary Farrow penned a fantastic piece on Guardian Angels, quoting a professor who quoted a Cardinal on Guardian Angels’ three main areas of interest concerning us: peace, penitence, and prayer. When they’re successful, the universe is better off, because, according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, angels govern the processes of the entire universe, in ways known and unknown.

Since the more recent sexual abuse reports, many dioceses, including our own, have resorted to praying the Prayer to St. Michael after Mass (his feast was observed recently—29 September), hearkening back to a series of prayers once recited after every “Low” (recited) Mass. The series became known as the Leonine Prayers because Pope Leo XIII introduced them in 1884. They were discontinued in 1965, but in some places they’re making a comeback. Unofficially, they were for the conversion of Russia, but they have 1,001 uses.

Archangel Michael has the pleasant job of “casti[ng] into hell Satan and all the other evil spirits who prowl throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls.” The name Michael is Hebrew for “Who is like God,” because Satan wants to be like God and Michael reminds him he can’t be. Like Michael, however, Satan is a powerful pure spirit, except Satan devotes his towering intellect and will to diminishing people’s peace, penitence, and prayer.

When prayer and penitence go, peace follows suit. When priests stop praying, they start predating. When they stop repenting of their prideful, greedy, and lustful choices, their various victims lose peace. So we appreciate all the more St. Michael and his minions. 

Of course priests aren’t the only ones who entertain the deadly sins enough that temptations lead to actions: whosoever qualifies for a guardian angel, sure as heaven needs one.

I mentioned to a parishioner that today’s readings concerned marriage and the parishioner said, “I had a joke for you on that, but I forgot it.” It may be indiscreet to mention the parishioner’s name, but I will say it rhymes with “Snarl Tarzan.”

What’s no joke is the current situation of marriage and family life— though to be honest, it wasn’t always taken seriously in biblical times either. Why else would Moses have proposed conditions for divorce? Why else would Jesus have gone off as He did about the Creator’s intention for marriage? The evil spirits still prowl around the world seeking the ruin of souls. They prowl for bodies as well, because, as long as people are living, bodies and souls are together.

Since this diocesan Year of Real Presence began, I‘ve been considering how Jesus’ words, “This is My Body,” apply to every aspect of human life, including how we speak them sinfully. The many forms of self-worship drive people from God, from each other, and within themselves. What God has joined, let no one put asunder.

Commentators have noted the proximity of Jesus’ words on marriage to those on children. We connect angels with children often enough (cf. Mt 18:10). We also think of dead people, but they’re not angels either. None of us is. People often say, “I’m no angel,” when they want to excuse themselves from sin. 

We have to look somewhere for the root of our malady. When individuals go sour, marriages and families (and more) go sour. That’s no judgment on anyone, because God and the person know best. God’s always honest to us, but we’re not always honest to God.

Satan the home-wrecker wants to interrupt our awareness of God’s Presence with temptations, and he really wants us to interrupt our actions with sins. (Temptations aren’t sins, remember!) Satan wants peace, penitence, and prayer to end. He wants to harm children and the adults they become, and he will encourage us to find ways to do that. He wants bodies and souls to break up in one way or another.

Time for a Podcast

I started this blog some years ago as a place to inspire, inform, and entertain. Its name, "The Shipwrack-Harvest," is a reference from Gerard Manley Hopkins' ode "The Wreck of the Deutschland."

In the worst of this 1875 disaster, five nuns exiled for their Catholic faith started crying out for Christ to come quickly to their rescue, whether as transport-to-shore or death. Hopkins wondered whether the nuns' plea could serve as an intercession for souls to return to Christ.

is the shipwrack then a harvest, does tempest carry the grain for thee? 

Incidentally that's why this blog is spelled ship"wrAck" and not "wrEck." Maybe they spelled it that way years ago. We used to hear the phrase "to rack and to ruin," so maybe there's a connection.

This past week has witnessed articles concerning problems with Catholic priests' failures in chastity (sex only within marriage). The celibate vocation is for the Latin rite the typical condition to be ordained a priest. The celibate person (priest or not) witnesses to the primacy of everyone's relationship with God over spousal relations, however good and necessary they are to the Kingdom.

Hopkins had struggles with his creed, his family loyalties, his emotions--even, it seems, with his sexuality. His poems were sallies in a well-waged spiritual campaign.

In "The Shipwrack-Harvest Podcast," I wish to narrate these poetic forays so their sacredness and whimsy can "fling out broad [the] name" of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and I hope you can join me.

Available on Anchor.fm:
https://anchor.fm/shipwrack-harvest

My podcast RSS feed:
https://anchor.fm/s/9577d18/podcast/rss

Holy Orders: What are yours?

I recently came across business cards sponsored by the Vocations Committee and Knights of Columbus council of Holy Guardian Angels Parish, where I was Assistant Pastor from 01/2008 to 06/2014. I may consider reprinting them at my parish just as I print copies of my “Treasury of Prayer” for the hospitalized. 

Meanwhile, I share the content of the card. On one side, you have: Everyone has a vocation. What is yours? On the other side, a prayer: Father in heaven, bless our parish to be a nurturing faith community that encourages people to pursue their vocation. Amen. Since this post concerns the Sacrament of Holy Orders, it seemed appropriate to mention the card. 

Vocation starts at the baptismal font, with the “Universal Call to Holiness” that configures us to Jesus the Prophet (proclaimer of the Gospel), Priest (offerer of sacrifice), and King (caretaker of souls). We activate that call by making what St. John Paul II called “a sincere gift of self,” further specified in Holy Orders, Marriage, Religious Profession, or what I’ll call “Purposeful Celibacy” (as opposed to involuntary or default non-marriage). Religious Profession and Purposeful Celibacy are not sacramental expressions of vocation, but they are paths for lifelong consecration. Holy Orders, however, is a sacrament precisely because the Lord Jesus instituted it to generate and nourish the spiritual life of God’s people.

Priests and deacons often emerge from the “domestic Church” of the family, where habits of faithful Mass attendance, regular Confession, and personal prayer begin. They often receive support from fellow parishioners and (please God!) from clergy and religious. Or they may develop while in college or at work. We prayerfully consider and discuss our experiences to glean what about them pleases God and us. The signs generally aren’t cataclysmic, but rather simple: people’s suggestions, affirmation of talents, and our own areas of interest.

I believe it’s no coincidence that I originally wrote this column in the aftermath of the scandalous findings of the PA Grand Jury and a recent testimonial from a former Vatican representative to the United States who claims that numerous bishops and priests, and even the Pope himself, knew but acted improperly about the activities of former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, DC. These events have shaken the faith of many Catholics, and the respect of many non-Catholics, around the world. Would a young man or woman even want to give his or her life to the Church, to help row this boat in such torrential waters?

Out of curiosity I looked up the word “aftermath” found in the previous paragraph. In farming, it means, “new grass growing after mowing or harvest.” If the sickle of sin has taken away some prideful weeds (mindful that weeds and wheat grow together; cf. Mt 13:24-30), by Our Lord’s own promise a new crop will grow. But it will be all the more incumbent upon us to engage in those perennial spiritual disciplines (prayer and the self-sacrifice of fasting and generosity), so the soil can be rich and ready for new seeds.

The Scandal of the Cross; the Cross of the Scandal

“For He revealed His glory in the presence of chosen witnesses and filled with the greatest splendor that bodily form which He shares with all humanity, that the scandal of the Cross might be removed from the hearts of His disciples and that He might show how in the Body of the whole Church is to be fulfilled what so wonderfully shone forth first in its Head” (Preface, Feast of the Transfiguration).

“Rabbi, it is good that we are here!”

Hey, Catholics in 2018: You think so? Will a sight-and-sound-spectacular relieve the devastation of those affected by sexual abuse, especially at the hands of our own clergy who either committed it or allowed it to persist?

Then again, upon that mountain of the transfiguration and the hill of the cross, Jesus saw all this coming. No scandal has caught Him off guard. Somehow He has seen fit to respect human freedom to do such curseworthy things. It understandably remains the greater scandal that we allowed all this to happen, that leaders quietly continued the behavior by their further sinful actions against, and sinful failures to act for, abuse victims.

The feast of the Transfiguration showed up as if to signal the release of the grand jury report (presumed to be any day now). A day, like any other, that the Lord has made (Ps 118), though sinful human beings have lent these particulars of the grave misuse of power and sexuality.

Priests, bishops, and deacons initiated and/or enabled inappropriate relationships mostly with young males, yet also with men and women of majority age. These realities, recorded over several decades, came to the fore in 2002, but since then newer incidents have occurred, and other older incidents have been reported.

In their 2002 Dallas meeting, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops created "The Charter for the Protection of Young People." The recent news of abuse by former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick reveals the lack of oversight of the actions of bishops and the dangers of directing all accountability in these matters to bishops alone.

Under the hashtag #metoo, social media have been collecting countless stories of sexual abuse victims. While the movement began outside the Church, the Church unfortunately has added plenty of her* own stories.

The Collect for the Transfiguration proclaims that the Lord's splendid bodily form removed the scandal of the Cross from disciples' hearts. No doubt, a matter of faith, since the misuse of sexuality and power profoundly disfigures the person's innate bodily and spiritual dignity as a child of God--at least for many of the victims' own eyes.

Abuse often fosters abuse, of others or self, sexual and otherwise. One instance is abhorrent enough, but cycles and networks of it further obscure the "[fulfillment of] what so wonderfully shone first" in the Incarnate Son.

Christ's Body on earth, the Church, also bears the wounds of victims--yes, the ones that received abuse from her own leaders, but also the wounds of all victims and of their perpetrators.

The scandal of the Cross, the Cross of the scandal, is included among the poverty which Jesus once declared "you will always have with you" (Mt 26:11). That Catholic clergy and others entrusted with pastoral care have inflicted Christ's precious members with their own unchecked drives is an obstacle to faith in the Church and her Redeemer. And yet, we believe that Our Crucified and Risen Lord experienced victims' suffering upon the same Cross on which He bore the sins that caused the suffering.

I don't know if we will ever corporately "do better." That is part of my own crisis of faith in this regard. The corporate is only as good as the individual, so individually we can only do as better as the next choice before us, by refraining from all instances of exploitation and by focusing ourselves on holiness and virtue; and this too is beyond my limited power alone.

*In most of my discourse I have followed traditional use of feminine pronouns for the Church, reflecting the image of the Church as the spotless Bride of Christ. All members of the Church relate to Jesus as recipients and active respondents to His Total Gift of Self. Abuse can hinder the "spousal" receiving and giving of love in the hearts of victims, but God (may He be praised) can accomplish more than we know in anyone.

Reflections on Clerical Celibacy

Patient Reader:

Following is a reprint of an article of mine that was printed last month by the A.D. Times, the official newspaper of the Diocese of Allentown.

In early 2002 the clergy sexual abuse scandals first broke out in the Archdiocese of Boston, sending shockwaves through parishes and seminaries across the nation. The failures of some clergy revealed gaps in priestly formation, insufficient monitoring and support, and diseased attitudes about sexuality and power. Providentially, those failures also prompted a fresh discussion of the meaning and observance of celibate chastity.

The mainstream media usually remind us that celibacy is not an immutable dogma, but a retractable discipline (for future candidates, not for those already ordained). Invariably we hear, “It can change. Perhaps the next Pope…” and so forth. True, but not likely. Nor do I think making celibacy optional would result in a lasting increase in vocations, if the situation of our Eastern Catholic*, Orthodox, and Protestant brethren adds any insight.

People have considered facets of Catholicism to be perplexing, or downright objectionable, since the Church’s infancy: “Many of [Jesus’] disciples who were listening said, ‘This saying is hard; who can accept it?’” (John 6:60) They were referring, of course, to Jesus’ Self-designation as the “Bread of Life” and the accompanying condition, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you” (John 6:53). It seems the prevailing human tendency is toward the exact opposites of childlike trust and honest inquiry!

Even though celibacy does not pertain to the essence of the priesthood, and vowed chastity is a voluntary counsel, their observance bears special significance and power for the Church, and is therefore worth the consideration of every Catholic.

A non-Catholic friend of mine apparently finds celibacy worth considering, too. He is happily married, but he respects the celibate life choice so much that he once suggested to one of our mutual friends, a priest: “You guys should talk to each other about celibacy more often.” How dare he recommend something to us? I’ll tell you how: he cares about us and about the people we serve. It’s one of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever heard!

We priests should talk about what it means to us, about how to live as faithful (i.e. not just “non-violating,” but “peaceful, engaging, and fruitful”) celibates, just as married individuals and couples should talk about marriage.

In the seminary I remember one priest warning us about the danger of a “comfortable bachelorhood,” devoid of marital and family responsibilities (embodied by the uxorial epithet “Ol’ Ball-and-Chain”). While every human being ought to have hobbies and diversions, it’s rather possible for priests to attend more to such things than to their parish or family, or to charitable pursuits. I’ve become more conscious of this since returning in earnest to running a few years ago, and I don’t claim to be perfectly balanced at any given moment!

The premise in bachelorhood is, “I am accountable to nobody for the expenditure of my resources.” Celibates can give the impression that we are “free,” and gladly so, when we are in fact called to a comparable or greater level of investment in our priestly people. To live this way can be a scandal to God’s flock—not nearly as perverse as sexual abuse, but no less diminishing of our people’s respect and trust.

In order to be a better steward of God’s many gifts, I enlist a handful of priests and lay friends as friendly watchdogs. We priests ought to be vulnerable enough to amass such a cadre of honest folks, and to be numbered among others’ privy cabinets. Nobody can afford to live in an echo chamber that reflects nothing but the pleasant sounds we like to hear!

Then there are the misdeeds common to all daughters and sons of Adam, against the sixth and ninth commandments—violations more of chastity (sexual integrity) and continence (self-control) than of celibacy per se. They may be motivated more by weakness than malice, but they affect everyone from the parties directly involved to the entire Mystical Body of Christ. An unmarried person’s failures are serious enough; but those of a married, ordained, or vowed person are compounded by the solemn, public promises that they have made.

Without being an actual party to the conversation my priest friend had with our mutual friend, I surmise that the subject matter they had in mind was not the temptation to materialism inherent in “comfortable bachelorhood,” but rather the misdirection of sexual and romantic desires. The mutual friend knew well that one might consciously and freely forgo these human, God-given drives only for worthy motives and with gainful alternatives.

Recently I substituted for the 5^th grade teacher in our Public School Religious Education. I was speaking about the Eucharist as sacrifice, memorial, and banquet, and mentioned that the priest spoke the words of consecration personally, offering his life for the Church in union with the Lord Jesus. Out of nowhere (where the Holy Spirit always seems to operate), a child asked me, “Is it a sacrifice not to have a wife and children?”

Immediately I thought of a quote from the Swiss priest and theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar: “When God demands of us something difficult, we often seek to be aided in our compliance by motives that rob the action of its whole value. For instance, we try to convince ourselves that what is sacrificed—friends, a comfortable life, and so on—at bottom means little to us. What if God should give us only what no longer has any value for him?” (The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms. Ignatius Press, 1995).

So yes, I answered, it is a real sacrifice not to have a wife and children. But I also said that I frequently consider how that sacrifice has resulted in my being right where I am today: at Holy Guardian Angels Parish, speaking with these children who call me “Father” because they have become my children. Now none of that small group of children came home with me after PREP was over, but perhaps they left appreciating how Father was there for them. What is just as important, Father himself knew that.

By our very existence in our parishes, communities, and families, chaste celibates affirm the primacy of the Kingdom of God and the baptized person’s calling to seek it “first” (Mt 6:33). That’s supposed to turn heads and raise eyebrows. But if people—especially celibates themselves—do not look through the elements being renounced in favor of the blessings being received, they will continue to consider celibacy inhuman and try to bypass it however possible.

Like anyone else in the world, celibates are occasionally going to feel lonely and incomplete. This is certainly to be expected, and not to be ignored or downplayed. Here as always, the question is, “What am I to do about it?” For God’s sake and for our own, celibates have to do something—especially in light of a celibate’s intention to point to the ultimate fulfillment of heaven.

But let’s be clear: at first the lonely celibate will probably set aside any otherworldly dimension of loneliness; to suggest otherwise is naïve. After all, loneliness is a human emotion crying out for redress—or rather a question seeking a response. Without enlisting a reliable network of monitoring and support (and, alas, sometimes even with it), there is no wonder how people resort to all manner of unhealthy diversions. Hence the interest of seminaries and other houses of formation to train fundamentally sound people in human and spiritual, intellectual and pastoral virtues. Imagine how potential spouses might fare with such attention to discipleship!

Most people reading this essay either have been married or are at least open to marriage. As an intentional celibate—and as a human being—I have profound respect for the marital vocation. One of the most effective ways I can show that respect is to live joyfully as a celibate. Thus I will also be an example of humanity and holiness.

To that end I need help from fellow celibates and married couples alike. That help takes the form of friendship, accountability, compassion, and encouragement; for my part I should be equally willing to extend the same to others. Then there are everyday things that I myself must do: pray, fast, give alms, and be vigilant. These spiritual disciplines are the heritage of every baptized Christian. Priests and religious were not intended to be exempt from them; in fact, our troubles arise from the exemptions we’ve made!

By the generous embrace of their joys and sacrifices, may celibates and married persons help each other to discover the value of their respective vocations in human society and God’s Kingdom.

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*After the initial publication of the article, I decided to include "Eastern Catholic" in this sentence upon further reflection and consultation with an Orthodox friend and deacon.

It has been the ancient tradition of Orthodox Christianity, and it had been the custom of most Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, to permit clergy to be married before being ordained to the diaconate, whether "permanent" or "transitional." Bishops, however, are chosen from the unmarried and monastic clergy.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Eastern Catholics in the diaspora, especially in the United States, experienced considerable ignorance and persecution, prompting the Vatican to mandate celibacy in territories to which Eastern Catholics had migrated. The Second Vatican Council later urged Catholics of the Eastern Rites to return to traditions such as the ordination of married clergy, but U.S. Eparchies have not implemented such reforms uniformly. (reference).

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A devoted reader also sent a link to the Chrism Mass homily of Archbishop Socrates B. Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan (here is the Facebook link). The Archbishop's reflection is worth reading for his candid assessment of the pitfalls to which celibate priests are regularly exposed, as well as their remedies.

The Clericalism Clash

The latest strife to surface online is clericalism. Quite a frenzy has erupted in the Catholic blogosphere, all catalyzed by a newly-ordained Franciscan friar, Fr. Daniel P. Horan. He testifies that people distinguish him from other young priests because he is approachable and unpretentious, and not trapped in trappings like fancy vestments and such.

Knowing that my sparse yet benevolent readers are champing at the bit, waiting for me to weigh in on this issue, I cannot disappoint them – even if it is five minutes late. You see, I was just about to go out for a run when somebody brought another yet another post to my attention. I wasn't going to be disturbed on my day off, even though I still have the emergency beeper for hospital coverage and can't really go too far out of the territory. (Was I being clericalist by mentioning this, or just prideful? Or are they one and the same?)

After about three years of blogging, I have learned that where you get the real news and commentary is not in the articles, but in the comment boxes, on the blogs and the Facebook feed. These are the "fireside chats" where persons of every doctrinal, liturgical, and moral stripe gather like vultures around the carcass.

Ubicumque fuerit corpus, illuc congregabuntur aquilae (Mt 24:28): When a word is spoken or written (cf. Pilate: "What I have written, I have written"), it is "dead"--finished, irretrievable--and thus its author is liable to be picked apart. That's an apt saying; I shall make it my episcopal motto!

If you're interested...

(1) Haughtiness and unapproachability are not the exclusive property of the young. Neither is the preference for high-church vessels and vestments. (2) The preference for high-church vessels and vestments is not to be equated with haughtiness and unapproachability. (3) The preference for low-church vessels and vestments is not to be equated with the demeanor of a servant of God. 

A priest for twenty-five years, Fr. John Trigilio responds to Fr. Horan on the supposed relationship of attire to demeanor, branching out from there. Newly-ordained Father Michael Duffy offers another response. From his pastoral activity, especially in Confession, he acknowledges that a great many people are holier than he.  Also Father William Grimm highlights the importance of service for clergy, noting the peculiar "normalcy" of clergy who are not above washing dishes, shopping for groceries, waiting in lines, or shoveling snow--"menial" activities that our good people discharge while managing their households and performing secular jobs that many priests would bungle in a heartbeat!

Wikipedia has it that the term clericalism "has...been applied in a pejorative manner to describe the cronyism and cloistered political environs of the Church, mainly in reference to the Roman Catholic Church." I found this nuance interesting: "The phenomenon of clericalism is not restricted to the ordained, as it occurs in purely secular guilds, such as academia, the legal and medical establishments, and the public-safety clergy: the police and military." 

Clericalism involves a two-tier approach that separates (as opposed to "distinguishes") clergy from laity (although there might be a variation that separates clergy from vowed religious). The phrase being bandied about in the readings I've encountered is "putting on a pedestal." When people are put on a pedestal, I've found, it's so they can be knocked down from it.

Who performs the idolatry, and what might it resemble?

For the clergy, clerical idolatry involves the sense of being beyond scrutiny or reproach. "What we do and how we speak is none of the people's business to judge," and often this self-defense attempts to withstand the critique of fellow priests and bishops. According to texts of yore (I think of the era of Fulton Sheen), the priesthood is a "higher calling." While this bears some validity when properly understood, idolators among the clergy will (consciously or not) co-opt this notion to justify their behaviors, especially the spending of money and time. "I can't be bothered with them." Someone once suggested that a kind of clericalism can prompt confessors to tell penitents that they may violate a teaching of the Church (e.g. to get a tubal ligation), effectively to say, "I can speak for Jesus here." Priests who refuse to recognize the talents and opinions of the laity in parish decision-making also exhibit a clericalist mentality.

For the laity, clerical idolatry likewise involves the sense of being beyond scrutiny or reproach. The priest is not to be questioned. We must cover for, excuse, his behaviors and attitudes. "He has to let off some steam somehow. We must have done or said something to irritate him. He doesn't have a wife." People may even question their own motives and refrain from calling out their priest on egregious errors. But according to Fr. Dwight Longenecker, some laity will take the opposite approach to those who fawn over their priests: instead they will pay him lip-service but passively defy and defame him in his absence. Another example: people keep an unhealthy distance from their priests, fearing that they are "always so busy," and feeling unworthy to seek help with their sins and personal problems. "He can't be bothered with me."

Clergy and laity unwittingly can feed off each other in the promotion of clericalist mindsets and practices. It is a vicious cycle found among households where addiction is present. This is not surprising, as addiction thrives on secrecy, on making exemptions for oneself, rationalizing and justifying, ego-boosting and ego-deflating.

The fallout from the clergy abuse scandal accounts for much of the recent conversation about clericalism, notwithstanding the articles authored by, or concerning, the clericalism observed in young priests. As one who was ordained deacon in the year when the scandals began to unravel (2002), I can say that priests ordained since ca. 2000 are aware of the clericalism that led to the scandal, but we must guard against newer iterations; and who's to say that the sexually scandalous sort is altogether dead?

We are learning from our elder brothers in the priesthood that "priests need priests"--we profit from fraternal companionship and camaraderie. But we must also ask ourselves what we need each other for.   "Set, O Lord, a guard over my mouth; keep watch at the door of my lips" (Ps 141:3): we can run the risk of wasting opportunities for fraternal interaction on unworthy topics just as much as our people may waste them at water coolers, in locker rooms, or other roadsides where carcasses lie. In the past nineteen years (nine as a seminarian, ten as a priest) I have very much appreciated the company of the priests of our diocese. It affords many opportunities to learn and grow, when I am open to them. I hope I am contributing in kind to the positive climate, not putting the "bitter" in the presbyterate.

While priests are unique in terms of our identity and mission in the Church and society, this uniqueness does not ipso facto render us holier or more virtuous than our non-ordained counterparts. (Not that we want to go out of our way to prove that!) If anything--and we've heard this before--it makes us accountable to our people. If they desire or expect from us the Church's doctrinal and moral teachings, reverent liturgical offering (ordinary, extraordinary, St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil, whatever), sound guidance on prayer, or upright personal conduct, this seems eminently faithful and reasonable!

People must "settle for" priests who are human beings, who have bad days and make bad choices (because that's what we are, and what we often do), but this fact does not absolve us from the constant impetus to grow alongside our people. Frequent association with them, inside and outside of the expected parish context, is absolutely necessary. Ideally that contact makes us appropriately vulnerable: we become open to critique as well as praise, teaching us how to process feedback and make salutary adjustments. As Fr. Grimm notes that priests are "normal," we don't have to consider that normalcy an impediment to the Gospel, but rather a conduit. Nothing genuinely priestly need be sacrificed or even compromised by being in mundo conversatus ("moving about in the world"; cf. St. Thomas' hymn Pange Lingua).

I often tell people that I went through seminary with more interest in becoming a "theological practitioner" than a "community organizer," but especially since ordination I have been learning more skills well suited to the latter. (Life has a way of redirecting and reshaping our interests and aptitudes.) As the above-cited Wikipedia article mentioned, a kind of clericalism can exist among the medical profession, sometimes evident in a doctor's lack of "bedside manner." No seminary can adequately teach what our bishop calls "pastoral finesse," though they do their best. Our people can teach us a great deal, if we let them. That, it seems, is the antidote to clericalism.