In a recent article in The Atlantic, a former Catholic priest shared his thoughts about the crisis in the Church. His solution was doing away with the priesthood and putting power into the hands of the laity.
I find many problems with his argument, but at the heart of
it there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what the priesthood is. Because
of this misunderstanding, his solution is faulty, and I offer another.
What the Priesthood and Hierarchy Are (and Aren’t)
The priesthood and hierarchy of the Church are not meant to
be a power structure. Because the Church is composed of fallible, sinful human
beings, it sometimes resembles that. But that is not its purpose or theological
meaning. The hierarchy and priesthood exist solely to serve the people of God.
They exist to tend to the Church, and to help to distribute graces to the
laity. Any power they have is not theirs, but rather Christ’s. Their only job
is to allow Christ to work through them. Any time they make their priesthood
about themselves, their own preferences, or how they think things should be
done, we can see shades of clericalism. Anytime they submit themselves to
Christ and his Church, then we see an image of what priesthood is intended to
be.
A good friend was recently ordained a priest, and at the
reception the night before his first Mass, he told us all that he was going to
have a different priest preach at his first Mass. “I don’t want it to be about
me or what I have to say. I want it to be about that moment of sacrifice, when
I elevate the bread and wine and they become Jesus. I want it to be about
Jesus, not me.”
That is what the priesthood is intended to be. Which leads
to the next point…
Priests Offer the Sacrifice
Throughout human history, in every culture and religion, the
priest is always the one who offers the sacrifice on behalf of the people. The
priest is not the one who is in charge of things, who delivers inspirational
speeches, or who has a dynamic personality. The priest offers the sacrifice.
The same is true in the Catholic Church. There is only one
high priest, and all other priests participate in his priesthood. That is why
when a priest acts sacramentally, he is said to do so “in persona Christi” (in
the person of Christ). It is no longer he who lives, but Christ who lives in
him, as St. Paul would say.
Likewise, there is only one perfect sacrifice – the
sacrifice of Christ on the cross. When a priest offers the sacrifice of the Mass,
he re-presents (makes present again) the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
It is impossible to abolish the priesthood and still be the
Church founded by Christ. It is essential to who the Church is, that this
sacrifice is made present again, every day, throughout the world. We (the
laity) unite our sacrifices to the sacrifice that the priest is offering on the
altar. But we need someone to offer the sacrifice for us. Only Christ can offer
it, in the person of the priest.
If a priest is aware of that (as the priests that I know
are) then Mass is a real sacrifice. It is something that he prayerfully
prepares himself to offer. It is something that is a sacrifice of his own self
and energy. Like my newly ordained friend told his family and friends, it is not
about the priest – it is about Christ in the Eucharist. To die fully to himself
at every Mass, the priest needs to be willing to suffer for Christ and his
people. Each Mass is a death to himself and a further conforming to Christ.
As we can see in the abuse crisis, there were priests that
abused that. But those abuses don’t take away from what the priesthood is meant to be. We must abolish the abuse
and cover-up. But we must not abolish the priesthood.
What the Church Actually Needs
The heart of the problem in the crisis of the Church is a
crisis of faith. Priests and bishops who abused and/or covered up abuse not
only betrayed Christ, but they led many away from their faith. Do we benefit
from good laity who are active in the Church, in various roles in ministry and
leadership? Yes. But that won’t solve the crisis in the Church.
What will solve
the crisis is good and holy priests. We don’t need to abolish the priesthood.
We need the priesthood now more than ever.
These priests already exist, and the Church is ordaining
more of them every year.
As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, my husband is a
theology professor at our Archdiocesan seminary, and our family has had the
unique opportunity to get to know many priests, deacons, seminarians, and even
a bishop or two. One of my favorite things to do is to attend as many of their
deaconate and priestly ordinations as possible.
At both diaconate ordinations we attended this year, we were
able to sit by the aisle and see all the bishops, priests, deacons, and
seminarians as they processed into Mass. Because our family often visits the
seminary, my daughters recognized many of the men in the procession. These
sweet men waved or smiled at them, and my girls were delighted. At one point in
the procession, the woman sitting behind us asked me, “Is that your brother?”
The delight on that seminarian’s face was so great when he saw our family, that
she thought that, surely, we must be related to each other! One of the
auxiliary bishops of our Archdiocese used to be our pastor, and he has a real
gift for making our family – and every person in the diocese, really – feel
beloved. I have talked to so many other people and they all say the same thing
– this particular bishop makes them all feel like they are the most important
person in the room. When he passed our family in the procession, he smiled at
us and patted our big girls on their heads. His fatherly love shown through.
Our family isn’t special. We are an ordinary family, and I
know for a fact that these same men treat every family they know like how they
treat ours. They treat them with the kind of genuine affection that only a
spiritual father can have.
But more than that, the men that I know are men of
sacrifice. They desire to suffer and sacrifice for the Church. They want to lay
down their lives for the laity. They are thrown into that task almost
immediately after ordination. After a long ordination Mass, without a break to
eat or drink anything, a new priest may spend hours standing and giving first
blessings. You would expect him to be hurried and impatient by the end of those
hours, but I have personally witnessed the joy that priest shows to those at
the end of the line. It is no less great than it was for the first blessing he
gave.
The Church doesn’t need to abolish the priesthood. It needs more good, holy priests like these. Pray for seminarians and priests. They need our prayers now more than ever.
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Photo by Tomas Robertson on Unsplash
