The Lost Shepherds

THERE is no more argument left for me to add to the noisy debate about priests.  I also will not take sides, because I believe that crime and sin must be exposed to allow justice and redemption take their course, and because I believe that some measure of compassion must be accorded priests who have made more sacrifices for their career
than you and I would dare make for our own careers.

Priests and husbands are alike in the sense that they are married (one to a woman, the other to the Church) and in the sense that they both have a choice to be unfaithful.  And when they exercise that choice, they break a solemn vow, and they pay dearly for it.

Allowing yourself to fall in love with another other than the one you married means taking at least half of your time, your love and your resources away from the one whom you once assured to be the one and only.   The consequence of that choice is suffering all over: guilt, betrayal, loss of faith, of hope, and of love.

I will not pass judgment against priests who break their vows because I do not know any of the circumstances, or the combination of circumstances, that led them to commit the act, and also because their vows are only between them and God, in the same manner that I will not stop going to church every Sunday even if I have a sinful parish priest because the matter of my salvation is only between God and me.

When men become priests they become more than men; in the ancient  rite of ordination I do believe that the Spirit of God descends from heaven to anoint His new co-workers in the vineyard in some mystical fellowship.   For their part, priests sever their ties with a few so that they can declare their availability to all.   They stop having exclusive affections for their family, friends and lovers, so that they embrace all mankind as their new loved ones.  You and me, we are not priests, so it's okay to shower our love only on our parents and children and not on every household down the block. 

But imagine making a promise like that!  Husbands find it hard enough to love only one woman; what will it take a man not only to be faithful but also to not fall in love, and also to love, in equal measure, every man, woman and child in the community!   I don't think any priest is prepared to do that from day one.  His entire priesthood and lifetime is a process of struggle and growth.  There will be temptations and lapses.  Priests who make one, two mistakes retain my respect; however, when they keep doing it, the way philandering husbands keep betraying their wives without remorse, that's when I think priests should be punished.

I know many priests who have left the priesthood and married the women they fell in love with.  I think that by choosing one life instead of the other, and being faithful to that choice, and brave telling the world about it, they have retained their dignity and integrity.  Priests who have multiple affairs, who betray the Church by bedding a woman and then betray that woman by bedding another woman, and priests who hide the women they use at night, and face a congregation the next morning to preach about what people should do to please God---these are the priests who deserve the people's contempt and disdain.

Every night I pray that God will grant our priests more strength to remain faithful to His people.  I also pray to God to grant His people more understanding to be able to forgive priests who fail us.  Those who want to see the Church collapse under the weight of this scandal will be disappointed; the Church has survived far worse calamities.

But the Church should take this episode, which God allowed to happen, to serve as an opportunity to pay more attention to the needs of its priests.  Pedophile priests and womanizing priests are as much a personal tragedy as they are an institutional failure.  A seminarian who passes all his subjects and follows all the seminary rules will most likely climb his way to ordination; the seminary administrators presume that God will take care of those He has chosen. 

The truth is, many psychological and emotional scars, flaws and baggage from pre-seminary childhood and adolescence remain unattended and unresolved; there is nothing in the curriculum that would address these issues.  The seminarian carries these seeds all the way to the priesthood where the newfound freedom, power and wealth will fertilize the ground for their full flowering.

The Church should then look into the formation phase of priesthood---that's where the solution lies, not in reassigning erring priests, not even in disowning them, or prosecuting them, or exposing them in media. 

All Catholics in this community and in the world should now get over the shock, the anger and the finger-pointing.  Pity the Pope!  He has to suffer this embarrassment in his last dying days and after such a long and glorious reign!   There are a billion Catholics to help carry this load off the Pope's back.     
 
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