From a reader (as Substack under my post about Thomas Reese’s latest stupid thing)…
QUAERITUR:
Is the priesthood dominated by men who would have been varsity-level players in almost any field? Or, because the varsity players left or never entered, are those remaining, in general, on average, under the fat part of the bell curve, third- and fourth-stringers? I am trying to understand where this fellow [Reese] comes from and who he is to write something like this.
Hmmm… nemo est iudex in causa sua!
The priesthood has always included a few varsity players, a great many solid teammates, and some who should never have been admitted to seminary or survived its formation program. The same is true of every profession.
To use another image, among priests we have racehorses, cart horses, and everything in between: pleasant and ornery, handsome but slow, homely but strong. All have their uses in God’s eyes, provided that they strive to do His will. God in the Church recruits from fallen humanity, not from a celestial stable. Remember, too, that God does not choose men because they are worthy. None is worthy. He chooses those whom it pleases Him to choose, and that choice was made before the creation of the material cosmos.
There is, however, something to your implied suggestion.
For decades, many dioceses and religious communities did a lousy job of identifying, attracting, and retaining strong, virile and faithful men. In fact, many deliberately did the opposite, particularly by admitting men with obvious same-sex attraction and the effeminate. Certain seminaries rewarded compliance and ideological reliability while persecuting intellectual vigor, masculine confidence, and traditional piety. They were trying to undermine the status quo and reshape the Church in their own image. In those days, many good men walked away or were “deselected,” the term they used on me.
Meanwhile, sycophants, sodomites, and simpletons were petted and advanced.
I believe things are better now. Back in the day, however, it was a horror show.
Back to your question.
There are “average” priests who are really good cart horses: hardworking, steady, pleasant, unrattled, and strong. As a pastor, I would rather have a couple of assistants like that than some wannabe Teilhard de Chardin.
The average priest is not a third-string human being, he is a treasure.
That reminds me of something funny and pointed that the late, great Extraordinary Ordinary trotted out around 2015. Bp. Morlino had been a Jesuit before wisely leaving them for diocesan priesthood. He observed that there were three tiers of Jesuits: authors and high-flyers occupying named university chairs, professors of various subjects, and those who peak as high-school psychology teachers. A pointed point indeed.
I digress.
Many priests who lack brilliance are faithful, prayerful, hardworking men who hear confessions, anoint the dying, offer Mass reverently, and hold parishes together with baling wire and supernatural charity.
To use a chess analogy, it is entirely possible to win a hard fought game without making a single “brilliancy” move, “!!” or even a “great” move”!”.
St. Augustine reminds us that a priest’s holy life can itself become an eloquent sermon. I refer you to Book 4 of De doctrina christiana. Augustine talks about the fruits of preachers of different levels. Some wind up being celebrities and others saintly though less flashy.
Frankly, the Church needs saintly priests more urgently than celebrity priests.
Moreover, grace perfects nature; it does not replace it. Intellectual laziness, bad judgment, cowardice, and an inability to communicate should not be baptized as humility.
A man may possess advanced degrees in mathematics or law and remain a theological lightweight.
Therefore, when asking “where this guy comes from,” examine the formation system that produced and rewarded him. Who taught him? Who promoted him? What questions was he never forced to answer?
Personnel is policy, and formation eventually reveals itself.
To conclude, a varsity player can foul out spectacularly, while a third-string substitute can sink the three-pointer that wins the game. Results count. For the most part, since God assembled the team in the first place, He did so for reasons we shall not understand fully until the General Judgment.
Nemo est iudex in causa sua!
Which might also lead, for us laymen without a priestly vocation, to the question how can we identify good seminaries to support?
Identification of these looks like an especially hard nut to crack from the outside. Tips and suggestions would be most welcome.
I think it unwise to “classify” priests. I have found from experience that a good priest is not necessarily a “varsity” one. Look at Blessed Solanus Casey; he was ordained as a “simplex” priest, that is, one who was not given the faculties to preach or hear confessions. However, people from all over sought him out for his advice and insight. He was a good priest despite the restrictions placed upon him.
Pray to God for vocations to the priesthood and for good priests to minister to us.
There are a lot of different kinds of priests, the intellectual, the charismatic, the practical, the fiery, the calm, the consoling… I don’t think that any generation of priests has an issue there. But every generation of priests has a problem with holiness, and they have this problem because they are lay before they are priests, and every generation of laity has a problem with holiness.
Judging by the TLM propers, always asking for help with the basics and admitting our impotence, this is expected.
As seminaries go, you’d hope that there was some indication that men with a habit of grave sin should leave and fix that problem before re-applying. Presumably nearly all are well-intentioned and would be willing to do so, particularly if they were informed before entry, rather than half-way through.
The “celebrity priest” trend is a cancer in the Church. When we live in a social media culture in which THE important thing is to have followers, clicks and likes, it is easy that we turn all that into an end, so we can do whatever it takes to attrack people, not to Christ, not to the message, but to myself. It becomes a door to vanity, superficiality and frivolity.
Regarding being an “average” priest, I am happy that I lack each and every one of the natural capacities to be suitable to be chosen as a bishop.
I heard, ages ago from some forgotten wise soul: a priest can deliver great homilies without himself being brilliant: he can borrow from the great sermons of the great preacher saints of old – or just plain READ them out loud. To be more general: a fine, solid, exceptionally good priest can be excellent by just keeping in his lane, delivering mass and the sacraments following the rubrics and being reverent, explaining the Church’s teaching in season and out, being compassionate and firm and charitable to those who need such, all without once being brilliant. Such a priest would be an extraordinary blessing to the parish that gets him. (A pastor needs a bit more: he needs prudence in managing people and such, but if he does all the rest above, people generally will give him a break if he mis-steps a bit here or there.)
We don’t “need” to classify priests, generally, but there is a place for making some judgments and assigning them to varsity or JV. The bishop has to do it to decide who to make pastors, and who to teach, and who to head up deaneries, or run an office in the chancery. (And the process again for deciding on bishops.) In general, bishops make this process as opaque and unpublic as possible, but to speak to the opposite: (a) How’s that been working out for us, these past 8 decades or so? Not so good. Maybe there needs to be some new methods? And (b) even if we (generally) have no CLEAR sense of how bishops decide who shall be a pastor (or, or which parish), it is probable that bishops DO take into account commentary that they get from their people. At least, if that commentary is respectful, reasonably stated, based on facts, and is germane. That’s not nothing. Indeed, Canon 1741 expressly provides a bishop may remove of a pastor if he has lost his good name among the upright and serious-minded parishioners. This canon necessarily implies that we have a role in making our views of the priests known to the bishop – obviously, if he has “lost his good name”, but also on the other hand, if he is very good, too.
I have been blessed to have a number of good, solid parish priests in my life, and a handful of stinkers, and some in-betweens. I thank God I have always had access to a priest for mass, sacraments and confession, and shudder to consider all the millions who have lived their Catholic lives not knowing how many months or years it would be before they saw a priest again. One of my past pastors died this week, Fr. D, please pray for him (he was one of the good ones).
Another thing that should not be equated as humility is: plainness.
What happens with plainness in things like the priest’s attire and in the church building is people start to forget who they are or what their purpose is. Plainness seems to ignore the grand mission of the Catholic Church in the world and lower it to the status of modern churches. When churches all start looking plain and the same, people think they must all be the same in reality. Since we know this isn’t true, Catholics must not be content with plain churches or plain attire for our priests.
No other religion has the Creator of the world as its founder, the saints and the martyrs, the Eucharistic miracles or the 2000 year history that the Catholic Church has. Plainness just doesn’t fit. The Catholic Church is set far above and our priests are set apart. Everything should look elevated because it actually is elevated.
People didn’t spend decades of their lives building beautiful cathedrals for nothing. Priests don’t dedicate their entire lives to God just to look like everyone else. We should be proud of the Catholic Church’s rich history in liturgical dress, architecture, art, and sacred music. Portraying these truths of our heritage, which are anything but plain, is a humble thing.
I agree that priests can excel in diverse areas and that prayerfulness and goodness are more important than brilliance.
That said, I spent two years at a good diocesan seminary and even at this good seminary under a good Archbishop the key to advancing was keeping your head down.
Being mediocre in all areas (intellect, prayerfulness, charity, etc.) was fine as long as your name never came up in formation meetings (you never rocked the boat). I would have liked to see excellence in some area counterbalance any weaknesses in other areas in the minds of the formators. For what it’s worth, the blah mediocre head down types were almost always liberal and most of the strong men with some areas to work on that came up in meetings leaned traditional.
Someday, I would love to meet a priest who doesn’t use his education, his travels, and his office to make you feel like you’re not worth his time.
You bring up Chardin, and I’m personally dubious about his theology, but what do you make of Ven. Fulton Sheen’s defense of him in Footprints in a Darkened Forest?
JMJ
TonyB: I don’t make anything out Sheen’s defense of Chardin, since I haven’t read it or seen it.
However, firstly, good people sometimes get things wrong and, secondly, someone like Chardin might be in the main pretty screwy but nevertheless be able to trot out the occasional gem.
What’s more valuable? One solid priest or 100 good parishioners?