Fr. Z's Blog

There is a good/bad article at Crisis about the situation priests are in the USA.

It is almost 6000 words… hard words.  Here is a summary.  In short, the piece opens with Crisis Magazine editor Eric Sammons’ call for calm amid Pope Leo XIV’s controversial gestures (e.g., ice chunk) and his promotion of Cardinal Cupich. The author agrees but insists that beneath such scandals lies a deeper and more destructive spiritual crisis: a widespread “priestly anti-fatherhood” among bishops.

Across the American Church, priests increasingly experience their bishops not as spiritual fathers but as distant bureaucrats. Or worse, as punitive figures. This absence of fatherly care has left countless priests demoralized, isolated, and spiritually adrift. Many suffer quietly from anger, depression, or fear of episcopal reprisal. Their weakened priestly witness, in turn, has hollowed parish life, confused the faithful, and accelerated the Church’s decline, especially among the young.

The problem, the author contends, is systemic. Episcopal appointments reward conformity and institutional maintenance rather than prophetic courage. Bishops replicate themselves, perpetuating a culture of self-preservation.  [And we know the particular proclivities they’ve sought to promote from within.] A 2022 Catholic University survey revealed that three-quarters of U.S. priests do not trust their bishops. This is evidence of the deep breach in ecclesial fatherhood.

The essay contrasts today’s cautious administrators with St. John Vianney, the tireless Curé of Ars, whose ascetic love for souls has fallen out of favor. It also invokes prophetic voices: the fourth-century theologian Tyconius, who foresaw a Church divided between true and false shepherds, and Fulton Sheen, who warned of a counterfeit “anti-Church” resembling the real one but emptied of God.  The “ape”.

Yet the author concludes not in despair but in exhortation. The laity, he urges, must respond with intensified prayer, fasting, and personal support for priests—offering friendship, hospitality, and encouragement to those wounded by episcopal neglect. True renewal of the Church, he argues, will come only when the fatherhood of God is once again reflected in the spiritual fatherhood of bishops and priests, restored through love, sacrifice, and supernatural faith.

That was a summary.  Here I have shamelessly lifted the first part … with emphases and comments.

The Unspoken Trial of the Orphaning of Our Priests
A type of bishopric anti-fatherhood has led countless priests in America to live out vocations tainted by fear, torment, and silent despair.

by Kevin Wells.

Crisis editor Eric Sammons? has made written ?and spoken pleas for laity calm in the aftermath of Pope Leo XIV’s odd ice-block blessing and refusal to condemn Cardinal ?Blase Cupich’s decision to award a pro-abortion politician with a lifetime achievement honor. ?Even on gasket-blowing days like yesterday, when the Chicago-native pontiff promoted his fellow Chicagoan Cupich to the Pontifical Commission for the Vatican City State?, Sammons’ call for calm is as wise as it is necessary.

But why?

The Roman Catholic Church is facing a spiritual epidemic unlike any it has ever known; it is as large—and mostly unrecognized —as any crisis in today’s American Catholic Church: Beneath the weight of what might best be described as a priestly anti-fatherhood episcopate—bishops who relate to their priests not as spiritual fathers, but as absent or even abusive ones—countless priests in America are left to live their vocations in silent despair.  [My experience and that of many priests I know bears this out.]

Burdened by anger, isolation, depression, and the tormenting fear of episcopal reprisal, countless priests’ joy has been stolen away, leaving behind only shadows of the men they once prayed and hoped to become.

The spiritual orphaning of dutiful and once-vibrant priests can’t be measured, but its consequences are unmistakable: It has crippled the Church from within by accelerating the exodus of Catholics over the past fifteen years, including countless millions of the Church’s youth, who have fled the Faith and now dwell in a secularized and changing world where God seems to be vanishing.

The Catholic laity who remain are often left to receive the sacraments and transmission of the Faith from enfeebled and spiritually-drained spiritual fathers. This weakening of priests has not gone unnoticed. The diminished witness of parish priests has sown confusion among the faithful, many of whom have grown weary of the pattern and drift toward more vibrant Christian communities, adding another log to the fire of the Catholic Church’s increasingly uncertain future.

Though the depth, scale, and consistency of this reality have inflicted incalculable harm on the Church, its mechanisms—apart from the intervention of God—are immovable, dyed indelibly into the fabric of ecclesial structure and governance. [See how good the Enemy is at being an enemy?] Although bishops are appointed by the pope, the process that precedes the appointments all but ensures that only “company men” are elevated; men who will not disturb the status quo or rock the boat. In effect, bishops replicate themselves.

To be sure, there are good and fatherly bishops in America (and many priests quietly decline episcopal appointments) [I hear that this is more and more the case.] but those who rise to the rank of bishop almost always lack the courage to speak prophetically about the sin and sordidness infiltrating both culture and Church. Those rare bishops who stray from the script are swiftly sidelined or punished.

Despite the startling indictment of their leadership in 2022, when more than three-quarters of American priests reported they did not trust their bishop (Catholic Project, The Catholic University of America) episcopal paternal abuse has deepened. It now extends beyond rectories and stretches into various diocesan departments, universities, and the like, where bishops have rebuked, dismissed, or mandated sweeping overhauls of faithful lay apostolates and initiatives, often with little explanation.

[…]

It is priests, however, who suffer most under the weight of the pervasive paternal abuse. It is perhaps the largest and least-known crisis in the Church today. Diocese by diocese, countless priests wake each morning knowing they do not have the backing of their spiritual father.  [Yeah. ]

Instead, many have come to view their bishop as distant and indifferent to their priestly work—a father whom they’ve come to regard as absentee and consumed with diocesan governance, whose only contact will likely be punitive, where, for example, a priest might be summoned to the chancery in response to a parishioner’s complaint about a homily clarifying Church teaching on contraception, homosexuality, or gender. Countless priests have left these meetings forever changed.  [Often threatened with being sent to places like St. Luke’s for psychological evaluation and eventual drugging and retooling.]

“I know priests who have vomited in bathrooms after meetings,” a priest said. “Other priests live out vocations haunted by their bishop’s threats. Most bishops seem to be attracted to their authority and power rather than the authority of Christ. They forget that they, too, were once priests.

“Priests today believe there is no institutional support, where when an issue arises, their bishop will almost always side with the laity. The irony, of course, is that bishops so often speak of ‘accompaniment.’ Catholics are urged over and over to accompany the immigrant, LGBT community, the poor, and those on the margins, but priests feel that their bishop has not only not accompanied them, but has mostly orphaned them.”

Before McCarrick’s [How many of the recent bishops appointed have their pedigree in one of his creations?] handling of the aftermath of my uncle Msgr. Thomas Wells’ rectory murder in 2000—when, as the newly appointed Archbishop of Washington, he issued a letter urging priests not to attend the murder trial—I had no concept of the widespread ascendency of spiritual abandonment priests were beginning to endure at the hands of their bishops.

Now, 25 years later, as a journalist and Catholic author who has spoken with hundreds of priests, I know far more than I ever wished to about this pattern of episcopal desertion—what amounts to an almost encyclopedic knowledge of wounds passed from father to son. Much of it has come unsolicited, shared off the record by priests, theologians, lay faithful, a handful of truly fatherly bishops, and even exorcists. I have written and spoken about it over the years, believing that exposing darkness to the light might help expel it. But as time has passed, I have only witnessed this paternal abuse grow more entrenched.

I know priests who daily choke back seething anger. I know of others who, shaped by the neglect of their bishops, have admitted to having to fight to refrain from becoming emotionally abusive themselves. Others have not been able to prevent their hardening, so whether it’s the moment of the epiclesis or their presence beside the Easter Vigil pyre, their faces have become unreadable to their parishioners.

Because so many bishops have failed to father well, entire constellations of American priests have drifted into worldliness—filling their lives with distractions, social indulgences, and nonreligious entertainment. Increasingly, they live what might be called bachelor priesthoods, unmoored from their sacrificial identity to become like Christ, the Slaughtered Lamb. As a result, many parishioners perceive them as being as wedded to the world as they are to the Bride of Christ.

Deprived of fraternal correction and true paternal guidance, these priests are left to navigate their vocations alone, where they begin to live out softened lives. Their addiction to the narcotic of comfort has dulled their prophetic voice and weakened their willingness to pour themselves out as victims for the souls entrusted to them. One striking example: I’ve been told of priests who scroll through their phones while penitents confess their sins.  [LOL.  Yeah… I’ve been on the receiving end of that one.  And when I noticed it, my next words were… “I see you have your phone.  Listen here, sonny, I’ve been a priest for over 30 years.  Turn it off.  Never bring it in here again. …”.  (Wherein I explained some things.)  He also got the form of absolution wrong, which set me off again.]

A universe of priests play video games, scour social media streams, and watch cable and Netflix late into the night, comforted by the knowledge that their weekday Mass doesn’t begin until 9:30 a.m., allowing them to sleep in. These priests, though, perhaps forget, or deliberately ignore, their early-rising, workaday flock who are denied access to the Eucharist after rising at dawn. Among these are countless young Catholic professionals, many of whom long for the Eucharist as spiritual medicine to help them in workplaces and a culture that increasingly resembles an expanding Babylon.   [It sure would be a help to have more priests willing, for example, to say a 30 minute Low Mass, at, say 6:30 AM.  No?  Am I wrong?  This could be the subject of a poll.]

Bishops’ anti-fatherhood has given rebirth to priests’ deep and long-buried father wounds, those who grew up unloved by their earthly fathers. These priests will often diagnose their spiritual father’s absence of affirmation, fraternal charity, and periodic check-ins as pointing to doubts about their worth, where feelings of paternal rejection reemerge.

Fatherlessness has even caused same-sex attracted priests—who nobly had strived to offer their desire as a chaste sacrifice to lay at Jesus’ feet on the day of their judgment—to give in to temptation, no longer believing they are held in love by any father, divine or earthly.

While fatherly bishops do still exist, it is increasingly rare for one to routinely check in on his priests—to ask about their prayer life, their spiritual reading, or to offer a word of affirmation for a parish-galvanizing initiative, a new ministry, or a surge in OCIA numbers. Even a priest’s hard-won victories and long slogs are often met with silence.  [In one sense, the priest shouldn’t do things for the sake of praise from the bishop.  That smacks also of “scarlet fever”.  But priests are human beings.  Some recognition, like a little water on a plant, goes a long way.  True leaders know about this.]

For example, a pastor who labors to gather a few hundred devoted parishioners to fulfill a long-held hope of opening a perpetual adoration chapel will be unlikely to hear from his bishop, even if his effort is known at the chancery. [Want positive vibes from the bishop, Father?  Start a monthly “queer-the-church” liturgy, or a drag queen hour for kids.] Even pastors who have significantly grown their parish, increased weekly collections, and earned a reputation as a magnanimous shepherd anchored to long days in prayer, pastoral work, and sacrificial service are unlikely to be acknowledged.

Rarely will a priest be treated to a coffee or meal by his bishop, where together they could have shot the breeze about their families, upbringing, and childhood memories or could have discussed their spiritual lives and favorite saints—where a bishop could have passed along to his spiritual son hard-earned pastoral wisdom, spiritual and theological insights, and leadership or homiletic pointers.  [Priests don’t generally want to or need to be taken out for an ice-cream cone, as if it is the court-set visitation day.   But they would appreciate something other than the cold turning away of the face.]

Each year, hundreds of young men enter seminary in America, driven by a desire to become holy priests—spiritual fathers, truth-tellers, and dutiful shepherds for the souls they hope to one day pastor. It is not difficult to imagine that each one carries a quiet hope that his bishop will resemble an icon of the Good Shepherd—someone who will guide, support, and inspire him to become a faithful, dependable, and perhaps even holy priest.

But too often, those hopes crash against the rocky shorelines of chanceries consumed by socially driven initiatives, synodal consultations, and the bleak machinery of bankruptcies, lawsuits, parish closures, and rushed clustering models. These once-bright-eyed young men are rushed into parishes and dioceses—already stretched thin and spiritually hollowed—where they quickly find themselves left largely to fend for themselves with little pastoral guidance and mentorship. Over time, some begin to feel like chattel.

[…]

There is quite a bit more.

Fr. McTeigue has good videos about priests.  For example HERE  And he has a fundraiser going on.