While it is certainly uncomfortable, this should give us pause to reflect. The clue comes at the end of the 1st Reading. God is the Father of us all. He gives us our identity. Priests are father-figures who lead others to God the Father. The measure for leadership is to lead others to the Father.
The mark of a good priest is one who narrows the gap between his belief and his behaviour. The deficit in credibility gap remains an issue in an “ever-present” reality meaning that everyone is always “online” and supposed to be “accountable”. Kick a dog publicly and see what it means to be “online” and “accountable”. What more, our broadcast media continually highlight the failures of many leaders. Daily we are exposed to this or that scandal. Rightly so, priests are judged for their failure to live according to what they preach.
The word “hypocrite” is interesting. We have no problem that others are called hypocrites. Just not us. This is where it becomes challenging. In the scrutiny of our clergy’s lack of credibility, our fragmented consciousness seems to have missed a bigger picture. A priest may have had a lot training to become highly qualified. One should expect that after all the formation, he should be able to function professionally. But a person is not a machine. Development and progress do not follow a mechanical logic. Why? Sometimes we forget where a priest comes from. What is his background?
The fallibility of priests can be reflexions their broken past. So many of us come from dysfunctional families and we carry traumas into our vocational and professional lives. This is not an excuse for failure. It is an acknowledgement. The unholiness of priests is also a mirror of the irreligiousness of our society. We do not pluck a holy priest out of the blue. We harvest them from the poisoned wells of our dysfunctional and disordered families.
There is an organic connection between the family, that is, marriage and the priesthood. The heart or the direction of criticism may come from a place of truth or of seeking justice. But it should also come from responsibility. Everyone is responsible. It is easy to demonise but infinitely difficult to see ourselves and take responsibility. It does not make sense that leaders are expected to live a higher standard while others, namely the family, can have the luxury of remaining disordered. To give an example, some priests are authoritarian and clerical. It is straightforwardly simply to push clericalism off as a systemic problem instead of admitting that a clerical priest often mimic his experience of an authoritarian father.
We want great priests in the Church. We want leaders who have incorruptible qualities. The present-day crises of paedophilia, together with sex trafficking and human exploitation, are telling us that there are disorders detrimental to the health and viability of our civilisation and human existence. The quality of family life is deteriorating. Leadership cannot not exist in a vacuum but it can come up higher if we have quality families. Each time when we look at the pathetic quality of our priesthood, we must take an honest look at how flawed our families have become. The family remains bedrock of any stable society. Perhaps we ought to start by strengthening the foundation of our family life and then better priestly vocations can come from there.
If a priest who had a questionable background turns out to be a good priest, then he does so by the grace of God. But many priests struggle simply because they need to rise above and overcome many negative facets of their history. It is not easy. Imagine juggling a vocation with all its professional challenges while battling the demons you have from your childhood. The more we reform our family life, the easier it might be for the Church to gain new and better vocations to the priestly life.
If the greatest amongst us is to be the servant of all, then the readings exhort us towards the height of humility and holiness. The priesthood is always meant to be a service in that direction. Since it is a powerful institution, it is also prone to abuse. But as long as priests recognise that their role is to serve, the Church is protected. St Augustine gives us an example. “For you, I am a Bishop. With you I am a Christian”. In being a Bishop, he recognises that he is different. He has a role to play and a responsibility to carry out. In being a Christian, he accepts his duty to live just like everybody else. That is how a priest should be.
Today, it is tempting to shine a spotlight on the glaring or apparent failure of our clergy. It is not easy to detect the shadows cast by our dysfunctional and decaying society on the priesthood. In a way, the 1st Reading and the Gospel cut both ways. They criticise, and rightly so, the failure of priesthood in the community. In the case of the Church, the crisis of the clergy is to have forgotten what their mission is. Their role is to point to the eternal, to the place where God can be Father of all. We have failed. Our failures challenge our Catholic and Christian community also to honestly take a look at our family relationships and how traumas in the family will have a deleterious effect on the quality of our vocation. It is easier to blame the priest for his sins and failures. It is much harder to recognise the family’s poverty in this equation. While the Church is committed to proper safeguarding protocols, the laity should also be encouraged to relook the role that family and society plays in providing the Church with holy and humble priestly vocations.
