Latest / The Catholic Current / Why Do Young Priests Leave? (Fr. Peter Stravinskas) 1/27/26

Transcript

Why Do Young Priests Leave? (Fr. Peter Stravinskas) 1/27/26 · The Catholic Current

• 0:00
  This is The Catholic Current with Fr. Robert Metaig.
• 0:04
  The role of a teacher is an echo of Our Lady's fiat and her role in bringing this truth to
• 0:12
  be known in the world.
• 0:13
  Now that the word of the Father has become flesh and dwelt among us, it maddens me why
• 0:20
  Catholics are inclined to be coy about being specifically Catholic.
• 0:26
  Our Lord didn't say, go out into the world and tell everyone you meet, you do you.
• 0:33
  Praise be Jesus Christ.
• 0:34
  This is Fr.
• 0:35
  Robert Metaig of The Society of Jesus, your dearly host for The Catholic Current, where
• 0:38
  we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
• 0:41
  You're listening to us from the station of La Crosse Studios, your local radio station,
• 0:45
  the iCatholic Radio mobile app, and we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
• 0:50
  As always, let's start with prayer.
• 0:51
  In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, Almighty God, through the intercession
• 0:56
  of St. Ignatius Loyola, we ask that you pour forth your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit
• 1:00
  of discernment that might hear your voice and obey your command.
• 1:03
  In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.
• 1:06
  Well, friends, here we are on this timely Tuesday.
• 1:08
  I want to talk about a difficult topic, and it's about why young priests leave.
• 1:14
  I know it's often very traumatic for parishioners when a priest, especially a younger priest,
• 1:20
  leaves.
• 1:21
  I've been a religious formator, I've been a seminary faculty member, some of my dear
• 1:26
  friends are bishops.
• 1:28
  It's very painful when a young priest leaves, and I think we need to have a serious conversation
• 1:33
  about the why of it, get to the roots of it, and then give healing and hope for priests,
• 1:41
  especially younger priests who are struggling.
• 1:45
  And then I found an article recently in Catholic World Report about why young priests are leaving.
• 1:50
  So I said, hey, we should have the author back on, you're going to recognize him, I'm
• 1:53
  sure he's been on the Catholic Current several times, he's the founder of Catholic Answer
• 1:58
  and the Catholic Response, and the Priestly Society of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
• 2:05
  Father Peter Stravinskas, welcome back to the Catholic Current.
• 2:08
  Good to be with you, Father.
• 2:11
  So Father, you wrote this article, and it was in response to something that Pope Leo
• 2:16
  had written.
• 2:17
  Fillison, what are the issues, and what are your concerns?
• 2:21
  Well, you know, I entered the seminary three weeks after Hermanni Vitae, 1968, and that
• 2:34
  was often referred to by Ratzinger slash Benedict as the Honus Horribilis.
• 2:43
  And at the time, of course, that was sort of the nadir of Paul VI's pontificate, because
• 2:53
  the response to Hermanni Vitae was so horrible that he actually never wrote another encyclical
• 2:59
  for the next ten years of his life.
• 3:02
  At any rate, John Paul comes on the scene in 78, when I was one year ordained, but when
• 3:09
  John Paul came on, he inherited a situation whereby the previous ten years, 100,000 men
• 3:18
  had left the priesthood worldwide, which they say beats the figure even from the Protestant
• 3:24
  Reformation.
• 3:25
  Wow.
• 3:26
  And John Paul, staunchly, simply, first of all, by saying, I think we've gone too easily
• 3:36
  on laicizations, but then he took a more positive aspect as well, which was promoting
• 3:43
  the priesthood.
• 3:44
  Right.
• 3:45
  And in John Paul, you will remember we had those wonderful Holy Thursday letters to priests,
• 3:54
  which in our priestly community, every Holy Thursday we would get together for midday
• 3:59
  prayer, and as part of it, read the Pope's letter for that year, and then go out and
• 4:05
  have a celebratory dinner in honor of the priesthood.
• 4:09
  And priests felt wanted, appreciated, and that hemorrhaging stopped, for the most part.
• 4:20
  If you'll remember, by the 90s, you were surprised to hear about anybody leaving the priesthood.
• 4:27
  It was no longer, thank God, fashionable.
• 4:30
  And then, into the 2000s, particularly with the rise of younger priests who were, quote,
• 4:38
  more traditional, again, you didn't hear about it.
• 4:43
  And then this avalanche started up again, and mostly, mostly, priests under 10 years
• 4:51
  of ordination.
• 4:52
  A lot of that coincided with the Francis pontificate, which was an unrelenting assault on priests
• 5:02
  and seminarians.
• 5:04
  And I know the difficulty I had to deal with, both as a formator and a spiritual director
• 5:10
  for priests, trying to convince them, please stay the course.
• 5:16
  It will get better, you know.
• 5:18
  So I think that's the context.
• 5:20
  Right.
• 5:21
  And it seems to me that people try to explain absolutely everything from the scandals, and
• 5:27
  I think the scandals are significant, but that's not the entire explanation.
• 5:35
  I do know that when I started out in religious—
• 5:38
  Well, let me just interject.
• 5:39
  Sure.
• 5:40
  If I could just interject.
• 5:41
  I do not know a single priest who left the priesthood because of, quote, the scandals.
• 5:46
  Right.
• 5:47
  And nor do I know a single layperson who left the Church because of, quote, the scandals.
• 5:54
  I think sometimes people will use that as their story as to why they're going.
• 5:59
  Sure, sure.
• 6:00
  Yeah.
• 6:01
  Right.
• 6:02
  And I, you know, when I started out in religious life, it was still customary to be questioned
• 6:08
  from 360 degrees as, you know, is anyone forcing you to be a priest?
• 6:15
  Because, you know, when your typical Catholic family had six or eight kids, it would be
• 6:20
  a nice thing to have one of them be a priest.
• 6:23
  But in my experience, and from hearing from vocation directors from both diocese and religious
• 6:28
  life, very often parents, but especially mothers, are opposed to children entering religious
• 6:35
  life for priesthood, because you've only got one or two kids, and by golly, you want
• 6:39
  to have grandchildren.
• 6:41
  I also think that one of the things that—
• 6:43
  I think, by the way, there's another reason I've been hearing for about 10 or 12 years
• 6:48
  now.
• 6:49
  Okay.
• 6:50
  Why?
• 6:51
  Devout parents.
• 6:52
  I remember a father saying to me not long ago, when we had our first child, we said,
• 6:58
  if he's a boy, we're going to hope and pray if it's God's will he become a priest.
• 7:03
  Okay.
• 7:04
  And they had a boy, and he went all through Catholic schools, the kid himself actually
• 7:09
  developed an interest in the priesthood, and by the time he was getting ready to graduate
• 7:15
  high school, was going to go into the seminary, and his parents said, we really would prefer
• 7:20
  that you not.
• 7:21
  And he said, you want me to delay?
• 7:23
  And they said, no, we don't want you to be a priest.
• 7:26
  Why?
• 7:27
  Oh.
• 7:28
  We're afraid that if you ever got ordained and an accusation was made against you, your
• 7:32
  life would be perpetually ruined.
• 7:35
  Oh.
• 7:36
  Well, I do know that that is a concern among priests, that every priest knows deep down
• 7:43
  that his life is one phone call away from being damaged forever, and that's maybe something
• 7:50
  that we can talk about when we have more time in the next segment.
• 7:54
  I'm also aware that we have a culture that really doesn't help cultivate and sustain
• 8:00
  vocations in priesthood.
• 8:02
  My working with seminarians, and non-trivial percentages came from what we used to call
• 8:08
  broken homes, or blended families, and many of them enter seminaries in religious life
• 8:16
  with really no sense of Catholic culture at all, don't even know how to pray the Angelus,
• 8:22
  so they're well-intentioned and they're generous, but they don't have a lot to feed the vocation.
• 8:30
  Have you experienced that with young men applying to seminary?
• 8:34
  Yes.
• 8:35
  Well, again, you know, for the past 40 to 50 years, the bishops have generally dropped
• 8:41
  the ball on Catholic elementary and secondary schools, and that is still the biggest feeder
• 8:48
  for priestly vocations, but, you know, there's no interest in pushing that agenda, and therefore,
• 8:56
  that's why all these propagudic years are important now, because they're trying to play
• 9:01
  catch-up ball with a guy who's 25 years old, whereas, you know, I got all that stuff, and
• 9:08
  even you, a little bit younger, we got that through the Catholic school culture, and we
• 9:16
  knew how to pray the Angelus by third grade, and so forth, and more than that was a Catholic
• 9:22
  ethos that we grew up in, and that's all lacking, and I think bishops are on a fool's
• 9:30
  errand if they think that adding years to the program for an adult, I can tell you,
• 9:37
  you know, I was 25 when I was ordained, and I was the man that I was ever going to be,
• 9:45
  and so if someone has been living a bachelor existence until the age of 25 or even older,
• 9:54
  I don't know how you can do a formation of a man at that age, right?
• 9:59
  And I think that's part of the problem as well.
• 10:02
  And then, as I mentioned in the article, that the whole seminary structure is predicated
• 10:08
  on imitating monastic life, and then the guy gets ordained, and he's living in a clerical
• 10:14
  hotel instead.
• 10:16
  Well, yes, I think we have—I don't think that we've still really figured out what
• 10:24
  to do with diocesan formation.
• 10:26
  I mean, God bless St. Ignatius Loyola, I mean, he worked out in detail what our formation
• 10:31
  should be.
• 10:32
  Whether or not we live it well is another topic for another time, and we're all sinners.
• 10:39
  But we have a structure with community and mentors and so on, and then we shoot them
• 10:45
  out of a seminary canon, and we have them living at kind of a parish B&B, and that's
• 10:55
  not healthy, and most of the young men are not ready for that.
• 11:09
  Father, you know, I've been a seminary professor, and I have a passion for the intellectual
• 11:37
  life.
• 11:38
  Promoting active curiosity skills and a habit of deep reading is indispensable for priesthood,
• 11:46
  for prayer, for preaching.
• 11:49
  And there are times when I was disturbed when I would get the first round of essays from
• 11:54
  my seminarians, all of whom were college graduates, and realized that they hadn't really gotten
• 12:01
  much beyond first semester college sophomores.
• 12:06
  And I was told by my fellow formators, well, look, we just need them to be able to say
• 12:13
  Mass.
• 12:14
  You know, this is intellectual, this is sacerdotal barber college, and we just want them to be
• 12:23
  able to say the right words and knock things over.
• 12:26
  Obviously I found that to be inadequate.
• 12:27
  I was talking to a dear friend recently who is at a parish with a very good pastor, and
• 12:32
  consequently new priests are usually sent to him to be mentored for a couple of years,
• 12:36
  which is fine.
• 12:37
  And this is the observation about these new young priests, that they may be adept at talking
• 12:43
  to the fourth degree about, say, the Nestorian heresy, but are absolutely inept and without
• 12:50
  vocabulary for rudimentary moral analysis.
• 12:54
  They can't really talk intelligently about conscience or the principle of double effect.
• 13:00
  So it seems to me that there's either intellectual formation done in a slovenly manner, or it's
• 13:07
  intellectual formation done on the cheap, where you can talk confidently about theological
• 13:14
  Sudoku puzzles, but where the rubber meets the road and you need prudence and life experience
• 13:20
  and grace, there seems to be a falling short.
• 13:23
  So here's my thesis, that when a priest is not intellectually well-formed, when he doesn't
• 13:29
  have the habits of ongoing education, he's ripe for a fall.
• 13:34
  What do you say?
• 13:36
  Exactly.
• 13:37
  I think there are a couple of issues here.
• 13:40
  So much has been put into the camp of the heart, the heart.
• 13:46
  And I always make the point, when St. Paul tells someone to become Christ-like, he doesn't
• 13:52
  say, put on the heart of Christ, he says, put on the mind of Christ.
• 13:58
  And the act of faith is, first of all, a movement of the intellect.
• 14:02
  The will kicks in later.
• 14:06
  And I think we find, with a lot of clergy, but particularly the younger ones now, there's
• 14:14
  a lot of goodwill, there's a lot of devotion, which puts me in mind, though, of there was
• 14:21
  a professor at the New York seminaries, St. Joseph's and Dunwoody, back in the beginning
• 14:28
  of the 20th century, who gave a lecture on the anti-intellectualism of seminarians in
• 14:36
  1920, not 2020.
• 14:39
  And he said, I'm tired of hearing about piety.
• 14:45
  And he said, understand, piety is as passing as the morning dew, but dumb as forever.
• 14:52
  Well, we used to say, if you put a turkey under the hands of an ordaining bishop, you
• 15:00
  get an ordained turkey.
• 15:02
  So, yeah.
• 15:04
  Well, and the other issue is, I think, and I've had this experience for about five years,
• 15:11
  I did some adjunct teaching at a community college, stepping out of my Catholic bubble,
• 15:19
  and was astonished to discover the absolute ignorance that comes out of public high schools,
• 15:28
  and a class not ever having heard of Winston Churchill.
• 15:38
  And these are kids coming from public school districts, where they're spending $58,000
• 15:42
  to $68,000 a year for their education, and the parish high school that I went to, in
• 15:49
  the same district, is spending $30,000, and they can read and write.
• 15:55
  So I think that's part of the problem.
• 15:57
  Secondly, again, a lot of goodwill.
• 15:59
  So you have young priests, for example, who, like myself, love Latin liturgy, whether it's
• 16:06
  the old rite or the new rite, but they can't conjugate amo.
• 16:12
  And so, you know, they're going, in nomine patrua spiritu, you know, you say, come on,
• 16:17
  boys, you know, if you want to do it, then let's do it right.
• 16:21
  So you use the expression of slovenliness, and that's across the board.
• 16:27
  And so that's also part of the culture they're coming from.
• 16:32
  And then the seminary itself doesn't do much to inculcate, well, what I call a spirituality
• 16:41
  of study.
• 16:42
  I gave a retreat to the seminarians of Memphis two or three years ago, and my first conference
• 16:49
  was on a spirituality of study.
• 16:52
  And I said, gentlemen, if you are not taking your studies seriously, be sure that the next
• 16:58
  time you go to confession, you make your first sin, I am failing in my vocation as
• 17:04
  a seminarian.
• 17:05
  That's the first thing you're supposed to be doing, is studying.
• 17:10
  I was a weekend assistant for a priest who was extremely anti-intellectual and perpetually
• 17:18
  dumb.
• 17:19
  And we were seven weekend priests, all of us teachers, and someone brought up an academic
• 17:26
  theological topic at the Saturday night dinner, and the pastor started to make a joke about
• 17:32
  it.
• 17:33
  And he said, well, guys, you've got to understand, he said, I haven't read a book since the day
• 17:38
  I was ordained.
• 17:39
  And one of the priests said, Larry, you never read a book before you were ordained.
• 17:44
  Well, yeah, that anti-intellectualism seems to be a badge of honor, and I do know priests
• 17:52
  who have spent more time with ESPN than with the divine office.
• 17:56
  And I've had to call bishops to talk about their seminarian really isn't cutting the
• 18:02
  mustard.
• 18:03
  And that's where they said, well, St. John Vianney struggled in his studies, et cetera.
• 18:08
  And I said, Bishop, if you want to take that bet that this guy is the next John Vianney,
• 18:13
  you're at liberty to do so.
• 18:14
  But you know what?
• 18:15
  I know that John Vianney attended class, and he attended morning prayer, and he didn't
• 18:20
  have an addiction to Netflix.
• 18:22
  So it's up to you as to whether or not your young man is going to be the next John Vianney,
• 18:27
  but I have an obligation to tell you that.
• 18:30
  So I think that as a consequence of that lack of intellectual curiosity, because one of
• 18:39
  the thrills, I think, of being Catholic, and one of the opportunities of not having a family
• 18:46
  to provide for, is you can throw yourself into lifelong study.
• 18:53
  There's always more to learn.
• 18:56
  There's always more to explore.
• 18:57
  I mean, there's always another encyclical that Leo XIII has written that you haven't
• 19:03
  read yet.
• 19:04
  And I think that lack of curiosity and that lack of joy, again, makes men ripe for the
• 19:11
  fall.
• 19:13
  How do we begin to correct this?
• 19:16
  For the young men who are—they've been ordained a year or two, maybe they go to some
• 19:21
  young adult group, and there's one or two outspoken young adults who are especially
• 19:26
  well-read, especially, say, if they're a young convert, you know, in the mold of Chesterton
• 19:32
  or Belloq or Evelyn Waugh, and realize, gosh, it turns out I really don't know what I'm
• 19:37
  talking about.
• 19:39
  What do you recommend for that young priest who wants to turn things around?
• 19:44
  I always refer to it as playing catch-up ball.
• 19:50
  And the last year that I taught high school full-time, I created a course, an elective
• 19:58
  religion course for the seniors, and we called it The Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
• 20:04
  And I had a list of, let's say, 10 books that they all had to read, and then a list
• 20:12
  of about another 100 books that they could choose another 10 from.
• 20:19
  And we got together on a monthly basis—there was a select group, it was only 10 kids, deliberately—and
• 20:27
  shared—no one could have read the same book as anybody else.
• 20:31
  And the kids ate it up.
• 20:34
  They loved it.
• 20:35
  And I think we have to do something similar in seminaries, but also with junior clergy.
• 20:43
  And for the most part, I don't want to sound like I'm down on young priests.
• 20:48
  I'm not.
• 20:49
  I like them.
• 20:50
  And most of them like me, although many of them think I'm a liberal, which I get a kick
• 21:00
  out of, because actually today—the day we're recording this, at least—is the 52nd anniversary
• 21:07
  of my being thrown out of the seminary, three months before diaconate, because they said
• 21:14
  I was rigid and unbending, unsuited for ministry in the post-Vatican II church.
• 21:19
  So—
• 21:20
  Oh my, congratulations!
• 21:21
  So to be called a liberal is kind of amusing.
• 21:25
  Sure, sure, of course, yeah.
• 21:28
  But the goalposts have changed, you know?
• 21:30
  Well yes, no, that is certainly true.
• 21:35
  That is certainly true.
• 21:36
  No, I—and again, I have a lot of respect and affection for young priests.
• 21:41
  I've met some very, very generous young men who are earnest, who realize that they have
• 21:48
  a very long road ahead of them.
• 21:51
  The needs are very great.
• 21:53
  I know that there are bishops who wish that they could clone their young priests.
• 21:59
  We're really shorthanded right now, and one of the things that I want to talk about in
• 22:03
  the next segment is, you know, you've got guys who've been ordained only a couple,
• 22:08
  two, three years, and they find themselves pastors, or you have guys who are responsible
• 22:13
  for multiple parishes very early on in life.
• 22:17
  And one of the things that I know, especially in the Northeast, where you've got older
• 22:22
  and larger plants, you know, you've got a priest who's responsible for even just
• 22:27
  one parish, and he's got 17 buildings, 58 employees, and a couple of cemeteries to be
• 22:34
  responsible for.
• 22:36
  How is this man going to pray?
• 22:38
  How is he going to prepare to preach?
• 22:42
  How is he going to be able to take care of his physical self as well?
• 22:47
  So I think that we need to be a little creative about how to disperse his responsibilities
• 22:54
  so that he can come back to what is absolutely essential, because young men aren't stupid,
• 23:01
  and if they see if a father generous is actually father exploited, they're not going to want
• 23:07
  to jump on board to be a crew member on that sinking ship.
• 23:12
  So I think while there is still time, we need to have some interventions, and that's something
• 23:17
  that I want to talk about with you in the next segment.
• 23:20
  I want to have some kind of a top spin to not only recognize there's a problem, but
• 23:24
  also that we're not helpless, that there are things we can do about it.
• 23:28
  Hey friends, if you're buying or selling a home, there's an easy way to help, the Station
• 23:32
  of the Cross.
• 23:33
  At the same time, Real Estate for Life has 1,400 experienced morally grounded agents
• 23:38
  in the U.S. and Canada.
• 23:40
  Visit realestateforlife.org to find a Christ-centered experienced realtor near you, and don't forget
• 23:46
  to mention the Station of the Cross.
• 23:48
  So young priests, they have their hands full, they're in a difficult situation.
• 23:55
  What are best practices that we can recommend to the priests who are listening, and to the
• 24:01
  formators and bishops as well?
• 24:04
  Well I think the first thing is that bishops have to bite the bullet, and I know they don't
• 24:13
  want to do this, but they have to close places where you don't have people.
• 24:18
  And you know, you're keeping buildings going, and as I mentioned in the article, a priest
• 24:24
  of my acquaintance, he's five years ordained, he's got five parishes, plus he's a high school
• 24:30
  chaplain, and when he puts together the five churches where he has Mass on the weekends,
• 24:40
  he doesn't have 400 people among the five sites.
• 24:44
  And those churches are 10 miles apart, and I said, well, where do people do their grocery
• 24:49
  shopping?
• 24:50
  He said, they drive 15 miles to go to grocery shopping, but they won't drive 10 miles to
• 24:55
  go to church.
• 24:56
  And, you know, we get all the emotion, and I think this is another problem, that bishops
• 25:01
  don't have the right PR men.
• 25:04
  Anytime that we're closing something, somehow or other, it devolves into the question either
• 25:10
  we don't have enough priests, or people aren't going to Mass.
• 25:13
  The first reason why these places are closing is because there are no people, period.
• 25:19
  You mentioned the Northeast, you know?
• 25:21
  I mean, it's a demographic Alaska in many of these places, and you know, dioceses that
• 25:28
  had half a million population are down to 100,000.
• 25:33
  And I mean, I was a pastor three times.
• 25:37
  All three places that I inherited should have been closed 40 years before I got there, and
• 25:43
  I put them on artificial resuscitation programs, and yes, they worked, people were coming in
• 25:51
  from different places, and then when I left, they eventually closed anyway.
• 25:55
  And, you know, again, I'm sensitive to a bishop's concern that, you know, he not have
• 26:04
  constant pickets in front of his residents about closing places.
• 26:09
  But at the same time, now, on the other hand, as you well know, in the Southeast and the
• 26:14
  Southwest, they're building parishes all the time, and opening schools.
• 26:20
  You know, your Jesuit confrere, the superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Venice, Father
• 26:26
  Belmonte, and he says he could open, you know, 15 new schools tomorrow, because there's a
• 26:33
  population that's there.
• 26:35
  And so I think that's the first point.
• 26:38
  And number two, you can't give young men responsibilities for which they have neither the training,
• 26:46
  nor the experience, nor the disposition.
• 26:51
  Seminaries do not...I mean, the pastor of the parish where I went to high school, they
• 26:56
  have a parish grammar school and a parish high school with almost 1,500 kids on the
• 27:01
  property every day.
• 27:02
  It is a multi, multi-million dollar operation, all right?
• 27:08
  You know, just between the two schools and the teachers, it's about 125 teachers.
• 27:14
  Where's the training for that, all right?
• 27:18
  And there is none.
• 27:20
  My complaint also about, you know, we're not training young men to be effective in the
• 27:25
  school apostolate.
• 27:27
  I have to beg seminary rectors for a two- or three-hour workshop to give priests, seminarians,
• 27:35
  an idea of what they can and should be doing in a parish school or a diocesan high school.
• 27:41
  None of that is given to them whatsoever.
• 27:45
  I suggested in the article that one of the things that can be done to address those two
• 27:50
  big gaps is instead of, you know, silly summer assignments where you put a seminarian in
• 27:56
  a summer parish where there's nothing going on for the summer to begin with, but instead
• 28:01
  give them some practical courses in the summer on church administration and school apostolate.
• 28:10
  So at least, you probably saw the article about five years ago in one of the formation
• 28:17
  journals that indicated that young priests and seminarians, unlike the older brethren,
• 28:24
  are generally extremely favorable toward Catholic schools.
• 28:28
  However, they say, however, we don't know what to do, right?
• 28:34
  And so they're insecure.
• 28:37
  And sometimes you'll hear laypeople who say they like the young priest, Ars Celebrandi
• 28:43
  is always very good, they like their preaching, they like, you know, all kinds of things about
• 28:49
  them, but when it comes to authority issues, at times they're very gruff.
• 28:55
  And I think one of the reasons for the gruffness is an insecurity, because they haven't been
• 29:00
  trained how to be leaders.
• 29:03
  And this is another problem with the whole seminary structure, and you know this as well
• 29:06
  as I do, and again, I've been in priestly formation work for years, that we don't train
• 29:12
  shepherds in the seminary, we train sheep, because we want them always to say, yes, Father,
• 29:19
  yes, Bishop, yes, yes, yes.
• 29:22
  And we have to also train them how to lead, and you have that crazy Obama idea, leading
• 29:28
  from behind.
• 29:29
  Well, no war was ever won that way, you know?
• 29:33
  Right.
• 29:34
  Well, you know, I remember in the 70s and 80s, friends of mine, the paradigm usually
• 29:38
  led by sister was, you know, servant leader, and I said, no, no, men are meant to serve
• 29:47
  by leading, by being the adult in the room, and by really taking charge.
• 29:55
  And there's something significant about the masculine charism for that, and I think that
• 30:00
  needs to be reclaimed as well.
• 30:02
  One of the things I also want to talk about is a sense of community.
• 30:06
  When I was working at seminaries, I would tell the guys who were from their dioceses,
• 30:10
  I said, you know, the men with you now, they're going to be the presbyterate of your future.
• 30:17
  You have a stake in one another.
• 30:20
  You need to learn how to be friends and comrades in arms, and you need to know how to resolve
• 30:25
  disputes amongst yourselves like adult men.
• 30:30
  And I think if a young priest is in isolation, that's a recipe for disaster.
• 30:35
  Can we talk about cultivating at least camaraderie within the presbyterate?
• 30:40
  Sure.
• 30:41
  Well, again, I think this is part of the leadership thing, too.
• 30:46
  One of the tendencies in all institutions, not just the Church, in the past 40 years
• 30:53
  is, first of all, making men feel guilty about being men.
• 30:58
  And secondly, teaching not conflict resolution, but conflict avoidance.
• 31:04
  And there's a bishop who's a very, very close friend of mine who is an expert in conflict
• 31:12
  avoidance, and I have said to him many times, you know, you have gotten yourself involved
• 31:18
  in more conflict because of conflict avoidance than if you had dealt with it head on.
• 31:25
  And I think that's an essential issue.
• 31:30
  And secondly, we don't, you know, St. Paul says that we're supposed to rejoice with those
• 31:35
  who rejoice and sorrow with those who sorrow.
• 31:39
  There is a very unhealthy aspect to the priesthood, which is we don't like to praise one another.
• 31:49
  And in fact, kind of this attitude of the limited good.
• 31:54
  So if I say to you, gee, Father Joe was a really good preacher, somehow or other that
• 32:00
  takes away from me.
• 32:01
  And so, you know, if you say to a doctor, what do you think of Dr. so-and-so?
• 32:09
  Oh, he is the best cardiac doctor that I know, and I would send my own family to him.
• 32:16
  You don't find priests saying that in general, huh?
• 32:19
  And you say, Father Joe was a good preacher, and they say, well, you know, a little too
• 32:24
  dramatic, or a little too long, or a little...
• 32:28
  There's always the negative thing that comes out, as though somehow or other it's diminishing
• 32:34
  me to praise him.
• 32:37
  And you know, we've all experienced this kind of thing, and it's very unhealthy.
• 32:46
  And also, training guys to keep their head below, you know, one of the best seminaries
• 32:54
  in the country, they have an expression, yeah, keep your mouth closed until the stole hangs
• 33:00
  straight, right?
• 33:03
  Yeah, or don't do anything to attract the guard's attention.
• 33:10
  Yeah, yeah, that's right.
• 33:13
  And of course, that sets up a whole mentality, so that, first of all, it says that, you know,
• 33:21
  the seminary conditions are unhealthy, if that's the case, and then over and above that,
• 33:27
  it sets up a mentality whereby a priest will never, ever be comfortable in expressing his
• 33:35
  own point of view, let alone being able to defend it.
• 33:39
  And he gets into a position of authority, and then finally, he has to...when the push
• 33:45
  comes to shove, and as I remind priests, whether it's in reference to a parish or a school,
• 33:52
  you Father, as the pastor, are the ultimate authority, canonically and civilly, all right?
• 33:58
  So you can't push that off onto a parish council, or a diocesan committee, or anything else.
• 34:06
  And they're afraid at that point.
• 34:09
  They don't know how to take responsibility.
• 34:12
  And so I think all of this goes back to, there's a whole culture that...they come from a culture,
• 34:21
  a civil society, where they don't have any of those skills, they don't see them exhibited.
• 34:28
  They come from a parochial setting very often, where they're not, and then somehow or other,
• 34:34
  we express amazement that they don't have those skills.
• 34:38
  And so I think that's...and is it the chicken or the egg, which comes first?
• 34:46
  But it's not a good situation, and they're not to blame for the problem, in that instance.
• 34:52
  No, no, no, that's certainly true.
• 34:53
  I mean, I think culturally, we've beaten the masculinity out of young men for a generation,
• 35:01
  if not two, with predictable results, and we've fractured families with predictable
• 35:06
  results as well.
• 35:09
  And there are good bishops who really do lead from the front, and they get involved in lots
• 35:16
  of fights so that other people don't have to fight their battles for them, or become
• 35:20
  collateral damage later.
• 35:22
  And those bishops are attracting seminarians, and they're getting good vocations, and the
• 35:28
  word goes forth.
• 35:29
  And I'm very grateful for those bishops.
• 35:33
  I also want to encourage older priests to befriend and mentor, and be good examples
• 35:41
  and role models for the younger priests.
• 35:43
  And for the people in the pews, thank Father, praise Him for His good efforts, invite Him
• 35:51
  to dinner.
• 35:53
  I think that's important.
• 35:54
  And really also, we need to pray for priests.
• 35:58
  I've been ordained almost 29 years, and when I was a new priest, I think I really underestimated
• 36:04
  the spiritual attack that I would be under, and I wish I had known better.
• 36:10
  So let's agree that we're going to intercede militantly for our young priests, because
• 36:16
  they're going to be fighting uphill and outnumbered for the rest of their lives.
• 36:21
  Father Prius Stravinskis, thank you for a fascinating conversation.
• 36:25
  God bless your very good work.
• 36:27
  And I hope that we can have a conversation again before long.
• 36:31
  I'm sure we will.
• 36:32
  Thanks again.
• 36:33
  All right.
• 36:34
  Episodes like this need the support of listeners like you.
• 36:36
  If you want to hear more of The Catholic Current, please make a donation at thestationofthecross.com.
• 36:42
  Thank you.
• 36:43
  Here it is, the last segment of A Timely Tuesday.
• 36:46
  You know what that means?
• 36:47
  You and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting what we heard today.
• 36:50
  My guest was Father Peter Stravinskis.
• 36:52
  He founded the Catholic Answer, and the Catholic Response, and the Priestly Society of St.
• 36:59
  John Henry Cardinal Newman.
• 37:01
  And we were talking about why young priests leave the priesthood.
• 37:06
  It is a very disturbing thing.
• 37:08
  And I have some notes myself about where I think vocations come from.
• 37:17
  But I want to talk a little bit about why young men come into priesthood or not, why
• 37:24
  they stay, and why they leave.
• 37:28
  I remember I was a very young Jesuit, and I was talking to the pastor of a very large
• 37:35
  parish, and he was using a phrase that I knew was bandied about in seminaries in the 80s
• 37:45
  that said that his work was to be an enabler of other people's giftedness.
• 37:52
  Well, okay, not a bad thing.
• 37:58
  And that his primary work as a pastor of a large parish was to call a meeting, put on
• 38:05
  a pot of coffee, and get out of the way.
• 38:10
  Okay.
• 38:13
  I don't know why you need to take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.
• 38:19
  I don't know why you need to renounce the natural goods of family.
• 38:24
  I don't know why you need a thorough education.
• 38:27
  And I don't know why you need ordinations so that you can be an event organizer.
• 38:34
  Now let's compare this to St. John Chrysostom, whose feast day we celebrate today.
• 38:41
  This is a little quote from his book on the priesthood.
• 38:44
  This is from book three of his writings on the priesthood.
• 38:48
  He says this, the priest stands on earth and administers heavenly things.
• 38:57
  God has entrusted him with a power which he has given neither to angels nor archangels.
• 39:05
  Well, gosh, that sounds really different from putting on a pot of coffee and calling a meeting.
• 39:14
  And I also want to talk about why priests stay and why they stay now.
• 39:21
  And again, I want to talk about St. John Chrysostom.
• 39:27
  I know that there are very many priests drawn to media and social media.
• 39:34
  I think of Bishop Sheen, who was an extraordinarily learned man and a man of iron discipline
• 39:44
  and absolute generosity and fidelity when it came to prayer.
• 39:50
  And I think he was able to successfully fend off the temptations of celebrity, especially
• 39:58
  when he was on television in the 50s.
• 40:01
  For a while, he had the number one show on television.
• 40:05
  Think about that.
• 40:07
  He was the go-to guy.
• 40:09
  And I am especially concerned about younger priests who seem to enjoy the limelight, who
• 40:20
  appear at youth conferences and kind of act like rock stars and celebrities.
• 40:26
  And the reason I say this is, again, from St. John Chrysostom.
• 40:31
  He wrote this.
• 40:33
  He says, I do not know whether anyone has ever succeeded in not enjoying praise.
• 40:42
  And if he enjoys it, he naturally wants to receive it.
• 40:44
  And if he wants to receive it, he cannot help but being distraught at losing it.
• 40:52
  Those who are in love with applause have their spirits starved, not only when they
• 40:59
  are blamed offhand, but even when they fail to be constantly praised.
• 41:06
  So says St. John Chrysostom.
• 41:08
  And friends, we have all seen Father Cheerful at St. Typical's acting at Mass like he's
• 41:18
  the host of a game show, or he's the star of Mass, the high school musical.
• 41:27
  And people send me lots of things from Instagram of Father yucking it up and making his Mass
• 41:36
  really distinctive.
• 41:39
  I'm thinking of one priest I know of who wore fuzzy antlers on his head during Christmas
• 41:47
  Mass.
• 41:51
  I've seen priests break into long solos during Mass, singing, waiting, and then looking up
• 42:00
  expectantly for the applause.
• 42:06
  This is not good.
• 42:09
  This is not good.
• 42:11
  And I'll remind my brother clergy that we were told at our ordination, imitate the mysteries
• 42:19
  you celebrate and model your life on the cross of Christ.
• 42:29
  Now Pope Leo, Pope St. Leo the Great said, what was visible on our Redeemer has passed
• 42:36
  over into his sacraments.
• 42:41
  Christ became flesh to die and rise for the life of the world.
• 42:47
  And the work of the priest, who's not simply a minister, but is ontologically configured
• 42:56
  to share in the priestly agency of Christ the Eternal High Priest, who is in persona
• 43:01
  Christi, who is alter Christus, he lives a lie if he does not order his life to not only
• 43:16
  imitate Christ, but be in union with Christ to die and rise with him for the life of the
• 43:23
  world.
• 43:26
  And I think we need to remind all of our clergy about that.
• 43:35
  I've been thinking a lot about preaching lately.
• 43:39
  I have a little statement coming out tomorrow about contemporary misunderstandings of preaching,
• 43:45
  and then I have a long take for a plan for Friday when I talk about Cardinal Fernandez
• 43:52
  of the DDF and the document on preaching he gave to the Cardinals as they were leaving
• 43:57
  the consistory in Rome a couple of weeks ago.
• 44:02
  Receive the Gospels of Christ, whose herald you now are.
• 44:06
  Believe what you read, teach what you believe, practice what you teach.
• 44:12
  Every ordained cleric received that charge when he was ordained to preach the Gospel
• 44:18
  with authority.
• 44:20
  It's a terrifying and life-consuming standard, and I know with certainty that God will judge
• 44:30
  me.
• 44:33
  He will look me in the face and demand an account of how I preached.
• 44:42
  And he will do that to every ordained cleric at each cleric's particular judgment.
• 44:50
  My brothers, let us tremble in the presence of the Word, and my friends, pray for me and
• 44:59
  pray for all those who bear the burden of authoritative liturgical public preaching.
• 45:08
  Thank you.
• 45:09
  I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your dearly host for The Catholic Current.
• 45:12
  Join us tomorrow for another hot topic, lively guests on The Catholic Current.
• 45:16
  After the broadcast today, go to thestationofthecross.com, get our resources list, download our audio
• 45:21
  podcast.
• 45:22
  Where if you can find audio, you can find us.
• 45:25
  Take this to your family and friends.
• 45:26
  Together we'll take it to the whole world.
• 45:28
  Let's do this good work together.
• 45:29
  Through the intercession of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, may God our Lord surround you with
• 45:33
  a legion of guardian angels with flaming swords to light your path, to protect you from all
• 45:38
  harm and every evil, and to reach the happiness of heaven.
• 45:41
  May mighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 45:44
  Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.