It's Your Call
You can't live a meaningful life from the sidelines.
This past weekend, I watched seven young, talented men lie prostrate on the floor during their ordination to the priesthood. It's a moment that never fails to move me. Here are people who could have done countless other things but who stepped forward and committed their lives to Christ and the Church in this wholehearted way.
In his recent book, Believe, Ross Douthat acknowledges that every organized human activity, including organized religion, is "steeped in crimes and cruelties." One might conclude we should abandon such institutions entirely, but Douthat argues this is "a view for adolescents." Instead, we should "recognize the needs met by these institutions, the necessary work they do, the progress to which they can contribute, the truths they convey, and get on with the business of trying to make them better, less corrupt, the best version of themselves."
It's easy to complain. It's far more helpful to contribute.
These new priests aren't naive about institutional flaws—they're choosing to be part of the solution. The question isn't whether the path is perfect, but whether we're brave enough to walk it.
The world needs people willing to stand up and say, "Here I am, Lord. I come to do your will."
I have such mixed feelings. I grew up in the Catholic Church (literally--my mom was a DRE) and I love the Catholic Church. I left it because I didn't like how they rejected and excommunicated people. But after spending some time in a "progressive" church I realized the Catholic Church accepts a wider spectrum of people than literally any other human organization. But I'm a man married to a man, and the Catholic Church doesn't recognize it as the sacrament that it is, so I'm probably not going back. What good I do in the world, I do through other channels.
But Catholic priests are generally awesome, and I have tons of respect for the vocation. I remember trying to explain to a protestant friend the difference between pastor-as-a-job and priest-as-a-vocation. Mentioning the whole laying on the floor bit helped make the point. Congrats to the new priests & Christ be with you!
While pondering what I hoped might be a call to consecrated life I met this bishop. He’s a very “nice” man but he was born into and grew up in the silo of the institution. And he’s good at it, which is why he’s a bishop. Folks predict great things for him. I sat down and talked about my discernment process with him. Not far into the discussion, it became clear to me that he probably didn’t have much to help me out. I’m one of those converts that’s always asking pesky questions, not the militant, by-the-book variety. I’m old. And my past, while not quite as littered as Dorothy Day’s, is still just a bit … colorful, shall we say. He said I reminded him of his favorite gospel story, which was the Samaritan woman at the well. It’s amazing how many ways folks who live in the middle of a silo have for reminding real seekers that they are, well, outsiders. Looking back, I can see now that being denied the uniform and holy oil was exactly what I needed. If I’d gotten it I’m pretty sure I’d have become one of those “certain” converts after all these years. I’d have drunk the kool-ade and bit down hard on ritual in place of God. Not that there’s anything wrong with ritual as long as it’s not substituted for the real thing. After all, Dorothy Day went to mass every day and found great peace in the rosary. It’s what a person does with it that counts, and I was at a point in life where I was battered and beat up and just ready to stop thinking altogether. So I didn’t get what I thought I wanted. Instead, I chose lay ministry, which, I assure you, is much, much harder. I hear all those altar calls for vocations at the same time I watch the institutional church as a whole put the brakes on the message of Vatican II, especially the part about lifting up and incorporating the laity - really incorporating in practice not theory; I watch the church clinging to clericalism in ways large and small, and I wonder what will become of the institution. And I stay. Not because I drank the kool-ade, but because I know this is the church that started the whole thing and somebody that sees what it could be needs to stick around. If the institution would follow the message it was given about the ministry of the laity, really do it as a whole, if it would abandon all the unnecessary obstacles to serving as laity, there wouldn’t be a need for altar calls or pleas for vocations. There would be enough. They would come naturally from the ranks of the laity on fire with the gospel work they were finally allowed to do. But that doesn’t occur to the guys like that bishop. Nice guys who got where they are by following the script. Jesus told us what would happen to institutions in the same story referenced by that bishop who unwittingly called me an outsider. “But the hour is coming, and now is here, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth.” People get ready, there’s a change a’comin.