A More Sober View of Priesthood

by: Deacon Douglas McManaman

I was driving home from visiting one of my brothers in a town north of Toronto and noticed an article by Janet Smith about the nephew (Kevin Wells) of the priest who, when I was 17 years old and hitchhiking with my 5-String banjo to Nashville, TN, gave me a lift from Columbus, Ohio and took me to Erlanger, Kentucky (Monsignor Tom Wells). I asked my wife to read it to me in the car while I was driving.

I found that I did not agree with either of them in what they were writing (re: priests who belong to the SSPX). But a memory returned to me while the article was being read to me, a memory that contains what I believe is an important point about the priesthood that I think is more relevant today than years earlier. I remember complaining to Father Wells about the priests in Canada, that they are not like him and how ridiculous it was that for me to return to the Church, I had to be placed on a highway outside of Columbus, Ohio to encounter a priest who was driving from Washington DC on his way to Kentucky, because between Toronto and Nashville, there just weren’t any around to do the job that Father Wells was able to do. That was the general idea of what I was saying to him, if I remember correctly. In any case, what I do clearly remember is that he disagreed with me. And he was adamant. He said to me: “That was a graced moment”. He kept objecting and insisting that the two or three hour period in the car on the way to Kentucky was a graced moment.

Yes, I thought, it was indeed a graced moment, but I didn’t quite understand how that was inconsistent with the point I was making. It took some years for me to get the point–probably because I was blinded by “hero worship”, which in Jungian terms is the projection of the Hero archetype from my own unconscious mind to an individual person, in this case, Kevin’s uncle, Monsignor Tom Wells. He knew something about himself that I did not. What was that? Well, in my eyes Father Wells was larger than life, as all heroes are, but he knew better. He knew that he was not larger than life, and that what resulted from that car ride was the result of divine grace (a graced moment), not Father Wells. In other words, grace was present in me in such a way that I was disposed to see and understand things that were happening on a different level–Father Wells may not have even been aware that anything was happening on another level–in fact, given his delight at the marvels of divine providence months later, it is probably the case that he wasn’t. He was just driving the car, answering my questions to the best of his ability, most importantly relating to me at an eye to eye level (no condescension, pretension, nor airs), being the generous and joyful guy that he was. Had it not been a graced moment, had I not been disposed a certain way by that grace while Father Wells remained the same joyful and generous priest that he was, then life would have gone on and I would not have returned to the Church but would probably be playing in some Bluegrass band somewhere in the U.S. Father Wells had no power to change me, and he knew it. He knew it because he said that he in fact was not responsible for my return to the Church. Grace was. God can use anyone. As Jesus said: “I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham” (Mt 3, 9). He chose to use Father Wells as an instrument, but God could have used anybody. The instrument certainly has some importance–you can’t pick up a watermelon with a plastic fork–, but without the disposition brought about by divine grace–which depends entirely on the will of God at the moment according to the plan of providence–, that journey to Nashville would have been no different than any other journey.

And this is the problem I had with the title of Kevin’s book that I reviewed years ago: The Priests We Need to Save the Church. I was uncomfortable with the title, but decided not to give it too much thought at the time nor mention it to him. But the Church does not need saving. The Church is Holy and Immaculate, because She has been saved by Christ, and there are no priests who are going to save anyone, much less the Church. Any ordained priest who thinks he is going to save anyone is suffering from a bad case of grandiosity. This is why I no longer have the patience to read certain conservative Catholic journals–because most if not all of their writers seem to believe that they are vessels of truth that the world and the Church desperately need. In short, they are delusional. They are no more vessels of truth than your typical columnist from the National Catholic Reporter–and there are some very good writers there.

In the past, shortly after my return to the Church in 1979, there were days when leaving the church after mass I said to myself: “What a pathetic homily!”, when not even 10 seconds later I see a man going up to the pastor to say: “That was a great homily, Father. It touched me deeply”. Many times I thought a particular pastor was a dud, only to learn later how many other people in the parish thought otherwise and how much he did for them. Recently I was out with someone who has quite a harrowing life story, a tremendous near death experience, and in his mind the parish he belongs to is feeding him like there’s no tomorrow and he does not want to move. I didn’t dare tell him what I know about the parish and the pastor. Obviously, the Lord is doing something for these people, despite their pastor and his refusal to take advantage of all the gifted people ready to serve. He’s a stifler, but as Father Wells would say, “God is in control”, and He knows what He’s doing in allowing this, that, and the other thing. But his pastor is certainly not responsible for the good that seems to be happening outside of my purview, any more than a wrench is responsible for my new car’s smooth and reliable performance.

I move some people with my homilies and leave others unmoved, and my priest friends will move others and leave many unsatisfied. We are not all alike, not all at the same place, and certainly not all “spiritually starved”. No parish needs me, and Father Wells would certainly agree that no parish needed him. They need Christ, and I’m not Christ, and neither is he. I’m a very limited human being with a very limited grasp on things, and some people may benefit from my particular way of doing things, but not everyone. And I am certainly not going to be responsible for the salvation of anyone’s soul. God alone will be. In fact, my efforts at saving anyone may very well do more harm than good if those efforts are accompanied by inordinate zeal. And looking back at my life, I do often shake my head at myself, but God must know that at every stage of my life, I’m profoundly limited and continually make mistakes. Why? Because He knows everything. More than that, He is all powerful, so He can and will accomplish all that He wants. So why would I worry? And why are any of us worrying? Why do so many of us behave like a bunch of frantic neurotics with a seriously flawed Manichean worldview that to us appears as orthodoxy? How many times did Jesus say: “Don’t worry”? Did he not say “Take heart, I have overcome the world” (Jn 16, 33)? Young priests fresh out of the seminary have not been chosen to save the Church. After 40 or more years in the priesthood, if they’ve learned anything at all, they are going to look back and say to themselves: “I knew nothing. I was not the slightest bit superior to anyone, and looking back I have to thank so many people for putting up with my obnoxious delusions rooted in the inexperience that is part and parcel of youth. The problem is I can’t, because most of them are dead and buried”.