priest unions

You know, Fr. Bill, I have to say that while I salute your thinking I have to caution you against it at the same time.

As a nurse primarily educated in a diploma program (the kind that Catholic Hospitals often sponsored), your rationales were a subtext to my education. Nursing isn’t just a job, it is a vocation. The call to duty is all important. Your patients need you. Etc, etc.

To this day, I’m not fond of unions.

But nurses had to learn some self-respect. We had to learn that it is okay to speak up for yourself, to ask for what you need.

We had to learn that what we were doing, sometimes, wasn’t even a half-a-loaf for our patients.

And all of that socialization kept us from asking for something better for ourselves and for our patients. (Notice I wrote patients, not clients.)

Now, Fr. Bill, I’m not advocating for perfection. I really don’t think a union is the answer. Or at least I hope it’s not. But for the would-be priests of the future, there has to be a discussion about what we are doing to our priests. And how it impacts our laity.

When I am around priests, I sense exhaustion. The main celebrant at my father’s funeral was crippled by an arthritis but not yet released from his parish. He practically commanded us to ask a distant cousin priest to (con) celebrate the funeral mass. He was a symbol of suffering equal to that of Christ on the cross. I see it in the newly ordained young priest in our parish being run virtually all over the diocese as the symbolic young man who has given himself up to the priesthood to have lots of contact with the youth. I see it in another priest I know who is struggling to have the stamina to do the energetic driving over a hundred miles a weekend regimen.

When are our priests getting any time to meditate, pray, re-energize? On occasional vacations or rare sabbaticals? Care givers must learn to take care of themselves, not in luxury, but with time, leisure, spiritual succor in order to effectively continue. What is the laity getting from this? How often do we sense an over-burdened priest, “Not a good time to talk”?

I think we have to talk about this or we may lose what we have.

Molly,

Thank you for your viewpoint, it is a valid, thoughtful and important one. I am certainly grateful for your support and the concerns you have for our priests and the recognition that, sorrowfully, our burdens often affect the people we serve.

The subject post suggested the possible need for a “priest union” because the clergy do not have a “blue line”, as do firefighters or police in backing their brothers when they are in descent from the policies or conditions of their employment or wish to have remedial actions undertaken. It was stated that priests hide under the table rather than join in support of their fellow priests. I assure you that this is the case only for the few with little courage or those who aspire to higher offices and therefore refrain from “rocking the boat”.

The majority of your “average parish priests” make known their dissatisfactions to their pastors and even to their Bishops. The problem we have as pastors and priests is that we are under a vow of obedience and therefore, though we can challenge the status quo and recommend and encourage change, and we do, we have no power or authority to implement anything not “handed down from above”. Further, in vowed obedience to our Bishops, if we are ordered to cease and decist opposition, we must do so or face the possibility of losing our faculties and therefore the ability to function as priests, though priests we remain.

Any group which undertakes to change conditions created by, accepted or imposed by higher authority, needs some leverage with which to impose negotiation or, if negotiations are refused or unsuccessful, threaten reprisals. Unions have the strike as their leverage. I do not know one priest, even the most dissatisfied, that would consider a strike against the church. A strike demands the withholding of a persons services or labor. The Bishop of any priest who would join a strike would, likely as punishment, suspend the priest(s) faculties and therefore prohibit him from licitly performing his priestly duties. A priest who would allow, for personal or even corporate priestly reasons, to have his services withheld by the institution would, therefore, also be allowing them to be withheld from the church, the people of God. He would be in violation of his vows, both of service and obedience. The priest is put in the middle and made his own executioner. It kinda shows where, at least by appearance, loyalties are; most priests first to their people, many of the Bishop’s first to the institution.

Your concern for the priests of the church is much appreciated and we bless you for them but, we knew, or should have known, what we got ourselves into when we entered the priesthood. I'm sure every priest takes seriously his obligation to point out the positive and negative aspects of the priesthood to our seminarians and those considering vocations. One of those aspects is putting the interests of the faithful ahead of ones own comforts or interests. Regrettabley, the results of that can sometimes affect our efficencies in our ministeries, hopefully we can recognize when this happens and prevent it, sometimes we cannot. We ask your understanding and forgivness.

Frustrating as it might be, the way the institution is organized and its leaders chosen, makes it difficult if not impossible, for the voices of the presbyters or laity to be heard with any authority. That is why, in private and without the knowledge, but suspicion, of the Bishop, I support any movement by the faithful for a role in the accountability of Bishops and priests and the sharing of authority. Until then, the fox continues to guard the hen house

It is for these reasons, that I took (take) the position that a priest must bear difficult circumstances as their cross and put their faith in the Holy Spirit to guide changes and their timing within the Church. His ways may not be ours and may be beyond our understanding or patience, but His, not our will be done.

These difficult situations are not matters simply of social justice, but ultimately of faith in Devine justice. He who is last shall be first.

I here you on this and agree with you. However, some of my best priests friends seem to have abandoned me for their own political interests. It is disheartening to experience that. Furthermore, when I have gone out to parishes and spoken to pastors in my chancery position, I heard first hand many good priests so worn by the system, that had become disheartened and in some cases, alcoholics or depressed. I saw in their faces the love of God, their parishioners, and the church - yet I saw the weariness in their fight. The old you can't fight city hall.

Maybe the unions aren't the best idea - but we need an effective strategy for this if we are to continue to have a ministerial priesthood and attract home grown vocations. Right now the only strategy seems to be to import priests from 3rd world countries.

I find this very interesting, but without any specifics of the disagreement, I find it impossible to imagine how you reached an impasse with your diocesan administrator. Perhaps there is not always a way around things, but perhaps there is a way that is just not clear at the particular moment. Confrontation is typically the worst approach for getting something accomplished, no matter how wonderful it is likely to be. I have found that envisioning a better outcome is often helpful in that one then seems to automatically make the choices that make that outcome possible. Don't forget to love your enemies. (reads like the inserts in fortune cookies, right?)

Envisioning better outcomes seems to work better in a group setting than it does in one-on-one situations, especially when someone envisions you as disappearing. I do love my enemies but I don't have to like, condone, or be a victim to their behaviors. I have to face the Lord with the Dignity of an accountability of my own actions - and I do that with much greater comfort.

Though there is nothing here that I can substantially disagree with, I think your statements say a lot about the costs of our top-down structure and, again, reiterate that the church may be doing too much to make the priesthood an unattractive career choice--to be so voiceless.