Fixing the Priesthood, by Michael Kelly, Eureka Street, February 20, 2011

Fixing the Priesthood

By Michael Kelly
Eureka Street
February 20, 2011

http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=25060

For several weeks in late January and early February, I spent a lot of time at the bedside of a strapping 19-year-old athlete who was unconscious after a swimming mishap at a resort in Thailand. He never regained consciousness and died as a result of multiple organ failure.

A great deal of my time was spent accompanying the boy's family though this agony. Eventually I returned to Australia with his body for the Requiem.

It was an exhausting experience.

The funeral attracted 2000 mourners. Most of them seemed to be younger than 20 — an age where death has no palpable reality to it and when the myth of indestructibility is alive and well. Here was its firm rebuttal: Our lives spin on sixpence, as the boy's mother told me during our watch in Bangkok.

After the ceremony, I scarpered. I couldn't take it any more and we still had the burial ahead. But as I fled, an old friend — a senior Federal politician with whom I've crossed swords on occasion — came up and gave me a hug.

'Mick, that was just the best: you did a wonderful job for Joe and his family,' said my generous friend.

He added: 'You've gone up in my estimation.'

Struck dumb, I said thanks and continued my escape. I thought to myself that there is only one profession with lower social esteem these days than a Catholic priest and that is a politician. And here is one telling me I've risen in his estimation! With examiners like him, who needs to sit for the test?

Further thought on the melancholy state of the clergy and their public evaluation produced a fruitful and consoling insight. Being seen as an outsider is, in fact, a liberation. Swallowing flattery and exaggerated respect as if it's an entitlement is the one and certain path to self delusion.

In earlier generations in Australia, and perhaps till quite recently in Ireland and the United States, priests were treated as tribal heroes, a superior and exclusive caste, perhaps better educated and so much more awesome because of their involvement in the mysteries of meaning and purpose, life and death, good and evil.

But the sexual abuse scandals and their inept management by Church authorities have dealt lethal blows to that culture. Entries to seminaries and annual rates of ordination have plummeted.

And that's just the last 20 years. In fact, the numbers of priests and candidates for the priesthood have been in consistent decline since the 1960s.

It doesn't just stop at priests. The mother of a recently ordained bishop explained to me her misgivings about what had happened to her son: 'I told him no one listens to bishops anymore, son. You're going to live a very isolated life.'

All of which poses a question: what do we make of it all and where do we go from here? I'd like to take a leaf out of the book of life of the boy I buried — Joe Welch. He was a mountain of a lad, a successful representative footballer whom everyone expected to play front row for the Wallabies.

Joe wore his achievements with great humility. No trophy carrier was our Joe, no collector of emblems of success. He felt a faint pity for those who had to rely on reciting their achievements.

This was of piece with the way his family faced the loss of their cherished boy: face the facts, it's happened, didn't we have a wonderful life with him, aren't we lucky to have many friends to support us, aren't we grateful for the hope we have for Joe now, coming from the faith we shared with him.

Likewise with the state of the clergy; face the facts, it's had a good go in its present form which has had a life for 500 years. But it's over. It can't last because the numbers mean present requirements simply can't be met in the foreseeable future.

And no amount of importing clergy from the few places where there is an over supply — as Europe, North America and Australia have imported priests from India and Nigeria — will meet the need. They will run out too, as is clear from falling numbers of seminarians and ordinations in South India, previously the cradle of vocations.

The paradigm needs a full review. It's broken and no amount of plaster will hold it together.

And I have hope it will be reviewed. Why? Because it just can't go on. The numbers aren't there and reality will dawn even for those scurrying about with short term solutions.

What's more, the sexual abuse scandal and the ineptitude with which it's been handled by Church leadership are two factors concentrating the attention of anyone who cares to look: the present arrangements don't work and need a radical review.

So my friend, the politician, has done me a favor. Owning how bad things are, understanding the way you're seen by others, adopting a humble approach to deciding what to do next — unencumbered by the esteem in which you may want to be held — is the first step towards change.