WASHINGTON (DC)
The Atlantic
May 26, 2019
By Kerry Weber
Calls for the abolition of the Church’s clerical establishment ignore something important: the wishes of the faithful.
A few years ago, I was invited to my friend’s ordination to the priesthood. I was thrilled for him—a kind, holy man who’s passionate about justice—and honored to be included. But if I’m honest, I also expected to be a bit bored. Ordination liturgies can run several hours, and the rite requires some parts to be repeated for each candidate. With eight men up for ordination, I knew we’d be in it for the long haul. I imagined the experience as something akin to a graduation ceremony, where you root for the person you know and then tune out.
On the day of the liturgy, however, that repetition of the rite moved me deeply. As I watched this line of men I’d never met become priests in the Church I loved, I was struck by the beauty of this brief overlap in our lives, and by the way in which these men represented only a fraction of those ordained that year. We would all go our separate ways, changed by this experience and renewed in our desire to serve. I needed to root not just for my friend but for all of them.
With every new wave of stories of sexual abuse by priests, it can be much harder not to create a spiritual bunker containing the people I like and leaving out the rest. I have felt despair and frustration at the crisis of abuse and the failure of leadership that got us here. The Church needs healing. It needs a new way forward.
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