Like everything
else, Clericalism began working on me before I knew it was there. By the
time I was ordained, I was already enjoying the clerical state and therefore
blind to an objective perception of it. Since Clericalism feeds the ego, a taste for it
was easy for me to acquire and keep on nourishing. Today I see Clericalism as
an unfortunate, inevitable evil; unfortunate because of the suffering it
spawns, and inevitable because it is
hardwired into human nature. Clericalism
is an evil parasite. It eats up and lives off of the souls it inhabits. Ultimately,
it makes priests and people dead branches instead part of the living vine.
Most people today,
if they think of Clericalism at all, would say it means a priest or minister
abusing his position of trust in society for personal pleasure of a sexual
nature, or for gain by taking advantage the perks which are part and parcel of
his profession. That impression, while accurate in many regards is inadequate
because it is incomplete. Clericalism isn’t reducible to sexual abuse, or
enjoying perks. It is a relationship, a social reality, a way people regard men of the cloth, and a way men of the cloth regard people.
Clericalism is a systemic codependent relationship in which both priests and
people deal with one another not on the basis of their humanity, their real
selves, but their imaginary selves, idealized and/or demonized to various
degrees. This reflection attempts to relate the unfortunate yet inevitable
reality of Clericalism to its broader dimensions, the most important of which
is Christ Himself and the priest’s sacramental configuration to Him.
To set the
groundwork, let me offer some seminal experiences from my past which help awaken
me to the problem:
1.) I remember
walking into a department store when I was newly ordained back in 1968, and
getting a discount of 20 % on something I purchased. It came as a surprise to me. I thought the clerk had made a mistake. So in my in my “Boy Scout” honesty I spoke
up. The clerk told me that it was store
policy to give a discount to “men of the cloth”. I certainly didn’t mind. That
night I shared my experience at the supper table with my first pastor, and he
told me that the same discount applied pretty much across the board, with
Airlines, trains, and busses as well as stores.
He gave me some information on how I could get a Clergy Pass, so the
discount would be applied automatically whenever I travelled. That certainly was fine with me. Priest salaries were not high at that time,
and I didn’t mind getting a break because I wore the Collar. It was a nice
perk. Within a few years, however, the discounts had disappeared, and our
salaries had risen considerably. I loved
the increased in salary, but I was not very happy that clergy discounts had
disappeared. The times had changed, just after I had developed a sense of
entitlement.
2.) In those early days of my priesthood, it
did not take me long to discover that clergy also got a pass on
misbehavior. In 1968, it was overlooked
if Father drank too much, or did poor job preaching, or had a nasty
temper. Back then, Father even had the
right to get angry and go on a rant! The Collar put him above reproach. In legal matters where a complaint had been
lodged, the Collar also got him a warning to get out of town before the posse
arrived. I saw this happen at my first assignment, although it took a few weeks
to put the pieces of the puzzle together and figure out what was going on. The
details are blurred today, but I still remember the specifics that matter.
I was in the backyard of the rectory. I had
parked my new Plymouth Valiant in the garage, and was on my way to the backdoor
porch, when a State Police car pulled in to yard and parked by the garage. The
Hartford police parked in the church yard and school yard all the time, so I no
longer noticed their cars. But a state police cruiser was an unusual sight. I
stopped and stood there to see what was going on. A trooper got out of the car, tipped his hat
to me, (again, remember this was in 1968) and asked if the Pastor was in. I was
about to say “I’m not sure because I’m just arriving myself”, when out of the
door back door walked the Pastor. So, instead of saying “I’m not sure….,”my
words to the trooper became “There he is now.”
With that, I headed into the rectory. Although I wanted to hang around,
I somehow knew I should not.
At supper that
night the three of us, (the Pastor, myself and the other assistant) sat at the
table, but a fourth chair was empty. For the past couple of weeks, it had been
filled by a visiting priest who was staying in the guest room upstairs. I
remember asking if I should go call him, or if he was going to be in for
supper, or some such thing. And the reply came that he had left. The tone of the pastor’s voice did not invite question or comment. I have
no memory as to what we spoke of next, but I do know we did not talk about his leaving. The pastor’s
tone of voice made me sense that I was not supposed to raise the subject. I wasn’t aware of it at the time, but I was
part of a conspiracy of silence around his departure. In truth, the silence was
not consciously a conspiracy, but a general unawareness and unfamiliarity with
the complexities of sexuality. Since I did not even know the meaning of the
term pedophilia in those days, no pings or dots appeared on my mental radar
screen for me to ignore.
What do I recall
about our visitor? I remember him as a pleasant dinner companion, affable, easy
to be with, who came from a diocese down South, and spoke with a slight drawl.
He was on vacation, had people he wanted to see in the area, and was staying
with us for a while. Slowly but surely
my mind began to doubt this information was accurate and complete. Little by
little I began to put the arrival of the state trooper in the back yard with the
priest’s unexpected departure. Did the
trooper arrive with some kind of complaint about the priest? Was he asking the
Pastor if the priest was staying with us? Or did he come to warn the Pastor so
that the Pastor could warn the priest? It could have been any of the above. Did the Pastor lie to the trooper about the
priest’s presence and then tell the priest about the trooper’s visit? Who knows? Maybe there was no connection
between the trooper’s appearance and the priest’s disappearance, but the time-line
led me to associate the two and look for a link even though I had no proof of
one. I may be doing the priest, the trooper, and my Pastor an injustice, but I
had the suspicion the Pastor warned our visitor, (with or without the trooper’s
okay), to get out of Dodge before the posse grabbed him.
3.)
Some months later, the Pastor asked me if I would like to be Principal
of the school. I agreed, without giving the matter any thought at all. I was in
the habit of visiting the classrooms, giving short talks to the kids, and
interested in education. Why not be principal? The reason was very simple:
because I was in no way qualified for the position. They fact that I was a priest gave me no
automatic right to be a principal. Any of the nuns who taught in the grammar
school would have been better qualified than I was. It amazed me how much more educated most nuns
were than most priests. The reason why
was simple: we stopped our formal education once we got out of the seminary,
whereas they continued theirs. Every summer while parish life went into low
gear, the sisters, dressed in black, in the steaming summer heat, went and took
courses at St. Joseph College, continuing their education. It was laughable that I was their principal;
even more laughable was that they all accepted my appointment as a matter of
course. The school secretary had more
knowledge about running a school than I did. I feel sure that much of the drive
for women’s ordination to the priesthood today has its historical roots in the
unjust discrimination nuns and women in general endured in the not too distant
past.
What did those
three examples teach me about Clericalism? Privilege and perks, a behavioral pass, confusion
of competence with status, and exaggerated respect, all these elements were
part of the package that would foster future resentment. But they are far from
the complete package.
To Be Continued...
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