Guide to Ongoing Formation for Priests

CHAPTER 1: PRIESTLY LIFE | 19

48. Clergy shortages and aging presbyterates have contributed to higher workloads and stress levels among almost all priests. Many young priests are appointed pastor of one or more parishes shortly after ordina tion, causing them to feel underprepared and overwhelmed and to feel they have been left to fend for themselves. The mounting workload often leads to a frenetic focus on activity and pastoral work, an activism that can drain one’s desire for spiritual intimacy with God and promote superficiality in the interior life. 38 Feeling trapped by an expectation of work that can never be accomplished, many priests fail to care for their souls and even for their natural well-being, neglecting sleep, health, and relationships. Authentic fraternity among priests, like all friendships, requires a commitment of time and energy; in light of their workloads, many priests are reluctant to make that commitment. Many lack life-giving relationships among family members and friends, further isolating them. All too often, priests seek to fill the void left by these relationships using virtual relationships instead, through an unhealthy, sometimes even sinful, use of social media and other Internet resources. As occurs in the wider culture, priests find their growing reliance on “digital friends” to be depressing and unfulfilling. For some priests, personal isolation is intensified still more by an overly clerical understanding of the priesthood. By clericalism we mean not a proper understanding of legitimate priestly authority, still less a healthy love for the clerical vocation. Rather, clericalism is a fixation on one’s status as a priest, an eager demand for respect, and an implied superiority over others. Ultimately it means that a priest has forgotten that he is first a disciple, in common with all other Christians, and that his glory is to be a son of God. His priestly vocation is an invitation into a deep friendship with Christ so that he can more fruitfully serve his brothers and sisters and indeed the whole world. By embracing the flawed attitude of the Apostles, who argued over who was the greatest (see Lk 9:46, 22:24, and so on), clericalism fosters division within the Church and further isolates priests from the very people who should be among the primary supporters of their vocation. 49. 50.

38 “Due to numerous duties stemming in large part from pastoral activity, the priest’s life is now linked more so than ever before to a series of requests that could lead him to mounting activism , making him subject to a pace at times overwhelming and frenetic. Not to be forgotten against this temptation is the first intention of Jesus, which was to call to his side Apostles so they “would remain with him” (Mk 3:14).” DMLP, no. 51 (emphasis original).