With the eyes of faith

“There’s no doubt that from the point of view of nature the priesthood is incomprehensible, but it finds its living embodiment in the life of priests and this makes it possible to think of what is unthinkable”. That’s a passage from the reflection “The Life of the Priest”, presented by Father Paul M. Conroy, General Secretary of the Scottish Bishops’ Conference, during the annual meeting of the general secretaries of the European Bishops’ Conferences. The meeting was held on the initiative of the Council of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (CCEE) at Lvov, in the Ukraine, from 9 to 13 July. The Scottish secretary summed up his intervention as follows to SIR Europe.Crisis of families. Just a few days since the opening of the Year for Priests called by the Pope, from which, observes Father Conroy, we hope for “a raising of the morale of priests, where necessary”, and “an increase in vocations to the priesthood”, he says he is “personally convinced that the best way to attract candidates to the priesthood is the testimony of life offered by priests themselves. If they show themselves to be happy and realized in their own mission, other men will more easily hear the Lord’s call and respond with generosity”. The secretary of the Scottish bishops does not disguise “the trials and tribulations that threaten the perseverance” of a priest and laments the closing, in April this year, of the only major seminary in his country, due to the “low number of candidates and the impossibility of administering it”. There is no doubt that the crisis of vocations (758 priests and 27 seminarians in 2007, out of a Catholic population of some 700,000, compared with 1,076 priests and 117 seminarians in 1987) is the result of a more general “crisis in Western society” and also a “crisis of families that are no longer a natural breeding ground where a vocation to the priesthood can grow and mature”.“Men of God” who live for other people. According to Father Conroy, however, “the family must continue to be considered the first seminary for vocations to the priesthood”; at the same time “the priestly ministry will be fruitful in proportion in which it is rooted in the family, the domestic church”. Reaffirming the value of celibacy that characterises the Latin rite, the Scottish religious emphasises how important it is that priests should live “in the midst of people”. “Our availability and the chance of being approached at all hours of the day or night and on any day of the week is something that people find very reassuring”. Funerals, baptisms, marriages, confessions, visits to the sick and to the dying: living in the midst of people’s daily events forms part of the ministry. For this reason, continues Father Conroy, “according to the people who look at us with the eyes of faith it’s not important what we do, it’s what we are that counts”: “men of God who are there for them”.Communion with the bishop and presbyters. The lifestyle of the secular priest, warns the secretary of the Scottish bishops, may also involve the risk of fostering in him the illusion “of being able to do everything by himself”, a “temptation” to which “everyone may easily succumb”. That’s why “it’s crucial that the priest be incorporated without reservations in the diocesan community of the bishop and presbyters. The prebytery constantly reminds us that we weren’t ordained to exercise our ministry by ourselves alone”, but that “we belong to a community” and are “linked in an inextricable way with every other priest”. By virtue of this communion, observes Father Conroy referring in particular “to priests guilty of sexually abusing children”, “we too feel the grief caused by someone who by his actions has cast shame on the priesthood, on the Church and on Christ himself”. These acts, he stresses, “throw a dark shadow over us and over the Church and seem especially apparent in the Anglo-Saxon world”.The morning of Holy Saturday. Fortunately, according to Father Conroy, “the majority of those who know us” continue “to be on our side and to support us” seeing “beyond the human weakness, the sins and the crimes”. “In many respects – he points out – this historic time resembles the morning of Holy Saturday. We are conscious that terrible things have happened from which we cannot imagine that anything good can come out. It’s difficult to know how the Church will recover her own credibility among those who have suffered evil, and how the Gospel can be listened from the tongues of those who are considered accomplices of the evil committed”. In Father Conroy’s view “it’s not easy to imagine how young men can feel attracted to and embrace a life whose reputation in the minds of many seems stained. However, if this is a Holy Saturday, in the disclosing of the Easter mystery we can only wait with faith for God to transform our tears into smiles”. It’s always difficult to foresee how history will judge a particular time with hindsight”, says the secretary of the Scottish bishops. He is convinced, nonetheless, that the life of the priest, which “in many respects is a sign of contradiction”, “will undoubtedly be appreciated” in “continuity with the past and with what has still to take place”. Those who observe, concludes Father Conroy, “will recognize the humanity” of this life “but will be fascinated by what can only be described as the mystery of the priesthood”.