Where is my voice?

I've not posted in a month. So much has happened in that time in my life and in the life of the country. It has seemed overwhelming, and I have not been able to articulate my thoughts well enough to blog. However, I have been able to comment in other blogs from time to time. This is easier than developing a post here, for a comment left on a blog is simply a reaction to someone else's thoughts rather than the exercise in real creativity that an actual post requires. Two of the comments I have left recently are quoted below.


From http://farmboyz.blogspot.com/2010/06/feathering-of-empty-nest.html#comments. "Dreadful, like the scent of carnations, is the possibility that you'll take a path into lifelong rambles." That is an exquisite sentence. So many of us, driven by the hormones of youth, began to see our meaning in the meetings in the Rambles, and the bars, and the piers and trucks, and other places of dalliance. We didn't know or care to know that it could stunt our growth. Stunt us spiritually and psychically if we survive, kill us if in those days we picked up the wrong guy, or the wrong virus.

With age wisdom may come. Life is to be lived by making an investment in something worth the investment. Investing in things is rarely worthwhile. Investing in a noble cause is sometimes worthwhile. Investing in people is always worthwhile, even if the particular persons prove themselves unworthy. And children are one way - maybe the main way - we invest in people, in the future.

Curving inward by investing in our own self, rarely pays off. Chasing our own pleasure directly is most often a recipe for unhappiness. Giving ourselves to someone, or maybe to something, is what pays the dividends, and when the curtain of death shrouds us, is the measure of our lives.

From https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=2850096231666604&postID=7440379026963250763 The financial situation of a priest - whether diocesan or religious - is a means of control. Priests are generally well provided for. We don't have to worry about being fired if we toe the line. We have a place to live, food, and an income that is not large but which is sufficient. But we are dependent. If, like Fr. Geoff, we create a fuss or act in conscience against the wishes of the bishop or religious superior in a significant matter, all the security we have will be stripped away from us.

How many priests would leave if they could? I don't know, but there must be thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, in the US. Becoming a priest is, of course, a decision of faith that has perpetual consequences spiritually and ontologically. Priesthood is forever.

However, must active ministry be forever? And if there is a departure from active ministry, whether initiated by the priest or by his bishop or religious superior, the priest (or religious lay brother or sister, ought to be financially secure. This doesn't require much, really, when compared to corporate standards. Just give the priest, brother or sister, lifetime health insurance coverage, a pension if he is of retirement age, assistance with transitions, job training if he needs it, and for heaven's sake do not take actions that keep him from getting a job - even a job with the Church if it comes to that.

But in the Church, these are radical suggestions because they strike at the heart of the institutional control upon which bishops depend. Priests are pawns, moved at the will of the bishop, kept tethered by the bishop's purse strings, and cowed into submission. Do you want to know what a priest really thinks? You are unlikely to find out. Priests have been trained to be circumspect, and to hide their own opinions in order to be voices for the Church.