The NIMBY Priesthood

 Steve Skojec, for all his faults and character flaws, is if nothing else an honest man. I did appreciate his recent Substack, "When Religion Comes First," on the topic of those who put their God before their family. Steve explained that the essay was an extrapolation of a spicy Facebook post in which he wrote,

"If you love your religion more than you love your own kids, don’t be surprised when they grow up to reject the thing you always cared about more than them."

I've always felt sympathy for Steve and his "deconstruction" (to use Protestant nomenclature) since losing faith and leaving the Church. I reached out a couple times over the years, and was either met with non-response or a kind of exacerbated callousness (which is okay). The thing is, I think Steve makes some good points from this vantage point of now being outside the Church that are lost on a lot of the pious crowd still in (and attempting to raise their kids in it as well). He notes:

"I have become increasingly convinced that much of Catholicism is, essentially, a kind idolatry of religion. Since God is perceptually absent/distant/nonexistent, the Church and all her countless rules and rubrics and rituals swell to fill the space left by his absence.

We begin to worship the means of worship because the object of worship is inscrutable and inaccessible.

Worship becomes indistinguishable from the rituals that comprise it. Which is why (according to my theory) those rituals take on more and more significance in the minds of those who feel that they must always go deeper and seek more reverence so that they can try to commune with God."

Now, obviously I do not agree with Steve on Catholicism being a kind of idolatry, but I do think I know where he is coming from, and this seems more common with people to whom God was always elusive, far-off, "Other." It is a little hard for me to relate in some ways because this was the opposite experience for me: I encountered God personally first as a loving and saving Father, and then religion became the chalice to house the pearl. So, God was always worshipped first and foremost, and the external structure of religious practice giving that heart a body and a skeleton. I could shrug at the rituals and just assume they were the particular expressions of religious practice but were not little G gods in some way. But then again, I was kind of a blank slate coming into the whole thing, without much baggage, preconceptions, or religious trauma. 

I mean, I've alluded to this in posts like The Church Will Hurt You and Preventing the Scars of Religious Trauma in Your Children, that although my wife and I have always had the order of God first, Spouse second, Children third, there is a part of me that is reticent to be too strict or "religious" with force-feeding my children the faith, because there is also a part of me that recognizes the Church is rife with abuse and corruption, and what father in good conscience would put that before his own family? 

But I have not been burned beyond peripheral singes, because I have largely kept my distance from episcopal and diocesan machinations. I have been constantly spared from being employed by the Church, despite my best early and naïve efforts to work for Her. Years ago I wrote the vocation office about wanting to serve the Church as a deacon, and never even received a response, so dodged a bullet there. I have wanted nothing to do with parish councils, and though I have close relationships with a couple priests friends, I have kept a healthy distance and distrust of "just because he's a priest" thinking. In other words, "I can trust him because he's a priest," which is just another manifestation of clericalism. As a father of boys in a Church rife with mollittes clergy and homocentric seminaries, I don't think this is being imprudent. 

Now, I have often said priests are like farmers: No farm, no food. No priests, no Church. We're not Protestants. We are grateful for men who sacrifice and take on the cloth for the flock. There are bad priests out there, and many lukewarm company men. But there are also good men, imperfect but striving men, servants who want to carry out their calling for the glory of God and the tending of the sheep. And there are many bad and lukewarm status quo administrator bishops out there. But there are one or two good ones as well, who love as a father loves and not as a COO of DIOCESE Corp.

And yet, knowing all I know about our particular wasteland of a diocese and many others like it, I want priests for the Church but would never sacrifice my son to the diocesan grinder to become one. 

That sounds harsh, and I hate admitting it myself. When a man is called by God, he will only find peace when he embraces that calling. And so I would hope that if one of my sons was truly called by God to take up either religious or priestly life, that God would preserve him in that calling and make a way. But as a father, I would never push it or even encourage it. Kind of the way we know we need chemical plants and prisons in society, but we certainly don't want them in our neighborhood enclaves (NIMBY--not in my backyard). 

To lose faith is a terrible feeling. Which is why I feel for Steve. In many ways, I have kept my distance from "the Church" in order to maintain my faith. Awful, isn't it? And yet I benefit from Her sacraments, Her teaching, Her witness, Her priests and religious. But I am not willing to offer my son to the roll-call. I feel like I know too much insider info, and am too familiar with the dysfunction. Wed yourself to Christ, yes...but not the Church. 

We know some folks who have "assigned" their young children as religious and priests already--"oh, well so-and-so (age 4 or whatever) is going to be a priest, so..." I think this is terrible parenting and religiously manipulative, not to mention just unrealistic. Although we know this was how the Church was fed for years with nobles and large families "offering" one of their sons to the priesthood, whether or not they felt called to it. I think vocation offices have gone to the other extreme these days, though--not encouraging men to think about it enough (maybe because they know all too well the problems and burnout inherent in the role of priest), or the seminaries being effeminate and inconducive to healthy masculinity. And bishops not being true spiritual fathers, but many who are cold administrators who will throw you under the bus to preserve the Force at all costs. 

I want my sons (and daughter, of course) to remain Catholic. I don't care if they are "religious" or not, but I want them to have life, and have it abundantly (Jn 10:10). I want them to attend Mass of their own volition when they grow up, have a family if it be God's will for them. It's a fine line to walk between forcing your children to be "holy" and letting them simply be who they are and loving them for it. I can only be the example. I want him to be able to come to me with anything, know he can rely on me to never spurn him, to take him in when he needs a place to come home to. 

Will the Church do that for my son also? Can I trust the Church to preserve his innocence? Not feed him to the wolves? Or is it a corporation (albeit a religious one) just like any other, where the bottom line is the preservation of the company at all costs? 

No faith, no salvation. No priests, no Church. Lord, raise up good men able to endure the suffering that comes their way when they live out their vocation with nobility and integrity. We need true shepherds, not simply effective administrators and ecclesial ladder climbers and company men. We need a Church we can trust, and that trust must be earned. Until then, I'm not sure I'm willing to sacrifice my sons for Her.  May God judge me.