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Our Unhealthy Priests!
Once upon a time there was Canon O'Bubblegum with his two curates and his dragon of a housekeeper, living in a cosy presbytery, with even the wild Irish Rose, who came in on a Thursday to do the heavy work. The Dragon kept 'her' priests in shape. 'Put your scarf on now, father, its chilly out' with a reasonably well-balanced diet and a bottle of medicine and a hot water bottle when they were ill. When they suffered the effects of the disgruntled flower lady, or the chairperson of the mothers union, 'We are watching you for scandals, Father, but we haven’t found one in ten years'! Their brother priests were there to share the joke and lift the burden.
Those were the days eh?
But what do our priests, generally speaking, face today?
A cold empty presbytery. No-one to nag them gently (or even not so gently) to take care of their health. Meals out, Fast food, junk food, rich food as parishioners try to outdo one another in killing father with kindness. Over weight, drinking a bit too much. Resulting in ulcers, kidney and liver problems, heart and stroke victims still in their fifties.
Add to this a few who begin to feel the loneliness of the years ahead, questioning the worth of the years of sacrifice behind them, the 'I've given it my best shot' priests. And you have a nation of sick priests.
These sick priests move in different directions. Some soldier on in Christ name. working well into their eighties if they can, dying in harness. One priest in the USA is on weekly kidney dialysis. He is in his eighties, but he knows that when he retires, his rural parish will close and the next nearest church is an Evangelical group. 'I'll die before I will give up my flock to them' He says. And he will.
For those who retire, some dioceses have a good support system in place, with flats or rooms available. In the Liverpool archdiocese I was invited to 'Visit the boys, they will put the kettle on and enjoy a chat' by the priest who, himself retired, was appointed in charge of the welfare for priests group. Other dioceses, which shall go un-named for now, when I asked if I could speak with the director of welfare for clergy asked 'Who?'
The Sisters of Grace and Compassion, who ran retirement homes for clergy now have to open their doors to private laypeople, as the Government regulations for nursing homes means they cannot give free beds and TLC (Tender loving care) anymore. ‘It is, apparently, not enough’ Sister Superior told me.
Others decide to give up whilst they still can (hopefully) find another career. For these the going is just as hard as if they had stayed. Years of doubt and discernment. A year or more on leave to test their ideas, often supported by a small stipendiary pay from the diocese, as they are still in the care of their diocese, while they go back to college, uni, or try to find work in other ways. Chaplains in hospitals and prisons and schools. Teachers, Counsellors, Therapists, one is studying to be a Chiropractor, or, if they are VERY lucky, they might get a plum job within the diocese as a lay director.
Others, not so clever end up as hospital porters, taking out the soiled linens to the incinerators, taxi drivers, dustbin men, even hobos walking the roads and sleeping rough.. Is that life really better than staying in the ministry? Some obviously think so. Or maybe, by the time they have realised that is where they are destined, it is too late, they feel, to turn back. In some cases, their diocese won’t accept them back. Whatever happened to 'Once a priest, always a priest'? Who is listening to the parable of the Prodigal Son?
A few dioceses have now recognised this problem, and are beginning programmes of support for their resigned and transitional clergy, and not before time. It has been over thirty years since Rome turned down the debates on contraception and celibacy, which many bishops wished to have discussed. At that time, many priests, strong in their beliefs that changes would come from Vatican II, felt they could not go on any longer, and left. Most of these are now married with families of their own. In Spain the joking comment amongst priests is, 'We won’t see the changes, but our sons will!'
Then there are those who leave because, in their modern role as social worker, and teacher as well as parish priest, they, in their lonliness, have met some sympathetic lady, and a gradual relationship has developed, which they are ill equipped to cope with. They apply for laicisation and bang goes yet another good priest, his valuable service and ministry lost.
I am in favour of celibacy. It is a wonderful thing, for those who are given the gift. As St Paul said, it IS preferable. But not all men who are given a Vocation are given the gift of real celibacy. And the Holy Father himself stated, in his initiation of the Anglican clergy to the Roman Catholic Church, 'Celibacy is not essential to the priesthood' So why are our priests, a whole decade later, still being forced into accepting celibacy in our seminaries? If it is agreed by the Pope that it is not an essential requirement, why cannot it be an optional celibacy rather than a mandatory celibacy? The one contradicts the other.
Whilst on the subject of contradictions, one of the outstanding reasons given for not allowing our priests to marry is that A) the Church/Parish will have to support them and their families; B) if they are married it will dilute their efforts away from their parochial work; C) the laity will never accept it.
From within my own very small world of experience I would like to bring three contradictions.
1) Many priests are already worker priests, holding down jobs to help support them, as their parochial stipend does not. Or it might, but it does not provide for their retirement, and as we have seen, in many cases, neither does the Church.
One priest in Spain told me that before his stroke (wouldn’t you know it) his day began at 7am...By 9am he was teaching in the seminary. Then at 11am mass at a college. Midday he was visiting the Colonel for orders (as he was a military chaplain amongst other things) Lunch at the Barracks or at a convent depending on his pre-lunch appointment. Rarely did he get the rest in the afternoon as the lunch beginning at 2pm would last until maybe four with talks, drinks and cigarettes.. At 5pm a visit to his parish parishes catechism class, and two hours then devoted to parishioners visits. 8pm Mass. Office work, answering letters and calls of the day followed by supper at 10,30pm, and bed until the next day when it started all over again. He never had a holiday for twelve years. He never stopped long enough to digest his meals, and then he had a stroke in his early fifties.
If priests have to work, doesn’t that take them from their parochial duties /split their concentration also? And if they can work to provide for their retirement, why can’t they work for their family, so that the family will support them when they are too old to be of use to the Church they serve? Many families don’t? Well, yes there are always arguments, but one would pre-suppose that a family brought up in such a Christian tradition would have at least one person willing to look after an aged curate.
And what about if the marriage does not work? What then? Indeed what then. What then when 3% of all marriages end? Isn't it the same argument? But we have to live with it. . Is the prospect of a divorced priest any worse than a drunken priest, a bitter and uncaring priest, a disillusioned priest?
Priests are not some elite body exempt by the Imposition of Hands from all human failings. As one priest told me, his anxieties about celibacy were brushed aside in seminary with the answer that it would all change once he received the imposition!
Our Lord showed many times that He had failings in His human Form too. He showed us that we must accept and tolerate those failings, whilst trying to live useful lives striving ever towards the Light. Not becoming angels before we can fly!
This, by the way, is a medical and psychological observation rather than a personal opinion. I still maintain that the beauty of the celibate priest is superb –when it is truly observed by that priest. But Nature, and for that read, God, has provided us with certain stimuli for survival. And aestheticism is not necessarily essential for the worker priest, in a parish with all the trials of modern life. Physically it is even harmful for some. Psychologically it creates alternative options, anything from overeating, drinking, smoking, drugs, pornography, promiscuity – and sex abuse. Even the mildest priest will sit listening to blue jokes and will often get a buzz from them. Maybe he is not even realising that is what he is doing. And the parishioners love to indulge him... The ‘Let's see how far we can go with Father’ syndrome!
2) In some areas priests have come from the Anglican sector, and with their wives and families. Their Catholic parishioners are delighted to welcome them, and many say it is refreshing 'being able to talk to Father about family problems he can really understand as he has them himself'. The minority who objected soon coming around to accepting this new family in their midst.
So let’s look at the effects of lonely living and the priest of the 21st century...
Rushing around from one task to another means that the body does not have a chance to digest the meal properly. This puts a great strain on the liver and can result in liver illness and even liver failure. Symptoms at first may be an irritable mood ‘liverishness’ and or depression ‘melancholia’ which comes from the Latin for ‘Black bile’, bile comes from the liver. Yellowing of the whites of the eyes, bags under the eyes, brown spots on the hands and body. Unfortunately there are other things which can cause these too, so not concrete evidence of a rushed lifestyle! But if you have both, you should see your doctor soon!.
Drinking a bit too much. Nowadays science has discovered that a glass or two of red wine is good for heart, the red colour gives an an antioxidant which keeps the arteries from furring up, prevents blood clotting and increases HDL, which is the GOOD Cholesterol as opposed to the bad... Which keeps the blood thin and also helps the immune system. A small brandy aids digestion etc... A beer can help reduce the risk of kidney stones, and the onset of diabetes. While ethanol in beer thins the blood protecting the heart and stroke problem. But unfortunately many of our priests, with no one to say, ‘watch it dear’ drink far more than the occasional glass without realising. Their parishioners and ‘friends’ are killing them with kindly-meant indulgence.
I once observed quietly, a priest who had had a stroke, and whose specialists asked me to keep an eye on him. He was not a heavy drinker, and does not even care for wine; he would only allow an inch or so of wine in his glass. Whilst he was talking the neighbours continually filled his glass, each time with just an inch or so, but by the end of the meal he had consumed, unawares, eight such 'inch or so’s', without him noticing. Then at the end of the meal they gave him a strong shot of 70% proof liqueur rum!
The same man gave up smoking some twenty years ago. Except the occasional festive cigar, he told me. In six days I witnessed six such festive cigars, each the size of a large Havana! When I pointed this out to him, he was shocked, and has not touched one since! But he did not know he was doing it. He had said, in complete innocence, that it was only once every six weeks or so!
A doctor once told me that to smoke a cigar was as bad as putting your mouth over a car exhaust when the engine was running! Many think that because they do not usually inhale cigar smoke, that it is not as bad as cigarette smoking. But if people can and have developed cancers by working alongside smokers yet not smoking themselves, how much easier to develop something by smoking without inhaling.
Many of the priests who come to me with an increased irritable disposition, and fearing their psychological soundness, have nothing more sinister than symptoms of a bad lifestyle, which after twenty years or so, their body is beginning to object to. Not sinister, but certainly something to beware of.
Welfare within the diocese is not good. There is no training for the young priest to look after himself healthily. No medical check-ups every year to make sure they are in good condition. No advice on health and fitness, and in many places, little consideration for them when they are ill. It is left to a well meaning parishioner to ‘see to’ Father with a bowl of onion soup or chicken broth until he feels better, and few priests consider going to the doctor.. If they do go, the doctor looks usually at the immediate symptoms rather than the strained lifestyle of these men.
When they ‘recover’ from heart, stoke or liver trouble, they are put back on the job as fast as possible. ‘Don’t eat fatty food’ warns the specialist. Then Mrs. Worthy parishioner invites Father to Sunday dinner, assuring him that chicken is not fatty, having roasted it in a pan with a nice bit of dripping rubbed into the skin! Yes it DOES happen; all too often I’m afraid.
The ‘Just once’ syndrome is rife too. ‘It’s a feast day Father, just once won’t harm you’. But ‘Just once’ for that family is every other weekend for the parish priest who is expected to attend birthday, baptism wedding and weekend celebrations around the parish.
In some countries now they are having a crackdown on the health of their priests, and not before time. But it needs to begin in the seminary, and it needs to end in the welfare office of every diocese.
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