Donald Cozzens
I’m going to tell you a little bit about my experience of priesthood. Not too much, I hope. But enough to let you take my measure. Do I know what I’m talking about? Do I understand a bit of what you are going through here in Australia?
Knowing a little bit of where I’m coming from might make our conversations more real, more honest. And I hope to meet as many of you as possible. I would like to hear what your experience of priesthood is like. What the years have taught you? What’s been a humbling grace? I’d like to hear of your successes and, if you will, perhaps some of your challenges.
I think I should say at the start here that my aim is:
- To honor your commitment without flattering you,
- To encourage you without minimizing your often hidden bravery,
- To challenge you without sounding like I think I know something you don’t,
- To inspire hope in you while honestly looking at the reality of the priesthood today and the church today.
My grandfather, Joseph Patrick Cozzens, didn’t live to see me ordained. I was a year away from ordination when I visited him in the hospital during the last days of his life. He surprised me when he said rather directly to me:“Be a good priest.”
This was 1964. He didn’t really understand what was happening at the Council. But he had come to know many priests in his life. It’s pretty clear that some of them were not “good priests.”
“Be a good priest.” I wondered what that meant to my grandfather. I wonder today what that meant to most people in the pre-conciliar years. Maybe we can talk about that this week.
I knew my grandfather well enough to know he didn’t mean that I should be a docile priest who didn’t think for myself, or who never took risks.
What does it mean for us to be “good priests” today? In a sense, that’s what your convention is about.
There are three parts to my talk:
- I want to say something about the issue of integrity.
- Then I want to take a look at our mission as priests.
- And finally, I want to say a little about hope in darkness.
The following excerpts from Donald’s address focus on these three.
Part I – Integrity
My first major crisis of integrity came shortly before my class was to be ordained. There were twenty-one of us in the ordination class for the diocese of Cleveland in 1965. A month or so before the big day we were summoned to a classroom.
The vice-rector came into the room and informed us that before we could be ordained, it was necessary for us to sign the Oath Against Modernism. Each of us was handed a copy of the Oath. We were to read it in silence and then sign it. I was being asked to swear an oath that I didn’t believe in the development of doctrine…that I believed that Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Quite simply, the Oath Against Modernism didn’t square with the documents of the Second Vatican Council.
I looked around the room. My classmates were solemnly reading the Oath. From the neutral expressions on their faces, I couldn’t tell what they were thinking. Then, to my shame and confusion to this day, I signed the Oath. So did each and every one of us. As we filed out of the classroom, I asked one of my classmates about what we had just done. I’ll never forget what he said. “Oh, I would have signed anything to be ordained.”
Wasn’t our integrity on the line?
As I look back on my pre-ordination crisis of integrity, I sometimes think of Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard, the archbishop of Paris during World War II who insisted that: “One of the priest’s first services to the world is to tell the truth.”
The vast majority of us priests prize our loyalty to the gospel and to the Church. And we understand that we’re not free-lance priests. We are men under authority.
But it’s complicated, isn’t it? Loyalty to the gospel? Yes. Loyalty to the Church? A qualified yes.
What do we mean by “loyalty”? What do we mean by “church”? …the People of God?… The institutional church?… The church as Curial officials?
It’s not surprising that priests often feel their integrity is at stake.
I’m not sure what it’s like here in Australia, but in the States I know a number of priests…
who choose not to think,
who choose not to question,
who choose not to reflect on their pastoral experience.
Instead, they think they can escape the integrity issue by an uncritical, unthinking, obedience.
These priests never prompt complaints to the bishop’s office. They never take pastoral risks. They give the impression they need only two books on their desk—The Code of Canon Law and the Catechism of the Catholic Church.
I think we often serve best when we risk most.
Priests who refuse to think, to question, to reflect on what their parishioners have taught them, would disagree with me here.
Donald recalled the answer given by Bishop Ken Untener, Bishop of Saginaw in Michigan, who died some years ago. He was asked, “How did you come to be so free?” Bishop Ken replied, “I got over wanting to be held in favour.”
Wanting to be he held in favor, it seems to me, is one of the kernels or seeds of clericalism. It might come to pass that this convention will crack open a few more kernels of clericalism.
Each of us here has solemnly promised obedience and respect to his bishop in a ritual that has unmistakable medieval and feudal roots.
Our task is to be truly loyal to our bishops. And that, we know, requires courage.
- We need to speak the truth to our bishops. And that isn’t always easy.
- We come to know what bishops want to hear and what they don’t want to hear.
And if we want to be held in favor, it is easy to keep quiet when we should speak, to remain still when we should question.
While we have promised obedience to our bishop, our first obedience has to be to Jesus Christ and his gospel. While we have promised obedience to our bishop, our integrity requires that we are obedient to our conscience.
If we cave in when it comes to protecting our integrity, we compromise our souls—and this compromise, in turn, effects our ministry.
We become “yes men”; we become “kept men”.
Should that happen, it isn’t good for us and it isn’t good for the church. It isn’t good for the people of God. The feudal structure of the church needs immediate review. It has worked in the past. I don’t believe it is the best structure to serve the church’s mission in the present and near future.
A final word about integrity—about the church’s integrity.
More than half a century ago, the Lutheran theologian Paul Tillich wrote that any religion that took upon itself the right to judge the values and mores of the world must be ready to subject itself to the same standards of judgment by which it judged the secular sphere. If a religion failed to do so, he warned, it rightly stood subject to the judgment of the world. Then, Tillich added, this is the particular danger of the Catholic church.
“Aspects of a Religious Analysis of Culture,” in The Essential Tillich,F. Forrester Church, 102
We priests and the hierarchy are being judged in the court of public opinion. The verdict isn’t flattering.
Part II – Mission: Our Lives for the People
We’ve just concluded the Year for Priests. I guess we priests should say thank you for that. But I can’t help feeling “played.”
Is the Vatican trying to lift my spirits in the wake of the sexual abuse scandals?
Is the church trying to reinforce and underscore the dignity of the ministerial priesthood when others judge our morale to be low? When our seminaries are less than half full?
Personally, I don’t need a “Year for Priests” to lift my morale.
Here’s what I need to lift my morale. And I’d love to hear from you during this time of convention what would lift your morale?
I’d like my bishop to sit down with the priests of Cleveland and ask open ended questions like:
- What’s it really like being a priest today?
- What aspect of the priesthood gives you energy and hope?
- What is the most difficult part of your life as a priest?
- What is most frustrating for you in terms of the present structure of priesthood in the Latin rite?
- How have you found the discipline of celibacy?
- Do you feel that I, as your bishop, really want to hear about your experience of ministry?
- Do you feel that I really want to know how your parishioners feel about the church right now, right at this time of turmoil and crisis?
- Do you think I understand how overworked and over-extended you are?
That kind of a conversation with my bishop would be more helpful to me than a Year for Priests.
Preaching
I’ve proposed in The Spirituality of the Diocesan Priest that we priests are “Tenders of the Word”. I cited Karl Rahner who said that “…the word has been entrusted to the priest. To him has been given the word of God. That makes him a priest.”
In addition to the psalms, our prayer book is the Lectionary. Our spirituality should be grounded in the Word and in our preaching.
So, we priests have got to take our preaching seriously. It should anchor our lives, our spirituality.
Rahner went on to say: “The word of God in the mouth of a priest empty of faith and love is a judgment more terrible than all versification and all poetic chatter in the mouth of a poet who is not really one. “It is already a lie,” Rahner continued, “and a judgment upon a man, if he speaks what is not in him; how much more, if he speaks of God while he is godless.”
Theologians tell us priests that we are “bearers of the mystery and that we help people catch fire…the fire of God’s great unconditional love for them.”
Frank McNulty in David Gibson’s The Coming Catholic Church, 346, 347
It seems to me that much of the fire has gone out in the lives and ministry of priests today. Much of the fire has gone out in the lives of the Catholic faithful, especially in the lives of victims of clergy abuse. You and I know that some victims don’t want anything to do with us. But it is still our responsibility to reach out to victims, to do our best to help them heal, to sit with them in their pain if they will let us.
If you are familiar with the writings of Rabbi Abraham Heschel, you might remember that he said, “I preach in order to pray.” Our own tradition says we should “pray in order to preach.” Of course, it’s really both. We pray in order to preach and we preach in order to pray.
We can only be good Tenders of the Word, if we preach from our center. We know well enough that if we are to preach well—or write well—we need to be men of faith, wisdom, prudence— and courage. We may be good at comforting the afflicted, but do we know how to “afflict the comfortable”? Can we hear the laments of those who suffer and give them hope?
Freedom Fighters – to free the oppressed
In addition to our mission as “Tenders of the Word,” we priests are ordained to be Liberators. Sometimes, maybe often, we are seen as the opposite, as “Binders” rather than “Liberators.”
The last lines of William Blakes’ poem, “The Garden of Love,” have always brought me up short.
“And priests in black gowns were walking their rounds and binding with briers my joys and desires.”
That’s how many Catholics and non- Catholics see priests in my country – as moral enforcers who pass judgment on the sins of society without having the humility to judge their own sins and destructive behaviors.
But to be Liberators of the Oppressed, we first have to be free ourselves. When the reign of God is alive in us we are gripped by Christ’s peace, and when Christ’s peace has us, we are spiritually free. And when we are spiritually free, God works in and through us.
When we get down to the heart of the matter, our mission as priests is to give our lives for the people. That’s what servant-leaders do.
Most of you men do that very well. Quietly, bravely, and in some cases, heroically.
When we preach effectively.
When we give people hope and set them free from fear and guilt.
We give our lives for the people.
Part III – Hope in the Darkness
The hope I’m trying to describe rises up from our faith and trust in the promise of Christ that he would be with us till the end. No matter what. It rises up from our compassion for those who have no voice, no power. Even in exile, even in the darkest night, God’s people are to hold fast to hope.
Some of us are holding fast. Others of us are barely holding on… by our finger tips.
It sounds paradoxical, but I believe we can find hope even when we are at the edge of despair. Or maybe that’s when hope finds us.
So, the question is, “where do you find hope?”
If you have a chance in the days ahead, I’d love to hear where it is that you find hope. Priests are meant to draw hope from each other. So, I suspect many of you find hope in the witness and ministry of your brother priests.Thomas Merton finds hope in what he calls the “
… heroism of charity under suffering.” (New Seeds of Contemplation, 123)
… the suffering of suspicion and mistrust.
… the suffering of betrayal by some of our brother priests and some of our bishops.
… the suffering of loneliness and fatigue.
In this collective Dark Night of our Senses and Spirits, we keep on ministering. We wouldn’t and couldn’t carry on without hope.
Donald then mentioned some bishops who offered HOPE to him:
- Archbishop Mark Coleridge;
- Bishop Donal McKeown of Down and Connor;
- Bishop Willie Walsh of Killaloe;
- Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin and finally,
- the former Archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland.
Weakland’s humiliation led to what appears to be a genuine spiritual renewal in his wounded life. The humbling of the priesthood appears to be leading to a genuine spiritual renewal among many priests today. I could be dead wrong, but I think we priests are praying differently. In addition to the psalms of the breviary, we are learning to sit still.
Perhaps inspired by Psalm 46, “Be still and know that I am God,” Blaise Pascal, the seventeenth century philosopher and scientist, wrote,
“All the evil in the world can be traced to our inability to sit still in a room.”
Maybe Karl Rahner had Pascal in mind when he wrote that “The Christian of the 21st century will be a mystic or not at all.”
Without a “contemplative turn” in our spiritual lives, we priests might learn little or nothing from our present ‘dark night.’
Could it be that one of our first tasks as priests is to learn how to sit still.
A number of things happen when we sit still:
- We discover that we are stronger than we think. Hans Kung once wrote that: “One parish priest does not count in the diocese, five are given attention, 50 are invincible.”(Quoted in David Gibson’s The Coming Catholic Church)
- We discover the deep well within us where hope lies.
- And when we sit still, we learn how to reverence. Reverence is important because it is intimately linked to the sacred.
What our secular world is thirsting for but doesn’t know it—is for a sense of the sacred.
Why should we be hopeful in the present darkness? Because there are signs that the Holy Spirit is loose in the world and alive in our hearts, coaxing us along:
- to be priests and bishops of integrity,
- to be men faithful to our mission, ready to give our lives for the people.
Donald Cozzens
A priest of the Diocese of Cleveland, Donald has served as spiritual director, counsellor, and retreat master for monks, nuns, priests, and bishops. His doctoral research focused on the philosophical anthropology of the Lutheran philosopher and theologian, Paul Tillich.
His experience as vicar for clergy and as president-rector of Cleveland’s Saint Mary Seminary led to his best-selling and award winning book, The Changing Face of the Priesthood (Liturgical Press, 2000) which has been translated into Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish, French, Dutch, and Czech editions.
Donald is Writer in Residence and Adjunct Professor of Religious Studies at John Carroll University in Cleveland. He spent the 2001-2002 academic year as a scholar at the Institute for Ecumenical and Cultural Research at St John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota, where he studied the dynamics of institutional denial. His research led to his award-winning book, Sacred Silence: Denial and the Crisis in the Church (Liturgical Press, 2002).
For more than a decade, Cozzens has been writing and speaking about the crisis facing the church and the priesthood. Since January of 2002 when the clergy sexual abuse scandal received wide media attention, he has appeared on “Meet the Press” with Tim Russert, Terry Gross’ “Fresh Air,” NPR’s “All Things Considered,” and BBC radio and television.
