Why does the Priest dont Fall in love?
(preamble. I dont know what i was searching for, or why I clicked on this, or even why i read it) but f me this is hilarious, bolded is the best part that really got me!
Priests used to have a sense of camaraderie, but priestly fraternity became unfashionable with the rise of feminism. It was deemed too clerical. One used to have a sense of family with the people whom he served, but now that a priest is limited to six, or at most twelve years with a particular community, he never sinks real roots. He becomes more a consultant than a shepherd, more a distant cousin than a father. And at the age of seventy, just when you need people who know you and care for you, you are expected to retire, and find someplace to live, preferably a good distance from your parish, lest you cramp the new pastor’s style and you have to figure out some way to make ends meet.
People are endlessly fascinated with us. They love us and they hate us, but they never really know us. We stand in the way of that perfect garden wedding, or we are the saint who showed up just in time at Grandma’s death bed, and now we are expected to show up just in time for every other crisis. I’ve gotten requests to baptize the grandchildren of people to whom I haven’t spoken in years, I am not making this up, because I baptized all the other children and it would look odd in the picture on the mantle if it was a different priest doing the honors. I get emergency calls from people I haven’t heard from in twenty years and who I couldn’t pick out of a crowd of two. We are never just fellow sinners saved by grace. We are what’s right with the Church, or we are what’s wrong with the Church. It never occurs to people that we are just part of the Church. They, too, are the Church. I cannot tell you the times that I have been dressed in Mass vestments and someone runs up to tell me that there is no toilet paper in the lady’s room, or they can’t get their car out of the parking lot. It does not matter that the hymn has started and the cross bearer is halfway down the aisle. The person who needs the toilet paper or has to get their car out before the dry cleaner closes will forever judge the Church and the Gospel by the fact that you didn’t care enough. Most people aren’t that goofy, but quite a few are. “Father the sidewalk isn’t shoveled.” “ Someone is going to trip over that first step.” ‘It’s too hot in here.” “It’s too cold in here.” “How come you don’t have someone answering the phone on Saturday nights after ten? What if somebody needs a priest?” There are fewer and fewer of us and the demand is always greater.
In addition to all this there is the current anti-clerical climate. We live in an anti-clerical country. Thomas Jefferson, the great founder and author of the Declaration of Independence thought that priests were the enemies of freedom. I suspect that he agreed with Diderot who longed to see the last king hung with the entrails of the last priest. The modern press in particular hates us, and will try to embarrass us as long as it keeps selling news print and TV air time. We are the enemies of what they see as their freedom and they will always hate us for it. By our very existence we remind them that God has said of certain things, “thou shalt not…..” Some people think of all priests as depraved because of the sins of some, and they use our sins to excuse their own. In the priesthood you will find yourself under constant scrutiny. The slightest gesture or word can be misconstrued. They will examine your finances, your friendships, your hobbies. I have actually had people go through my garbage and try to see my private papers. I assume by “private papers,” they meant the stack on my desk. I have no private papers. If I set something to paper I assume it will become public knowledge.
