A Priest is Just a Man
I just finished reading The Bishop’s Man by Linden MacIntyre, a great read following Pope Francis’s recent visit to America and his acknowledgement of the past sins of some Catholic priests. The book underlined the fact that a priest is just a man.
This novel touches on the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic church—how it’s perceived by those within its organization, and how it’s covered up. We follow Father Duncan MacAskill, a priest in Nova Scotia, as he struggles with what he knows and what the bishop is asking him to do. He is known as the “enforcer”, the priest who deals with priests who’ve lost their way.
A Giller Prize winner for 2009, The Bishop’s Man is told largely in dialogue, It exposes the humanity of priests and their fallibility. Their church expects celibacy from them. No wonder so many fail. A priest is just a man.
I think back to my childhood, when I regularly attended St. Mary’s Ukrainian Orthodox church in Winnipeg. The Orthodox faith is similar to Catholicism in its liturgy and belief in the Holy Trinity. But there are some significant differences. In the Orthodox church: priests can marry, there is no infallible pope as the head of the church, no purgatory, no original sin, no immaculate conception, and no detailed confession expected. And there are no rumblings about any priest being sexually inappropriate.
The priesthood is supposed to be a humble calling. A sacrifice, meaning celibacy in the Catholic church. Seems like an unreasonable request unless you’re a man who has no sexual desire. So was it a shocker when a prominent Vatican priest came out a week ago and appeared before the cameras with his lover? I admired his courage and his honesty. He was subsequently fired by the Vatican, the body of men who are not ready to accept that the priest is just a man, one who like anyone else craves affection from a female or a male. Why pretend that a priest can manage celibacy? Everyone knows most can’t. So why does the church insist on this path for priests? Perhaps, if it allowed men to be honest about their feelings and have sexual relationships through marriage (straight or gay), there wouldn’t be so much sexual scandal.
What do you think? And have you read a book that touches on faith, that moves you, that leaves you wondering about the rules of man, ones that seem impossible to follow.
I’ve always believed priests should marry. They could marry back in the beginning. Jews, as most Christians were in the beginning, were expected to marry and have children. Sacrifice makes sense, celibacy does not necessarily make sense. But then I’m Jewish so the concept is a little foreign to me.
I forgot about that, Julia. They could get married in the beginning, so again, this is man’s interpretation of what priests need to do. Christ was a Jew, so I would think he would have no problem with priests getting married. Anyway, the book The Bishop’s Man, stirred these thoughts. With all the sex abuse scandals and the unending cases of victims crying out, you’d think the Catholic church would revisit the notion of celibacy.