Another book to read! So many books, yet so little time!
By Micah Snell
The Priests We Need to Save the Church, by Kevin Wells (229 pages, Sophia Institute Press, 2019).
Kevin Wells’ monograph was started as a celebration of the priestly ministry of his uncle. Monsignor Thomas Wells was a devout and effectual priest whose ministry was cut short by his untimely murder. While compiling notes and tributes to write about the hallmarks of this pious priest, Mr. Wells unexpectedly found himself writing in the aftermath of the 2018-19 scandals that shook the Roman Catholic Church. The experienced journalist in him (he was a sports reporter for the Tampa Tribune) rose to the surface in response, and the resulting book is written primarily to priests as an exhortation to renew the vitality of their ordained ministries.
As such, The Priests We Need is
a paean by a devout layman, for a worthy priest, to confront clerical
malaise. Mr. Wells extends the virtues of priestly ministries he has
known and studied into a rule he believes normative for all effective
priestly ministries.
Let it first be said that such a zealous
cry for the recovery of the church is welcome. Mr. Wells’ exhortation
is clearly motivated by his love for the church, and his appeal for its
wellbeing is thoughtfully encouraging in a way Catholics ignore at their
peril. The appeal for uncompromising clergy and direct confrontation of
sin and error in the church is equally a challenge all Christians
should accept—if the Roman Catholic Church in our day is subject to
condemnation, this is certainly a guilt in which all Christian
traditions share.
Mr. Wells’ manifesto against clergy on
behalf of the faithful might smack of insubordination, but he in fact
appeals to church authority by quoting Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s 1972
exhortation to the laity:
“Who is going to save our Church? Not our bishops, not our priests and religious. It is up to the people. You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the Church. Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishops like bishops and your religious act like religious.”[1]
Abp. Sheen’s exhortation has been taken
up frequently in light of recent events, and Mr. Wells is not reticent
to shine stronger light so that sin and corruption cannot hide under the
shadow of authority.
Other critics may object to the author’s
credibility, but this is a weak response given that he turns out to be
on very traditional—if perhaps presently-unconventional—ground regarding
the hallmarks of the Catholic priesthood. The reforms for which he
pleads are returns to longstanding Catholic practice. Non-Catholics or
progressives may resist, but Mr. Wells is intent on a restoration of
ministries with a proven track record for bearing fruit. For a church in
crisis there can be no half-hearted corrective. When priests become
saints the church will listen to them.
In the fifth chapter, The Priests We Need
moves beyond context and biography to present eight characteristics of
excellent priests. Each is treated in detail by a succeeding chapter.
The excellent priest:
- Adores the Eucharistic Jesus
- Is devoted to Mary
- Prays devoutly
- Assumes a victimhood
- Is a father
- Is persistently available
- Preaches divine truth
- Dives into souls at a moment’s notice[2]
In this eight-fold identity, the priest
marries holiness and victimhood in a life wholly devoted to
self-sacrifice and becoming Christ-like. The church should never expect
less than heroism from its clergy. When priests become holy, the church
will follow. Through such priests the church may be saved.
This strength of idealism is surely
uncomfortable, but it cannot be faulted.
Especially for Roman Catholics,
priestly devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, to Mary, to prayer, and to
the souls in his care must be an inspiring challenge. For Catholic
laity, the implied exhortation is equally strong to expect these
characteristics of their clergy and to uphold them in prayer toward that
end.
Perhaps Mr. Wells’ most provocative
point is his call for all priests to voluntarily submit to the bloodless
martyrdom of self-sacrifice. Christianity has long recognized the white
martyrdom of those faithful called to witness Christ through lifelong
sacrifice, and venerated such witness alongside the blood martyrdom of
those who witness Christ through their death. Mr. Wells has scarce
regard for the physical or mental wellbeing of a priest, presuming both
should be subsumed by the spiritual health of the priest-as-holy-victim.
Appealing to the lives of John Vianney, Padre Pio, and priests he has
known personally, Mr. Wells is unremitting: Priests must choose the path
of martyrdom. If they are not granted red martyrdom, priests must
choose the even more difficult white martyrdom of lifelong
self-sacrifice, and by this Christ will strengthen their muscular
Christianity that the church needs. Through self-mortification a priest
will be victorious, and no sacrifice will have been in vain.
This insistence is bound to cause
controversy. It will strike many as controversial to suggest that white
martyrdom is a greater calling than red martyrdom. But this controversy
is the sort that should inspire the faithful to reflection and devotion
more rather than less. Other controversies are more difficult. Catholic
teaching is that the priest stands at the sacrifice of the mass in persona Christi,
and as such assumes also the role of sacrificial victim. To extend the
sacrificial role into all aspects of life as far as Mr. Wells does, and
to insist it is normative for the priesthood, will present not only
practical challenges. Some may object that disregard for physical and
emotional health have brought down many a vibrant ministry. Some may
object that demanding such a sacrifice would further diminish
already-limited prospects of future vocations. Some may object that even
if the spirit of Mr. Wells’ exhortation is right (and we should
charitably think it so), the proposed solution will not be sufficient to
save the church.
There are three reasons for concern that
Mr. Wells’ solution may be right but not sufficient: First, the
priesthood cannot be limited to the functional role of parish priest.
Second, priests alone cannot save the church. Third, the author neglects
the good priest’s character as scholar and teacher of scripture.
First, the need for good priests is not
limited to the parish. Historically the church has depended not only on
parish priests, but also priests who were scholars and friars and canon
lawyers. The need for good parish priests is great, but the functional
roles of the priesthood exceed those Mr. Wells identifies. Or, to put
this objection in another form, the priesthood is not a functional role
but an ontological character that can be fulfilled in many ways. While
all Mr. Wells’ characteristics of a good priest can be integral to such a
sacramental ontology, The Priests We Need may err towards a
functional view of the priesthood from the perspective of the lay
faithful. I doubt that this criticism is a matter of disagreement so
much as a difference of emphasis.
Second, good priests are essential to
the wellbeing of the church, but they cannot be a substitute for
deficiencies in the laity or ecclesiastical authority. The church has
also been saved by bishops, religious, and laity as well as priests.
Abp. Sheen’s exhortation demonstrates the necessity of the laity, but
does not dispense with the necessity of good bishops and religious as
well. I at least would welcome sequels from the author on those
subjects. This criticism too is not likely a matter of disagreement so
much as an expansion of the subject from Mr. Wells’ starting point.
Third, The Priests We Need does
seem open to one major criticism. As Mr. Wells articulates the eight
characteristics of a worthy priest, the study and teaching of scripture
is not given any singular attention. He himself is thoughtful in his use
of scripture to articulate his points, and gives anecdotal evidence
about the importance of scripture in preaching, but “Is devoted to the
study of scripture” is not a characteristic Mr. Wells distinguishes, and
indeed this is likely the biggest sticking point from an ecumenical
perspective. In his Epilogue, the author makes a separate list of twenty
identifiers of a good priest, and although he includes among these
praying the Divine Office and daily reading of a spiritual masterpiece
from a Church Doctor, the study of scripture is not listed. Love of
scripture seems integral to every characteristic of the priesthood that
Mr. Wells identifies, and this is a strange omission.
Kevin Wells is right to bring to task
the clergy of the church he so clearly loves. Every voice pleading for
the healing of the church is vital and welcome, as is the vigilance of
every faithful congregant who will no longer abide sinfulness, or even
mediocrity. His perspective on the needs of lay people within and
without the church is one to which clergy, and the church as a whole,
should hearken and respond.
[1] As quoted by Wells.
[2] Wells, p.72.
The featured image is a detail from
“The Missionary’s Adventures” (ca. 1883), by Jean-Georges Vibert, and is
in the public domain, courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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