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One of the Best Kept Secrets of Our Time
On accepting the 2010 Touchstone Award given by the National Federation of Priests' Councils
42nd Annual NFPC Priests' Conference | Houston Texas, April 13, 2010
Rev. Msgr. Stephen J. Rossetti PhD., DMin.
 I am grateful to NFPC for all it has done to further the health and welfare of the priests of this country. I feel honored and grateful for this Touchstone award and receive it on behalf of all those I have ministered with these past years, especially at Saint Luke Institute here in the U.S. and St. Luke's Centre in England. The men and women in these centers have dedicated their labors to the care of priests and religious and continue to do so with great expertise, love and compassion. I was privileged to minister in their midst for over 17 years.
On this occasion as you and I reflect upon the state of the priesthood, I am reminded of these words:
In the daily exercise of our pastoral office, we sometimes have to listen, much to our regret, to voices of persons who, though burning with zeal…In these modern times they can see nothing but prevarication and ruin. They say that our era, in comparison with past eras, is getting worse…We feel we must disagree with those prophets of gloom, who are always forecasting disaster, as though the end of the world were at hand.
With these words, Pope John XXIII began the Second Vatican Council and they are as true today as they were 48 years ago. Reading the newspapers and the blogs today, one gets the impression that the priesthood is dis-spirited, discouraged, and disintegrating. Priests are described as being depressed and lonely. They are believed to be unhappy with the imposition of celibacy and unhappy with their bishops.
Who would want to become a priest today under such conditions? Who, indeed.
But is it really true? As I go from diocese to diocese around this country, (and I have been to most of them,) I spend considerable time with our priests. I listen to them and I pray with them. We share drinks and a meal. We recreate together perhaps dubbing a few golf balls or seeing the local sights. And, of course, we gather around the altar as brothers in love with the Lord and with the people.
Despite the very real challenges and sufferings of our day, contrary to public image, priests do not seem to be an unhappy lot. In fact, we spend much of our time together laughing, sharing hopes and challenges, and speaking of the priesthood with reverence and gratitude. Of course, the problems of today are real and of true concern to our priests. But I do not sense they are overcome or, in any way, defeated by them.
In our day, the public persona of the priesthood comes largely to us from the media and from the loudest, often shrill, voices that attack our ears. They prophesy doom. But we should not look to the media to give us an accurate reading into the state of the priesthood. Bad news sells and the media are driven to increasingly upping the emotional ante with a rising crescendo of tragedy. As a psychologist, this strikes me as an addiction and, like all addictions, it must lead to self-destruction if not overcome.
Nor should you and I necessarily listen to today's loudest voices for an accurate reading of the times. They often speak in shrill tones and blog us with their own unhappiness and anger. What they say speaks more about themselves than about our priests.
Rather, to understand the state of the priesthood today, there is really only one place to look. That place, of course, is with the priests themselves. Instead of telling priests how they should feel, we ought to ask them. My goal these past few years has been precisely that. I have tried to get in touch with the "silent majority," the multitude of our priests whose thoughts and deeds never make the front page. Most of them do not have a blog; their telephones cannot surf the internet, and they still think that "Tweet" is something a bird does. When we speak directly to priests who minister day to day in the Lord's vineyard, enduring the heat of the day, what emerges is a more balanced picture of the joys and the struggles of a very human life, yet filled with faith and courageously lived.
During the last eight years, from 2002 to 2010, I have been conducting two large studies of priests, surveying over 4,000 of them. What have emerged are some very clear conclusions. These findings demonstrate basic truths about the state of priesthood and they are confirmed in other studies such as those sponsored by NFPC and other statistical sources. The data consistently affirm that priests like being priests; they find great satisfaction in their lives. They are strong in faith and dedicated in their work. In their lives as priests and men of faith, they find much contentment and peace. One might even use the phrase- "a life of quiet joy." The happiness of the priesthood is one of the best kept secrets of our time.
Actually, the results of my surveys were quite stunning. When asked, in a confidential, anonymous survey if they were happy as priests, 92% said yes. And when asked about their morale, 89% said it was good and over 81% said they are proud to be a priest today. This is enormously high. Again and again, researchers find similar results. For example, in the 2001 NFPC survey spearheaded by Dean Hoge, 94% said they were happy as priests. This satisfaction rate would likely match up well with any walk of life. And are priests unhappy with their bishops? Contrary to popular opinion, 77% said they had a good relationship with their individual bishops and 81% supported his leadership. Any leader of an organization would be thrilled with such approval ratings.
Perhaps one of the most maligned realities, especially in these days of the blanket media coverage of clerical misconduct, is the priestly commitment to celibacy. But 78% of the priests said they feel called by God to live a celibate life. Similarly, 75% said that, despite its challenges, celibacy has been a grace for them. While this is not 100%, it is a strong finding and suggests that celibacy is not the onerous burden as it is portrayed. Sure, it is difficult, but so is marriage. When I watch the real challenges my married brothers face, I find myself admiring their strength and thinking that, all in all, celibacy is certainly no more difficult, perhaps it is less so. But most important, the large majority of priests are prospering in their celibate lives and believe that God himself has called them to this celibate way of living and loving.
Some people have bristled when hearing about these high rates of priestly happiness and say, "Well, priests should be unhappy. They are overburdened with work; they receive less public support than ever; the media are filled with clergy scandals; and society is becoming more atheistic and unchurched. Fair enough. We priests are well aware of such challenges. Indeed, in my survey, 42% of priests report being overwhelmed with the amount of work they have to do. So what is it that priests have to be so happy about?"
Ahhhhh, now this is the nub of it. Why would someone be happy with a celibate life, little pay, long hours and a regular drubbing in the press? Now they are even after the Holy Father; and it will be a long road for him up Calvary. So, why are our priests reporting such high levels of satisfaction? What can help us to understand this apparent anomaly? Then, I searched into the spiritual lives of our priests and was again edified by the results.
Here we have some initial clues to the countercultural joy of our priests. Almost unanimously, they report a direct and strong connection with God. 93% feel a sense of closeness to God; 97% report a relationship to God that is nourishing; 95% feel that God loves them personally and directly; and 97% report feeling, from time to time, a joy that is a grace from God. We say that a priest is a man of God. Indeed, he is. Our priests are living out this reality and it is making a difference in their lives.
Our society wants to be happy. They want to find joy. But they are increasingly frustrated. They cannot find it on Internet, in casual sex and hooking up, in drugs or alcohol, or making millions of dollars. Pope Paul VI, in his wonderful little exhortation Gaudete in Domino, spoke about the lack of joy in our society today. He said there is often much material wealth and prosperity but people simply cannot find joy. He said, "This is the reason for our message.…Joy comes from another source." Indeed, it does. It was one of the gifts that Jesus promised, "That my joy might be yours and your joy might be complete."
And then Pope Paul rhetorically asked, "What is the source of Jesus' joy?" He finds the answer in John's Gospel: "If Jesus radiates such peace, such assurance, such happiness, such availability, it is by reason of the inexpressible love by which He knows that He is loved by His Father."
I have seen the truth of this statement in the lives of countless priests treated at Saint Luke Institute. Many of them came through our doors feeling broken and hopeless. They would often say to me that they know that God loves and forgives other people, but they could not experience it in their own lives. Instead, as one cleric said, "I feel like the Good News applies to everyone else but me." However, in the course of living in our healing community, surrounded by love and compassion, they open up to others and to God. They come to taste the transforming love of a God who was always with them. Then, they themselves begin to experience the joy and peace that only God can give.
To the modern ear, I know this sounds a little trite and a little unbelievable- God giving us joy. This precisely is the challenge of Christianity today. It is part of our faith that our God is not a remote God, pulling the strings from a distance, but closer to us than we are to ourselves, filling us with his life and goodness, if only we give him a chance. We claim this relationship is real and dynamic, here and now.
I do not think our greatest challenge to the faith of our day is explicit atheism, à la Christopher Hitchens. This vocal minority protests loudly that there is no God and no afterlife. The Shakespearean oft-quoted line might be applicable, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." But the real danger is all around us; it is the apparent lack of interest, relevance. People are just not interested. God and religion do not blip the radar screens of their lives. They are, what I call, functional atheists.
A few months ago, I was underneath London, down in the Tube as they call it. It was mobbed. As I looked out over the great crowd, I was suddenly struck with the idea that here were thousands of people who, it seemed to me, likely had not a thought of the living God on their minds. This, the most important reality of our lives, and I saw no evidence that He was of any concern. They were absorbed with other things, not necessarily bad things, but with newspapers, ipods, the latest novels or gazing at dozens of advertisements plastering the walls. But it seemed there was nary a thought about a dynamic loving Presence who makes all such stuff appear as a bit of straw, as St. Thomas himself experienced.
What is pressing upon us, you and I who preach and teach in the name of the Church, is the need for a new evangelization. Pope after Pope has called for it in the last few decades but their summons have fallen on deaf ears. I think we are too caught up, at times, in our own internecine conflicts in the Church to mobilize our energies and to strike out into the unchurched world.
Actually, the surveys also showed that the rift in our church and priesthood is one of our priests' greatest concerns. When asked if the "lack of unity of the priesthood" was a concern to them, 48% said yes. This is high. It is time for us to stop the internal bickering. Satan is never happier than when we are cutting each other down. Now that we are doing his work for him, I imagine the Ole Boy taking a siesta down in the Islands. It is time to put our energy into breaking through the modern secular consciousness; people want to be happy and we have the key.
Despite these challenges, the excessive workloads and fissures in our priesthood, priests are not disconnected and lonely people. Eighty-eight percent said they had good priest friends and 93% affirmed that they had good lay friends as well. Another source of our priestly happiness and joy is in our relationships with the people and with our brother priests. These relationships of love and communion find their deepest and fullest expression as we gather together around the Eucharistic table and celebrate the feast of joy.
This helps us to understand the results on the Maslach burnout scales I gave the priests. We all know that there is too much to do these days. But when given standard burnout measures, priests actually scored markedly less burned out than the general population.
Rather than disintegrating under the pressure and the stress of our day, it appears to me that our priests are becoming stronger. It reminds me a bit of the famous incident when Mark Twain responded to rumors of his death, "The report of my death," he said, "is an exaggeration."
As the public negativity rises and the chorus of naysayers crescendos, I believe our priests and Church are actually the better for it. We have always said that it is the blood of martyrs that strengthens the Church. Truly, the more the Church suffers, the stronger it becomes.
I have found this true in my own life. I would not wish to relive the past years, especially the seven years from 2002 to 2009. None of us could ever have envisioned the pain and suffering of those years. It is good not to know some things in advance. But I must say that something has changed in me and, I think in our Church, and both for the better. It is hard to describe. But a few words pass through my mind like patience, wisdom, compassion, humility. These cannot be bought but only suffered into.
We believe that all things ultimately serve God's will. Everything is taken up into God and transformed so that it inevitably propels all toward its consummation in Christ. The Church has suffered greatly, some due to its own mistakes. But the shrill tone and tenor of the attack, that continues to this day, suggests a darker force at work as well. At the same time, paradoxically, we have made one large step toward the Kingdom. God's will must and is being accomplished.
I thank God for having been given the grace of these past years. They have been an unexpected blessing. Although frankly I hope that He has some gentler plans for the days ahead.
I thank you for this recognition. I take it as a recognition for the selfless giving of so many people who love, help and support our priests.
And whatever the future holds, I am proud to be a priest and to minister shoulder to shoulder with such faith-filled men. A better band of brothers one could not ask for. With them and in them, I find happiness and hope.
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