25 Years Later

Twenty five years ago I wrote A Modern Priest Looks At His Outdated Church. It was not a book I had intended to write.  I had taken leave from the priesthood because I knew that my Church was not a reflection of what Jesus had taught.  I watched our bishops return from the II Vatican council and saw then still too uninterested and terrified to make change of real substance.  Latin was changed to English, Gregorian chant gave way to hymns, and the alter faced the people.

But the control of human minds remained unchanged.  The secret screams of spiritually battered men and women were not addressed!  My Church still was invading bedrooms, abusing consciences, distorting sex, manufacturing sin, patronizing other sects, dishonoring women, turning customs to law and loving myths to angry dogmas.  Sincere souls were condemned or threatened with a hell that never was.  But most of all, it continued to discredit the voice of God that speaks to each of us in private reflection.

It was that voice within me that impelled me to write.  It was not a choice, but an inner, irresistible force that empowered and at times dictated what I wrote.  The words flowed passionately, almost effortlessly, and I felt more like a spectator than an author.  The impact of those words was beyond anything I could imagine.  I had no idea the book would reach millions in seven different languages, that it would lead thousands of priests and nuns from the Church, drive the pope himself to preach from the Vatican balcony, and give support to countless people of every religion to follow their inner light.  I only wrote because I had to, but it became clear that my struggle was like their own. 

Their letters told me that, like myself, they hungered for a God of love and compassion, not the familiar control of a frightened parent that restricts our vision and pillages our dignity.  We could no longer endure such a God.  Thus we did not leave the Church, we outgrew it!  We wanted more than it offered.  If we were to be spiritual adults, we had to put away the things of a child.  Custom and comfort were not a consequence if they did not lead to the joy and freedom of God’s own Son.  Later I wrote of “My Easy God” Who only asked blind adherence to institutional precepts and sanctions:

            From There Are Men Too Gentle To Live Among Wolves

Hundreds of talk shows and interviews, lectures and debates, convinced me I had to surrender my “easy God” to find the God within. While speaking at Notre Dame University, that inner voice compelled me to put aside my prepared text and publicly resign my priesthood. Again it was not a choice but an unexpected demand! As I studied the intense faces, I could no longer defend the indefensible or teach what I did not believe to emerging groups of sincere and spiritually starved young people. The Church had defined God in an effort to control Him, and despite superficial reforms, it still ignored the inner voice of God within us—from Rome to Bombay, from Mecca and Jerusalem to Chicago. 

For a time I continued to fight the Church, determined to reform it.  It gradually became clear that what I asked of the Church, I must find myself.  The Church was not yet ready or able to change, so without a blueprint I began my own search for the God I had lost in earliest childhood.  My path has been slow and arduous because I’ve had to release most of what I spent my life learning and teaching.  Fear and guilt run deep and I had been trained in it by experts.  Thus I had few inner skills for such a journey.  I was controlled and controlling, as judgmental and frightened as my Church had ever been. 

It was Hippocrates who said that pain is a cruel doctor but few of us learn from any other.  What all the Holy Weeks and gospel narratives, the crucifixes and sermons, the prayers and theology had never taught me, life did.  I had lost my Catholic community and lifelong friends, my marriage failed, publishers turned away, three older brothers died of cancer in their prime, and I felt the ravages of buried fear and depression.  I was not really prepared for the simple message of death and resurrection that is the core of every religion: “Unless the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains itself alone.” Like the Jews in exodus from Egypt or Jesus in his desert, it appears we must confront each illusion that promises peace, then denies it.  So must the Church. 

I still feel a connection with the Church that has been integral part of my culture and journey to God. My fervent wish is that both of us will continue to grow in the wisdom and understanding, the compassion and love that only death and resurrection can teach. Jesus said it all, but somehow his message got lost among the historic refuse of creeds and commandments, sin and judgment, fear, guilt and eternal torments. We only have to learn not to rule but to serve, not to judge and condemn, but to honor everyone of any cult or culture as God’s own offspring. We have to die to live.  So does the Church. 

I decided to reissue Modern Priest not only to honor numerous requests, but because I realize how much of it remains relevant 25 years later.  The Church is still afraid to trust men and women, so let go of the past, to scrape history’s scars from the power and beauty of the message of Jesus.  Like the rest of us, it still has a lot of “dying” to do before it rises. 

There is so much help and understanding needed in our world.  Such great hunger for spiritual guidance!  For love and laughter, compassion and service, generosity and peace!  The same history that made us separate and afraid can make us whole! A generation has passed since I wrote, and yet the institutional Church has not evolved with the spiritual consciousness of an ever shrinking world.  It is my hope that even twenty five years later, A Modern Priest Looks At His Outdated Church can continue to play a part in that transformation.  Writing it was a directive from my inner voice and the beginning of a journey that has brought me closer to God, to myself, and to you.  I hope that reading it may do the same for another.