The life of a Catholic priest has not been easy in any period of history, nor is it easy today. Priests assume that their ministry will not be easy, due to different circumstances, and in this work, the task of ongoing formation, updating in the fields of pastoral care and prayer life are key to respond to the demands that the Church and society place on priests today.
In this sense, as Miguel Brugarolas, PhD in Systematic Theology from the University of Navarra and director of the Pastoral Update Conference held at this academic center at the end of September, emphasizes, the "red line" of worldliness "is always sin, which is the only thing that separates us from God".
If there is a figure that is questioned in Western societies, it is that of the Catholic priest. How to cope, spiritually and psychically, with a more or less hostile environment?
- Western society under the banner of diversity, equity and inclusion and under the guise of tolerance is intransigent with any pretension of truth or transcendent foundation of life. Not only the figure of the priest, but any identity and any way of life -such as the family, education and other institutions- that proposes a truth and a universal good about man and the world, alien to the ideological rules of the day and the systems of power, is rejected outright.
This is the way it is and you have to take this into account in order not to create false expectations, to position yourself well and to get involved in things that are really worthwhile. But I don't think we should dwell too much on the adversities of the environment. The difficulties that we can always fight against because they depend directly on us are the inner ones.
This is how St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II described them years ago: "the lack of fervor that manifests itself in fatigue and disillusionment, in accommodation to the environment and disinterest, and above all in the lack of joy and hope" (Evangelii nuntiandi, 80; Redemptoris missio, 36). Pope Francis has also insisted on this: "the evils of our world should not be excuses for reducing our dedication and fervor" (Evangelii Gaudium, 84).
Don't you think there is a danger of retreating into a safety net that could lead to apostolic rickets?
- If we look at the Gospel, we find no invitation to close ourselves in; on the contrary, Christ invites us to "put out into the deep", duc in altum! Every Christian vocation, and that of the priest, because he is a priest, in a special way, is essentially apostolic and sows in the soul the desire to be open to others. The opposite dynamic, that of withdrawing into oneself, is proper to sin, which isolates us; this is how pride, selfishness, impurity, etc. work.
The special divine vocation of those who separate themselves from the world to live in the enclosure of a monastery is also essentially apostolic and does not withdraw the heart, but expands it so that the whole world can fit into it. In this sense, we have the precious example, to say one, of St. Thérèse of Lisieux, patroness of the missions.
This question could also be answered with an expression that, in another context, Pedro Herrero uses and that here acquires an inspiring value: he who believes, creates.
At the same time, in the eagerness to become part of the world, where do we draw the red lines?
- When the Christian speaks of the "world" he distinguishes between the world as the opposite of God, the worldly, sin; and the world as the reality to which Christ was sent and in which the apostles and all the disciples have been placed to sanctify it and to sanctify themselves in it.
That is why we Christians love the world as the proper place of our sanctification and have a very positive vision of it. God has placed it in our hands to work it, to transform it with the divine Spirit at work in us, to be leaven in the whole mass. This is the world that in the end will be transformed into the new heavens and the new earth.
Living in this way, one does not fall into worldliness, because it is a matter of placing Christ at the summit of all human realities.
The red line is always sin, which is the only thing that separates us from God. Rather die than sin is the first purpose of an authentic Christian life. This is how the saints have lived.
Western societies are aging societies, not only on the physical level, but also in terms of impulses and ardor, in this sense, when they speak of keeping the priestly spirit young. Do we find that, at times, this priestly life has "hardened" or "aged"?
- Youth in its deepest sense is a condition that has less to do with age than with the personal disposition to venture into projects of love and dedication that are worthwhile or, better said, worth a lifetime.
In fact, one of the dramas we see today is the number of people who, in the best moment of their lives, have already given up everything. Whoever does not have a love to conquer or does not know how to fight for something beyond himself, has lost his youth and is wasting his best abilities.
The priest, on the other hand, has personally known the love of God and in his ministry he feels it in an extraordinary way. Priests have the best possible reason for getting up every morning: to bring us to God and to lead us to him! Of course, we all suffer the wear and tear of time and the fragility of our will. No one lives long from past experiences, that is why the problem of love is time. But with God things are renewed every day. The key is to conquer that love every day. What an excess of life manifests fidelity in love.
How can the faithful help our priests on a daily basis?
- The Christian people have always wanted and prayed for their priests. Prayer is what sustains us all, and affection - which, if it is authentic, will always be human and supernatural - is what we need because it makes the somewhat rough surface that life sometimes presents us with a pleasant one, but, above all, because it helps us to see things from the right perspective. We only see people and the circumstances that surround them well when we look at them with affection.
On the other hand, there are people who seem bent on taking away credibility from the figure of the priest and undermining his confidence, sometimes offering unfair or biased information about who priests really are.
I believe that today it is very necessary to publicize good examples of priests and offer positive news about the immense work they do in the silence of their normal lives. It is more urgent than ever to show the beauty and holiness of the priesthood, because when people are deprived of trust in their priests, in reality, they are being deprived of something very necessary: priests are those whom God has placed at our side with the special mission of caring for us, encouraging us and guiding us along the road we all have to travel to reach Heaven.
Then there are countless concrete actions we can take for the benefit of priests. For example, in our Faculty of Theology every year more than two hundred seminarians and priests from the five continents are trained, thanks in large part to the many people who generously support their studies through foundations such as the Centro Académico Romano Foundation (Carf).
