The Gentle Firmess of Jesus
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Most people who know me will tell you I’m a pretty straightforward guy. Now, obviously, this can be good and, at times, this can be bad. As I’ve grown older, it has become more and more difficult for me to “hold my tongue,” as the expression goes. So, before I go any further, please just accept these thoughts as my sincere feelings about a dynamic and, possibly, a trend I sense in some areas of our Catholic church. I offer these thoughts with all due respect to everyone, but I offer them mainly on behalf of our young people today; namely, those in high school and college. Looking back on my childhood and adolescent years, I never had what you could call a “bad experience” of a priest. I was truly blessed. All the way back to my second grade year and the Irish priest, Fr. Myles Kearney, pastor of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in Saint Francisville, to Msgr. Frey, Fr. Howell Champagne, and Fr. Edmond Braud at Our Lady of Mercy, I experienced nothing but down-to-earth, kind and compassionate priests. I also have to loop into this memory the Brothers of the Sacred Heart during my years at Catholic High School. I played golf with these guys, went to LSU football games with these guys, and attended Masses at which they were the celebrant. They came to our home for Thanksgiving Dinner. To put it simply, I have nothing but good memories. No priest ever “chewed me out” in the confessional. No priest ever asked me uncomfortable, too personal questions during my confession, and I have no memory of any priest preaching a fire and brimstone sermon. Truly, looking back, I was extremely lucky. I think most of my peers would say the same thing. We liked going to school, and, believe it or not, we liked going to church.
Today, while there are many children, youth, and young adults who might say the same thing, there are those who do not. Their experience has not been that of the fun, jovial, compassionate, and non-rigid, non-judgmental priest. As one young man, twenty years old, recently shared with me, “Father Trey, I love you. I love Saint Jude. I love my church. But if you want to know why so many people my age don’t want to go to church, it’s because of the priests who seem to be all about the rules.” I was stunned. While I had thought this, no one that age had ever had the courage to ever say it to me directly. When he did say it, his 2 friends, also with us for breakfast, immediately nodded in agreement. All I can say is it made me so sad. It made me so very sad. These 3 guys have been friends since, I think, preschool. They are funny, polite, and just a joy to be around. But, when it comes to their Catholic faith, this is “where they’re at.” I have also recently heard similar stories from other adult Catholics. “I went back to confession for the first time in years, but now I don’t know if I’ll ever go back again. The priest really made me feel so unworthy.” Couple this reality together with the fact that some priests do not allow girls or women to serve Mass, those who insist that there is “only one version of the Act of Contrition,” only one way to receive communion, and so on, it leaves me wondering, “where in the world are we going?” One young man shared with me that his religion teacher told him, “if you look at a pretty girl, you shouldn’t receive communion again until you go to confession.” Uh, NO. That. Is. Simply. Not. True. In life, and in faith-based conversations, sometimes a line needs to be drawn, but those moments are rare. And besides, are these the areas in which we really want to draw them? Again, those words spoken to me by one young man are stuck in my head and planted on my heart, “And you wonder why some people my age don’t want to go to church?”
Jesus never backed down from all that is right and good and true. He was certainly firm and direct. But he was also gentle and compassionate. The woman at the well. The woman caught in adultery. Peter when he doubted him, denied him, and hid from him. And so on. Surely we too can be an extension of this love. I recall the words of Archbishop Gregory Aymond from our seminary days, “...if we’re going to err with each other, we must err on the side of compassion.” Most important of all, Jesus said he came, not to abolish the law but to fulfill it. “Fulfilling it” means, as Pope Francis wrote in 2013, “loving the person where they are, and the rest will work itself out.” Compassion in all things. That’s what we’re called to. Period.