Meaningful Shades of Grey.

I am always struck by the difference between life and the daily routine in seminary and that of a parish priest. On the one hand you have the ‘crème de la crème’ of the Catholic hierarchy with its baroque churches round every corner and huge towering basilica’s. People can become acculturated and even institutionalised, rarely looking beyond the Catholic Church as it exists here in Rome. This is particularly true if you live within a seminary where you eat, sleep and breathe Catholicism. On the other hand the trick is never to allow yourself to loose sight of who you will be ministering too when you return to England, individuals who don’t live in a Catholic world, who live very ordinary, but infinitely complex and important lives. This is something I had lost sight of over the past few months. I thought too myself, if this is all Catholicism is – pomp and splendour, but ultimately hollow – ‘smells and bells’ Catholicism concerned with how good a service this is or what hymns are appropriate, then I don’t want any part of it! But whenever I get a visit from G this vision of, (I am right and everyone else is wrong so there) Catholicism soon disappears.I had not seen or spoken to my V.D. for quite some time (I meant Vocations Director, what else could it possibly be!). He came out to visit the college as we are getting two new seminarians from our diocese (we have 3 new candidates starting in September – two here and one at Ushaw College - positively unheard of!). He also came out with a recently ordained priest who had studied in Rome and had a somewhat infamous reputation of not getting involved in community life but doing his own thing and not being afraid to point out the obvious flaws within the seminary.It never ceases to amaze me that whenever I meet G (the vocations director). He has a way of giving me a great boost of enthusiasm for what I am embarking upon. He really brings home to me what priesthood is about, or what I believe it should be about. We usually chat about how I am finding things, any problems, what he has been doing over the last few months and his interactions with the parishioners, plus the latest developments in our diocese.G does not portray the image of priesthood that many parishioners or priests for that matter would expect. He is a part time radio D.J. for one – which seems to raise a few eyebrows amongst the clergy. I also think that he is somewhat similar to me in that he struggles a great deal with some of the Churches teaching and sees many of the laws as being open to change.He was telling me about a friend of his, who is also a parishioner, who was going through the ordeal of deciding whether or not to have an abortion – he did not go into the reasons why (and rightly so). He explained how he had accompanied her to the abortion clinic just to be there to support her in whatever decision she eventually made. Now obviously abortion goes against Catholic teaching, but in that brief conversation you could see that he had genuine concern for his friend and did not put him self in the position of judging her. I wonder what the response of other clergy would be – hopefully the same. We then started to discuss a priest who had recently left active ministry and eventually the priesthood in order to live in Spain with his partner. Obviously the clergy of that particular diocese had strong opinions on the matter and when G was asked what he thought he simply said as long s he is happy that’s fine because he must have gone through a tremendous struggle. G was telling me these stories because he could see how much I had been struggling with particular teachings of the Church.I guess you have ultimately got to ask yourself, in your ministry as a priest, do you see things in black and white and follow the Church teaching in everything you do, or do you look at the world in meaningful shades of grey, examining every individual case or situation differently and looking beyond the teachings of the Church? Do you put Church teaching first or make the welfare of the person your ultimate concern? I think it would be a pretty sad state of affairs if every priest saw black and white and did not acknowledge the complexity or the human condition and world we live in. I am glad there are priests who see things differently and that is something I had lost sight of for a moment. I guess if you can’t reconcile a decision or teaching in all conscience and you have the best of intentions at heart then what more basis do you need for justifying your opinion or actions?