Priestly Burnout

A few years ago there was this study that asked all American Catholic priests to answer questions about their ministry. The results were published recently. Some parts were good but not surprising: it stated that a large percentage of younger priests were very traditional. It also pointed out that many priests feel blocked by modernists in the hierarchy. I remember answering the questions, and what stood out to me most clearly was that many of the questions were clearly written by someone with a liberal/modernist/secular slant. If they were written by a Catholic clergyman, he is quite narrow in his understanding of Catholic ministry.

It was not the actual questions themselves that were problematic, but the presumptions that many of these questions made. A number of times I had to answer in a vague manner, because the questions themselves were presuming the average liberal diocesan experience of the novus ordo and parishioners with little to no knowledge of their faith. How can I answer questions about certain frustrations that do not occur at St. George? No, we are not a perfect parish, but I do not ignore the rules that the Church has given, and so therefore, many of those "problems" that show up in your average parish are not likely to occur here.

The study was looking for signs of burnout, both in older and younger priests. Interestingly, it appears that the situations and experiences that (according to the manner of questions in the study) lead to burnout have much to do with priests not being a true father to their people. Standard Catholic teaching says that priests are, in their acting in persona Christi, to be "prophet, priest, and king" to the people. They are to tell the people what God has said (prophet), tell God what the people need (priest), and rule the people according to the Church's laws (king). To the degree that a priest fails in even one of these, he is going to be more susceptible to burnout.

If a priest is praying to God for his people and asking for things that are contrary to Church teaching, he should not expect to see God answer his prayers, nor should he expect his people to grow closer to God. If a priest is teaching his parishioners modernism, secular psychology, and liberal interpretations of Scripture, then he should not expect his people to believe in, hope in, or love God. If a priest is not making the hard decisions, or correcting his people when they are wrong, then he should not expect them to learn to submit to God. Bad leadership ends with bad parishioners.

This does not mean that a priest who is faithful as prophet, priest and king will necessarily make his people happy (in fact, it is often the case that many people will be upset at him and even leave the parish because they cannot handle traditional Catholic leadership -- hey, remember what they did to Jesus when He was their Prophet, Priest and King?). I am not saying that it is always a priest's fault when he gets burned out. Sometimes parishioners can be very exhausting, and other times they can be downright hostile in their obstinacy. Yet, if he is serving faithfully, then he can overcome the majority of these problems. While a faithful priest will help people to know the Lordship of Christ, an unfaithful priest will lead people to become more and more self-willed (and thus lead them to damnation).

It is not enough for a young man discerning the priesthood to be conservative and traditional; he also must be properly formed to lead with a gentle firmness. If he avoids the temptation to be a modernist, touchy-feely, manager of the parish, he is still not guaranteed to be leading rightly. I know a very traditional priest who leads like a drill sergeant; he is headed to burnout. The role of "Father" in the parish is not a mere title; it is a description. It is to be modeled after God the Father's leadership of all of us. Let us pray that God send us diligent and faithful priests. When this happens we will find a good number of the problems in parishes fade away because people will be led rightly. Then we can give up many of these goofy assumptions about what the relationship is between priest and people, and spend our time glorifying God in all we do.