5 Years Later

I was eating lunch recently with my two counselors in the treatment center. They both know that I was a priest and am now a counselor, but do not know the circumstances that led to my transition. After nearly 10 months of working together, one of them finally had the courage to ask, “So how did someone who was a Catholic priest end up as a substance abuse treatment counselor?”

I responded, “I knocked up the organist.”

The other counselor spit out her food laughing so hard and the one who asked the question sat up, straightened her skirt, and said, “Ok.”
She didn’t ask me anymore about it, which honestly surprised me.

I’ve been away from the priesthood for over 5 years now. It’s been a while since I reflected on the fact that I was a priest, and now am not. (At least, in a practical way. I understand that once a man is ordained, it is for eternity, an “indelible mark.” I am not active in ministry as a priest at this time). Maybe it’s time I returned to the subject.

I knew, prior to getting ordained, that I should not get ordained. I can say that with as much certainty as I can say that I’m sitting in this chair. There was that still, quiet voice in my conscience letting me know that I was doing something I shouldn’t have done. So if I had this dictate of conscience, why did I get ordained?

Approval. Affirmation. There’s any number of ways to describe the fundamental motive. I got ordained because I felt by doing that people would like me. They would really, really like me.

I spent a great majority of my life seeking the approval of others. I wanted to be liked, loved. The time I spent in seminary studying to be a priest was when I felt the most affirmed, the most loved. Of course this desire to be affirmed showed itself in a lot of ways. I did some things very well. I wanted to be affirmed, so I was the best at whatever I needed to do. You needed me to preach, I was a good preacher. You needed me to be reverent, I was the holiest looking dude there. I was fairly well organized, so I was efficient; people knew they could come to me get things done. I was good.

This desire to be affirmed also meant that I did some things foolishly, even sinfully. I avoided confrontation, so I was never one to enforce the rules. I loved being the advocate, because I was able to be on your side, as long as you didn’t know that I really wasn’t advocating (because sometimes advocating meant confrontation, and I wouldn’t do that). This also meant that I was seeking affirmation in relationships in which I should not have been. And I hurt, betrayed, and confused a lot of people. I know it. The faces of the people that I hurt still float sometimes in and out of my consciousness.

When I left the priesthood, I sought counseling. I was talking with the counselor about this need for affirmation, and he said to me, “You had congregations, multiple congregations, which was hundreds or maybe thousands of people who loved you? Why didn’t you feel like that was ever good enough?”

It was one of those moments. You know the kind, the moments that hit us with clarity and change who we are. From the depth of my being, I heard my own voice cry out inside of me, “Because they’re not my father.”

My biological father abandoned my family when I was in kindergarten. My step-father’s love was always very conditional. I wanted the approval of a father, and I was seeking it everywhere else. The problem was, no matter how I sought it or from whom I sought it, it was never good enough, because it wasn’t his. This is not a psychobabble-blaming, poor me kind of thing. This was a real insight into a sub-conscious motivation into my aberrant behavior. When I gained this insight, it shed light on so much of what I had been struggling. It's not a blaming of my past or anyone in my past for my mistakes, but a consciousness and acknowledgement of a weakness in my personality that I need to guard against even to this day.

My desire for my father’s affirmation and seeking it from everywhere else made me a chameleon. I could change my colors and fit right in. I could be whoever I thought you wanted me to be in order to get you to like me.

That’s why I got ordained. I felt supported, affirmed, liked, and loved while studying in the seminary in a way that I never felt while I was not in seminary. This carried over into my priesthood. Needless to say, my house was built on sand. The desire for affirmation was not enough to be able to sustain my ministry or keep me faithful.

My relationship with Lesley was different. She was different. I’m not sure what happened. No matter what face I tried to put out there, she saw through it. She was the first person that I had met who could see through me. At least, I thought she was. She saw through the masks I wore, and she was the first person that I ever felt truly loved me for me, which was weird. I felt (wrongly because of my own “issues”) that others would only love or like the “me” I presented. The weird thing was, people did only like or love the “me” I presented, because I would not present the real me. It was a cyclic thing. I was frustrated because I didn’t feel anyone really liked or loved the real me. I never let the real me out there for people to like or love.

For whatever reason, I knew that Lesley loved me, the real me. This is why I loved spending time with her. I couldn’t pretend when I was around her. I had to be me, because she saw through all the pretense.

Our feelings for each other deepened. It sounds immature and cliché, but we fell in love. Being in love is not immature, though. It cannot replace the commitment of actually loving someone. What I’ve known for a long time is that while the feelings of “being in love” intensify and dissipate with the phases of the moon or whatever other influence is happening in my life, I choose to love her. Being “in love” is the romantic, warm fuzzy feelings. Loving someone is the committed choice to be for another. I make that choice whether I am “in love” with her at a particular moment or not. The times when I look at her and am swept away with that romantic feeling are icing on the cake. The commitment to share my life with her is the cake. Both are good by themselves. They are awesome when they are together.

Anyway, our feelings for each other deepened and we acted foolishly and sinfully. I had a conversation with someone shortly after I left the priesthood. This person was asking intimate and extremely personal questions about the sexual relationship I had with Lesley. This person wasn’t the only one who wanted details, but was the only one who came right out and asked me. I found that both Lesley and I became the centerpiece for gossip in Jefferson City, the (gossip) capitol of Missouri.

For some reason, people felt they had a right to know that information, and when they couldn’t get it from the source, they made it up. It’s no secret that our relationship was sexual. Lesley conceived Jacob. I can’t really hide that fact. Don’t expect to get any tawdry details of it though. If you’re reading this for that kind of info, you’re going to be as disappointed as if you had picked up Augustine’s “Confessions” thinking it would read like a true crime novel.

It’s been five years since I left the priesthood, but I honestly don’t think of it as “leaving the priesthood.” It’s been five years since I committed myself to the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known. It’s been five years since I started a life of authenticity. I’ve decided that my life shouldn’t be about moving from something, leaving something. Life is about moving toward something. It’s directed and purposeful.

I don’t feel like there is anything I need to hide anymore, nothing I’m leaving in the dark. Over the past 5 years, I’ve been learning to live authentically. Lesley and my kids force me to do that. Lesley always challenges me not to hide things from her. I still have that inclination at times. It’s deeply engrained into my being from my years growing up. That’s really more than I care to get into at this time. Suffice it to say, hiding the whole truth was so deeply engrained into my behavior patterns from my experience as a child that whenever I am in a stressful situation now as an adult, I default into that mode. I have to confront consciously, even to this day, the temptation “to forget” certain details whenever I have to admit that I’m not exactly the way I want to be, or have done something hurtful. Some wounds take a very long time to heal.

Through it all, Lesley and I have held fast to our faith. What else can we do? The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian Life. I was with someone on Holy Thursday this past year, and the person asked me why I continue to attend the Catholic Church when I can’t receive communion. I responded, “I know in the depth of my heart that this bread and wine become the real and true body and blood of Jesus Christ. While I may not be able to receive communion at this time, I still want to be in His real and true sacramental presence.” I believe in the sacraments, even though at this time I cannot participate in them. I believe in them completely and fully, having experienced the power of their grace not only in my own life, but in the lives of those to whom I ministered them. The sacraments are why I am Catholic.

I still cling to some of the ideals that I tried to live as a priest. For example, occasionally you will still see me dressed in all black clothing. The clerical garb of the priest, the “blacks,” was originally a sign of priestly poverty. Priests did not get paid for being priests. The only income they received was the yearly Christmas collection. Many priests were poor because of this, so they would buy the cheapest kind of cloth they could afford to make their clothing. The cheapest kind of cloth happened to be black wool, so they dressed in black. They would often wear white, linen undergarments because the wool was so scratchy, and would pull the white linen up through the collar so as not to get chaffed necks. Wearing black became a symbol of detachment from the things of this world. I still wear all black, occasionally, because I am a Johnny Cash fan, but more importantly, because of its symbolic representation of detachment from this world, of spiritual poverty.

One of the most annoying things about being “an ex-priest” are the people who think they’ve found an ally in Catholic bashing. It happens explicitly and subtly. Most recently, we had a social worker come to our house to discuss financial options for managing Nathaniel’s illness. He came with the nurse from the Hemophilia Treatment Center. He began the conversation by clarifying that I am the one who used to be the priest. Then he explained that he had studied in Catholic seminary once upon a time in preparation for becoming a priest. Then he proceeded to tell me that he left the seminary when the Church began clarifying its position against the use of artificial means of contraception. He stated that after studying the matter closely, he could not be ordained a representative of a group who had such a “foolish belief” as this. The arrogance of these statements always amazes me. Somehow this dude thought that his “study” made him wiser than the Church’s 2,000 years of experience of human nature and behavior, and smarter than the greatest theological minds that have lived for the past 2 millennia.

What bothered me the most is the expectation he had that I would jump right in to start talking about how wrong the Church is for this teaching. I stared at him when he brought this up. I refuse to respond to this bait.

There are so many people who, as soon as they hear I’ve left the ministry of the priesthood, think they can start Catholic bashing and I’m going to agree. So allow me to clarify:

I believe in One God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth.

I believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord, who was conceived of the Virgin Mary by the power of the Holy Spirit. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. On the third day, he rose again in fulfilmment of the scriptures. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. From thence he shall come again to judge the living and the dead.

I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which most fully subsists within the Catholic Church, but that finds manifestations among all Christian faiths, and that consists of all people baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

I believe that the scriptures are the inerrant Word of God and should be held up in estimation as equal to the Eucharist, the real and true sacramental presence of Jesus Christ in our midst.

I believe in the Eucharist, Reconciliation, and all of the Sacraments of the Church. I believe that while God has bound salvation to the sacraments (specifically baptism), God is not bound by that, and can save whomever he wishes to save by whatever means he wishes to save them.

I believe in an all-male, celibate priesthood.

I believe in being prolife from natural conception to natural death, and that artificial contraception is an affront to God’s will for human sexual behavior.

I believe in the College of Bishops and the Primacy of the Pope. I believe the pope, when speaking from "The Chair of Peter" is able to pronounce infallible teachings on matters of faith and morality.

I am Catholic to the core, despite the fact that I cannot at this time fully participate in the sacraments. My personal situation and my sin, which places me out of union with my Church at this time does not make what my Church teaches false. I will continue to defend her teachings, because no matter what situation in which I am, Truth does not change. I believe in the teachings of my Church, and I want to be reconciled with her.

I am working on that, as well. I’ve applied for laicization, which is to be released from the promises I made at the time of my ordination. I made those promises and committed the sin of blasphemy in them. I’m asking for forgiveness and reconciliation. In my heart of hearts, I am Catholic. I know that there is scandal in my situation, and am seeking to be reunited with my Church. It’s a waiting period now. My request for laicization has been submitted to the proper authorities. Now all I can do is wait for the approval or rejection. Lesley and I will have our marriage sacramentalized in the Church as soon as possible.

So there it is, 5 years out of the active ministry in a nutshell.

I don’t at this time want to hide the fact that I was ordained and served the Church as a priest. I am ashamed of some of the things I did during my ministry. I am sorry to and for the large number of people that I hurt and confused. I ask forgiveness from them and from my Church as a whole.

I want nothing more than to be reconciled so that Lesley and I can again receive communion. We were married because we decided that the stability of even a civil marriage was better than having Jacob grow up with parents who were not married.

In my heart of hearts I know that I can stand before God and say that I have acted rightly within the dictates of my conscience since leaving the priesthood, which is more than I could have said while I was active in ministry.

For the past 5 years, I’ve been living with greater integrity and authenticity than at any other time in my life. And, because of this, I’m happier now than at any other time in my life.

That’s where I am 5 years later.