I can’t help but wonder if October 13 was the most auspicious date for the bishop’s latest clergy reshuffle to take effect. By the end of the day, removal vans would have transported vast theological libraries, dusty knick-knacks and the other impedimenta of priests’ lives from one end of the diocese to the other.
In most parishes, I’m sure there were sad farewells after the morning Mass, the streets lined with folk throwing flowers in the path of Father’s car as he made his sorrowful progress in the direction of his new appointment. In other places, once the previous incumbent had vacated the premises, the air may well have been rent with the fizzing of fireworks and the frenzied ululations of parishioners performing an impromptu conga around the church grounds. Such, dear friends, is the reality of clergy changes.
There is a nugget of priestly wisdom, passed down the generations, about this very thing: when a priest leaves a parish, 10 per cent of the people will be genuinely sad, 10 per cent will be secretly delighted and the remaining 80 per cent couldn’t care less, so long as there is someone there to offer the Mass on a Sunday. We might quibble over the percentages, but all in all I’d say that’s a fair summation of things.
With the exception of the combined offices of Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury, I struggle to think of any other “job” in which demitting office also involves the vacating of a house and the packing away of one’s worldly goods in double quick time. Of course, we priests ought to be mindful of the itinerant nature of the Lord’s own ministry (Luke 9:58), lest we be caught out by our “dwellings being plucked up and removed from us” (cf Isaiah 38:12) by the bishop.
It is easy to romanticise, or glibly spiritualise, the experience of being uprooted and sent to another place. Of the many challenges of obedience, perhaps this is the greatest. Thankfully, most bishops fully recognise the emotional upheaval involved in a change of parish (or parishes). Indeed, these changes can be doubly stressful since they involve not only a new house, but also a new set of relationships to establish and maintain.
I remember hearing an elderly priest recall one of his past moves. Having recently completed a secondment to a ministry outside of the parish, he presented himself to the bishop who exclaimed (partly in French, as was his wont), “At last, mon père, you have become disponible!” One of the principal meanings of disponible is “available” and, in that sense, this newly liberated priest was indeed available to the bishop. There can, however, be ways in which a priest can be made to feel the less salutary undertones of disponible, namely “disposable” and “usable”.
I don’t know if there’s a session during the “baby bishops’ course” in Rome which covers this most delicate area of ecclesiastical human resource management for recently appointed Ordinaries: if there isn’t, then perhaps there should be.
My own bishop recently admitted that moving clergy was the hardest part of his job, and I believe him. What if, as can happen, someone declines the bishop’s appointment or refuses to relinquish a ministry? If your template of moves, akin to those on a chessboard, are all mutually dependent, what if someone drops out? To return to bricks and mortar for a moment, if a priest digs his heels in, then it can be a bit like when a chain of house sellers falls foul of someone withdrawing, except this time what collapses is the bishop’s carefully crafted strategy.
What the bishop should not do, if I may have the temerity to suggest so, is tell a priest that he has “prayed about this decision”. While I would certainly hope that he has brought this concern before the Lord, as with all his pastoral burdens, I am wary of prayer as a subtle tactic of coercion. When a bishop tells you he’s prayed about your future ministry and happiness, that’s all well and good. But in and of itself, that is no guarantee that the decision is an infallible one. I don’t think a priest should reply: “Well, if you’ve prayed about it, then I guess it would be churlish of me to hesitate or question it.”
Although he may be able to confer with his vicar general or other trusted advisers, I reckon “moves week” is when the bishop feels most alone. It’s not just about who will be getting the keys to St Fulgentius, but about whether a co-worker in the vineyard feels available or disposable. To revisit the reproachful love song we encountered recently in the Sunday liturgy, ultimately it’s those feelings which can determine whether life for the priest and his people produces sweet wine or merely sour grapes. And not even bishops are exempt from sampling the result of that particular harvest.
Fr John Bollan is parish priest of St Joseph’s in Greenock and an honorary teaching fellow at the University of Glasgow
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.