By Fr. Jerry Hardy

Last week Fr. John Adamski wrote here and mentioned some of the reactions we’ve been getting from high school juniors and seniors to our vocation presentation on the priesthood. They’ve been interesting, I’ll say that much! The discussions with the students have been a relearning experience for me, putting me back in touch with the raw edge of youthful frankness. What troubled me more than the negative vibrations some of the guys gave off about being a priest was the apparent misinformation and lack of facts about the life and ministry of the priest.

I heard objections about “no personal freedom” and “nothing to do but say Mass” that were strangely reminiscent of a survey I ran among juniors and seniors in the same school back in 1966-67. The impression at that time was that the priest just had to wait around the rectory for things to happen. “Nothing much is served by my saying, “I do not sit around the rectory and wait for things to happen.” What I can point to is a lot of active guys who have found that in the priesthood they can have the freedom necessary to move around and do the things they feel important provided they are willing to assume the responsibility for doing the homework on them and following them through. Freedom is always conditioned by responsibilities. Men in business know that; husbands in families know it too. It’s a similar dynamic of living whether it’s a priest or layman who is the subject.

The reason I bring this up in a column aimed at parental awareness of the vocation to the priesthood is simply this. Some of the impressions these students carry around must come from you. True, a good measure of it arises from us and what we project of our life and work. And if kids are saying these things, then the priests who might be reading this ought to listen. However, priest can’t correct all the misimpressions. I suggest that you can help by sharing what you know of the priest’s life and work with your family.

Another thing that came across in these visits to the high schools and parishes was the fact that we have made priesthood and religious life seem so different, put them in such a rarified atmosphere, that young people seem to think that the people who could make that kind of vocational choice are equally rare. Place this side by side with their misinformation about our life and work and you have a fairly high hedge of hesitation about choosing the priesthood. Maybe I can clear up some of that.

To be effective as a priest, a man ought to have pretty much the same raw material he’d need to be a good husband, father, business or professional man; a capacity to love and be loved, and ability to live beyond himself and his own wishes for others, sensitivity and tenderness that keep him in touch with all that there is in life of laughter and tears, a willingness to work hard and creatively. From an academic point of view, he ought to have the mental equipment to do college and post graduate work of the caliber required in most colleges and grad schools.

In saying all this, there is a certain sameness that emerges, but that doesn’t mean I’m reducing everything to a least common denominator. The thing that sets a person apart in making up his mind to do this or that with his life is precisely his DESIRE to do this or that. But desire arises from knowledge, from questions raised and answered. A person will decide to give the priesthood a try only when he’s familiar enough with what it takes to be one and with what he is at ease about what he has to offer as a priest and what he can expect in the way of satisfactions.

Parents can play no small part in helping in this area. If you’re not familiar enough with what the priest is and why, then ask the man in your parish. Frankly, I feel that one of the best things you can do for us is to keep asking questions about who we are and why we are because we will then certainly have to sharpen the image we project just to answer you. But having done that, there’s still the sharing with your family. I’m not talking about railroading something into their consciousness in an exercise of parental persuasion. All I’m suggesting is that the idea of ministry be given a chance to be considered. To force young people into any vocational choice simply out of parental preference is damaging. But not to help them consider all the options by raising some that they might not raise can be equally a disservice to them.