Fr. John Adamski

Cardinal John Wright, the highest-ranking American in the Vatican curia, was asked to address himself to the subject of priestly vocations recently. Specifically he was asked this: “If you had to counsel a man about to be ordained, what advice would you give him at this stage of history?” His answer may be interesting to the readers of “Role Call”:

I like this question because it recalls the manner in which my own decision to enter the priesthood was made. I opted for the priesthood at a time when, it now seems clear from the reasons given for defections from the priesthood, many young men say they entered the seminary to please their mothers or, as the sociologists are telling us, to give their families a little social prestige deeply desired by mothers of immigrant or second-generation families. In a word, the candidates for the priesthood were, or so some of them now imply, the victims of “Momism.” We are told this was especially characteristic of certain ethnic groups; people married or abstained from marriage, entered the priesthood or some other work, all in order to please Mom, it is said.

I am not sure that I swallow this entirely, but it is said by scholarly and serious authorities on the subject. In my own case, my personal taste was for journalism and during my last year in college I already had considerable printer’s ink in my blood. However, some devout laymen had raised the question of priesthood, and so one afternoon I touched on the question in a conversation with my own mother. I inquired what she would think of me entering the seminary and becoming a priest. She said: “Don’t ever ask me a question like that. I gave you your life: that is on my conscience. What you do with your life, is on your conscience! We will not discuss the matter again.”

My point is simple. Any young man who asked me the same question would receive the same answer: follow your well-formed conscience. But since I am a priestly guide of consciences, I would point out to him that conscience is not a mere impulse, hunch or self-determining faculty. It involves consideration of the needs of the common good, above all that common good which is served by the Church as by nothing else, thanks to priests.

In other words asked at this stage of history to counsel a young man about the priesthood, I would simply reply that if I had the chance over again, I would do precisely what I did when the problem confronted me in youth, but for more and perhaps better reasons. The priesthood may have less consolations now than it did then, though I doubt it, but it has enormously greater potential consequences for the service of the rest of mankind and the restoration of sanity to a world far more nutty than it was when I volunteered to straighten it out. I would also, of course, remark that the future life, and salvation therein, is still the highest destiny of mankind, and that priests are the chief architects among men of salvation and the future life.