By Gretchen Keiser

For an intensely warm and personal man, Archbishop Marino's departure from the archdiocese has been uncharacteristically impersonal.

In this case, the archbishop has asked that his privacy be respected.

Such a request is entirely appropriate, said Father Niel Jarreau, a Jesuit priest who is a counselor.

Asked to comment upon the archbishop's need for privacy, Father Jarreau said he could do so in a general way. "If the people who are caring for his health say that he needs to be left alone, we owe him this. This is the way we love this man, by allowing him to have his needs met," said the priest who serves at Ignatius House, the Jesuit retreat center in Atlanta.

There is an appropriate need for the public to know certain aspects of the lives of public figures, he said. For example it is appropriate for the public to have knowledge of the psychological condition of candidates for presidential and vice-presidential offices. Similarly it is appropriate for the church to examine the candidates for seminary in this light.

However, it is inappropriate to expect that details of one's physical and psychological life will be made public, he said. For the archbishop to say that he needs spiritual, physical and psychological renewal is "enough," Father Jarreau said. "We don't have a right to know his internal thinking."

It is also a reminder that leaders, including priests, are human and have the same needs as everyone else for rest, solitude, friends and acceptance. "We must allow a man weaknesses of mind and body," Father Jarreau said. "A man that works for two years at so many hours a day, I'm not surprised that he caves in."

"We all have clay feet. We all have physical weaknesses. No one is psychologically perfect. We're not the equal of Jesus Christ," he said.

For the archbishop to be unavailable and in seclusion, he said, is to be respected, "just as truly as we respect the no visiting sign on the hospital door."

One way to respond to the necessity to carry on without the archbishop is to "remember that person at the altar and at prayer and to let your good memories of that person nourish you and when the time comes that you see them again to thank them."

"The best thing we can do for the archbishop is to give our full support to his successor," Father Jarreau added.

Of Archbishop Marino, the priest said, "I feel a great deal of respect, love and affection for this man. I admire him as a person and an archbishop. He was very priestly and very concerned about his people in the archdiocese, all of them, and his priests. I think the archdiocese is much richer because of his presence with us and that we will be a long time nourished by his pastoral care. We will be a long time forgetting him."

At the same time, he said, "We have a new bishop, Bishop Lyke. That is something to be grateful for, that we have a man who is capable and who has been sent here to replace" the archbishop.

Dom Armand Veilleux, of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, said he was concerned that in both political and church environments, "we expect a little too much or our leaders."

"We make them a role bearer," he said. "Twenty-four hours a day he has to answer that image people are expecting of him. When can he be himself, have fun, make a joke."

At times, he said, a leader who is under great stress can only come out from under the level of pressure by acting in a very uncharacteristic way.

He also expressed concern that the archdiocese come through this transition time successfully. "This ending for the church in Atlanta will be traumatic for a long time," he said. "We need someone who will be a healer."