It is the Most Holy Trinity Catholic Chapel at West Point, on the grounds of the United States Military Academy.
And it is West Point that provides the template for my plan for the Catholic Church to eliminate the priest shortage in America.
In Part I of this series, discussing the principle of Apostolic Succession, I mentioned that a priest, good or bad, remains a priest unless or until he is laicized -- which I likened to being "kicked out." And that's true -- laicization is the way by which the Church can rid itself of problematic priests.
But that's incomplete: A priest can ask to be released from his vows -- laicized -- for any number of reasons. We had a couple in the parish, some years ago; he had been a priest; she had been a nun; they met and fell in love. They decided that their ultimate vocation was matrimonial, not clerical, and both sought, and received, release from their vows. They remained Catholics in good standing. They wed, had children, and lived long and exemplary lives. It happens. It happened a lot in the turmoil following Vatican II, but it still happens even today.
The committment to the priesthood is expected to be lifelong, and it usually is. In that sense, the priesthood is a lot like marriage: It's expected to be a lifelong committment, but, just as you don't stand at the altar reciting your vows envisioning your spouse 50 years older, you don't prostrate yourself at the feet of the bishop imagining yourself entering the old priests' home. No: Marriage is about committment today and tomorrow: This is the person I want to build a life with today, and, feeling as I do, I can't imagine that I would change my mind tomorrow. And, if you're lucky, and healthy, you wind up stacking up so many todays and tomorrows that your spouse -- and you yourself -- are 50 years older. But sometimes things don't work out... and even though Jesus was clear that marriage is for life, the church recognizes that, in some circumstances, the marriage has failed. The Church can annul a marriage.
While Jesus expressly said that marriage was for life, He did not say that ordination was for life, although, obviously, I won't argue that this has long been the expectation. But Jesus gave his Apostles the express power to bind and loose and to transmit the powers He gave to others. So I would not expect or want anyone to enter into the priesthood with the idea of merely doing a term of years and then getting out -- but the Church has recognized there are times when a priest should be returned to lay status. It may be because of scandal or fault, but it may be because the priest has recognized his true vocation lies elsewhere.
Which brings us back to West Point.
West Point graduates somewhere around 1,000 to 1,100 new second lieutenants every year. All are obliged to serve for five years. Somehwere around 50 to 60% of these will remain in the Army after the five year committment is up. But more will drop out along the way -- many at the 20-year mark -- so that only 10 to 15% of a typical cadet class will remain in the Army for 30 years or more.
The Army is happy with this arrangement, of course: It needs lots of second lieutenants -- but not so many colonels or generals.
Now, consider how this might work for the Church: Suppose the Church undertook to pay for a college education for persons interested in the priesthood. Men would take a degree in a normal academic subject, just as they typically do now (Pope Leo's undergraduate degree, for example, was in math), and spend summers and perhaps a fifth year in formation for the priesthood. After ordination, all priests would be expected to serve a minimum of five years in the priesthood.
Surely young men would line up in droves for this opportunity: The cost of higher education is astonishingly high, and going up every year, always outpacing inflation. So the Church should have the opportunity to attract as many new priests as it wants, or can handle.
This would have to be honorable service. A West Point cadet who runs seriously afoul of the Honor Code, or who refuses commission following graduation, or who refuses to honor his or her five-year service committment, is legally required to repay the government for tuition and benefits. It would be the same for men studying for the priesthood: No girls. Certainly no boys. No hanky panky of any kind. Any violation would be met with expulsion... and a very large reimbursement bill. Whatever sins of omission or commission that led to the expulsion might, potentially, be forgiven, but the bill would have to be paid.
At the end of his first five years of service, a man could ask to be returned to lay status. He'd be light years ahead of many of his peers: No student debt. Real job experience. Such men might be looked to as the mainstays of their parishes -- the likely pillars of the parish school boards or finance councils or Holy Name societies. Meanwhile, the Church would flourish with three or four priests in each parish -- mostly vigorous young men -- who could get up early enough for 6:30 daily Masses and still make parish calls and hospital visits, and sit in on committee meetings, and help plan the fundraisers, and pray with the Pro Life Committee at the abortion clinic, or coach or teach (or at least substitute teach) at the parish school. Some men would find, after stacking up five years of todays and tomorrows, that they have a call to continue in this work; others would find that their futures would lie away from the Rectory. But the priests who remain would potentially have classmates -- friends -- in any assignment, wherever they are sent.
Of course, some will get nervous about bringing lots of young men into the priesthood: What about the danger of child sexual abuse?
The truth is that, as long as there are children, there will be persons who will try and exploit them. This is a problem not just for the Church, but for our society as a whole. But there would be a number of deterrents with the Church's West Point plan. One would be structural: The molester, if found out before fulfilling his service committment, would be on the hook for full tuition and costs -- in addition, of course, to civil and criminal liability. But there is also safety in numbers: Multiple men in the Rectory -- many priests -- will allow for two or more priests to be present at any event with children. And the Church has learned a lot in the last quarter century, since the Dallas Charter. But the lesson can be summarized very succinctly: Nobody should want to be alone with a child who is not that person's own -- and any person who does want to be alone with someone else's child should never be left alone with a child.
I am sure there would be issues of canon law that would have to be addressed to make this happen. I am not a canonist, but Pope Leo is. He knows first hand the issues -- and the evils -- that arise from a shortage of priests. Even assuming the good faith of all concerned, we are too often putting men who should never be pastors into administrative roles for which they are ill-equipped. They may have other talents that could make them good priests, but these never come to the fore where they are shoved into jobs they can't handle. Deepening the talent pool will allow these men to flourish according to their gifts and strengthen the Church as a whole.
Now I know some of you started in on this essay with the question, why not just ordain women? That would double the available pool of priests without any West Point plan. Actually, if you are one of these persons, and you've read this far, I thank you. In real life, when I have proposed this plan in conversations with friends, many turn off instantly: Women must be ordained first before you do try anything else, they say.
I will tell you now what I have told people in real life: I don't know why the Church refuses to consider women's ordination. I'm just a dumb guy in the pews. The first witness to Jesus' Resurrection was a woman. Surely many of the Church's greatest saints are women. Many were martyred for spreading the Faith. And you don't have Constantine (and the Council of Nicea in 325) without St. Helena; you don't have St. Augustine without St. Monica. But I know implacable opposition when I see and hear it, and that's what I see and hear from the Church on the question of women's ordination. Maybe someday I will understand why the Church takes this position, but right now it is enough that I know what the position is, and that there's no getting around it any time soon.
And... in the meantime... we must have more priests. This, I am sure, would help.
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