The goal of this Project is to recount for myself and other priests the 23 years of learning, reflection, and inspiration I have experienced with the Fraternity of Priests (hereafter, “the Fraternity,”) in the Archdiocese of Hartford (hereafter, “Archdiocese”). My project will also focus on the results of a Fraternity Conference held from Sunday, April 6, to Wednesday, April 9, 2008 at the Montfort Retreat House, in Litchfield, CT. We are maturing as a group to the point that we are now reaching out in a systematic way to other priests.

My hope is to share the blessings of the Fraternity with as many other priests as possible. Primarily, I hope to reach younger priests who would be willing to learn from the lived experiences and mistakes of their elders. Additionally, I seek to share our experience with priests of all ages who are searching for what we have been blessed to discover. My goal is to help current members and other priests to appreciate the great value of being a “Band of Brothers” helping each other to promote the Kingdom of God, so that they will join our existing covenanted group. My alternative plan is to form an entirely new group of at least four covenanted members. I see the Fraternity as a gift from God to priests as an important part of His Visitation¹ in our times.

Throughout this project, I return to a core simile, that of tanker plane to fighter jets, as a way of explicating the nourishing relationship between God and priests. Tanker planes are military aircraft that, from the air, refuel fighter jets and other military aircraft.

In 2007, I conducted a telephone interview with Major Joseph Muckle of the Air National Guard. He described to me the airborne refueling maneuvers as delicate and dangerous operations. Tanker planes must fly above the recipient jet in synchronicity, docking a fuel hose into the recipient, and replenishing the jet as it flies en route to its mission.

During the Persian Gulf War of 1990, American B-52 bombers were refueled by tanker planes two, and sometimes three times on their way back and forth to Diego Garcia Air Force Base in the Indian Ocean. The critical importance of tanker planes to the mission of bombers is demonstrated in documents from the former Soviet Union. Maj. Muckle stated that Soviet air strategists considered the destruction of one tanker plane to be the equivalent of destroying four fighter planes. Without the tanker planes, targets deep within the Soviet Union were inaccessible.

In the same way, without priests, the Eucharist would be inaccessible to the Catholic faithful. Yet priests themselves need to be refueled in order to carry on their ministries. I have chosen the phrase “Refueling in Flight” as part of the title of my Project because that phrase helps to illustrate the role of the Fraternity of Priests as God's tanker plane to priests. In and by the grace of God, the Fraternity refuels priests who would otherwise be depleted by the constant challenges of their apostolic missions; God’s grace refuels priests from above while we are on the job together here below. Like tankers to fighter jets, the Fraternity expands the range of action and apostolic effectiveness of celibate priests.

Airborne refueling suggests Divine Alimentation as we priests travel, Esca Viatorum.² And, as with airborne tanker pilots, the Fraternity requires courage, skill, and willingness to be vulnerable on the part of priest members. Just as both tanker and fighter crews put themselves in very dangerous situations as they come so perilously close to each other at high speeds, sometimes our deepest hurts as priests come from those closest to us and traveling with us -- our fellow priests. As well, the military simile recalls that priests are important leaders in the battle between good and evil, both internally and externally. Internally, we must battle our own personal weaknesses; externally, we face an increasingly unfriendly secular state and culture.

Yearly, on the Monday after the First Sunday of Advent, the Fraternity members sign a covenant to meet each week to share our faith and find the strength to live our Kingdom Disciplines³ (hereafter, "Kingdom Disciplines," or "Disciplines"), in fellowship and mutual accountability. We challenge each other to pray, and especially, to pray the Breviary. We are more likely to be leaders when we know that we have trustworthy brothers who will dress our wounds with empathy. In a war, one of the most important objectives is to break the will of the enemy to fight. We cannot let our spiritual enemies, secular competitors, or personal weaknesses sap our determination. We want to grow and spread the Kingdom of God by creatively using all the gifts that God gives us for evangelization.

CHAPTER I

REALITIES INTERNAL AND EXTERNAL IN MY MINISTRY

Our Fraternity was born from our struggles to be faithful and fruitful priests; that, in turn, has led us to discover ways to help priests minister to each other, inspire and heal each other, and be accountable to each other. We need God’s help for this mission; we need His refueling from above.

A. The Challenge of External Realities

God has both blessed and challenged us in these years after the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965). I was ordained in 1967, at the American College of Louvain University, Belgium. During my preparation for ordination, we had high hopes that the change from Latin into the vernacular would fill our churches with more informed and enthusiastic worshippers. We thought that the priest who celebrated the Mass facing the congregation would build better rapport with his people. We hoped for a flood of new vocations to the priesthood and to lay ministries. And for music, we preferred anything to the organ.

1. Declining Priesthood

In many ways, our high hopes were dashed. The number of active priests in the Archdiocese dropped from 594 in 1969, to 320 in 2009.⁴ In a front-page feature story, The New York Times reported that one out of six priests now serving the Catholic Church in the United States comes from outside of the country.⁵ One out of three seminarians now studying for the priesthood in our country is foreign born.

We have an aging clergy with dramatically fewer young priests. When I was ordained in 1967, I was 25 years old, one of twenty-one young priests ordained for the Archdiocese. In 2006, we had only 6 ordinations to the priesthood. Significantly, only one of the new priests was 25 years of age; four were between ages 26-32, and one, Fr. Paul Gotta, was 48 years old.

Richard G. Malloy, S.J., has written about attracting young adults to the priesthood and religious life.⁶ He reported that in 1965 there were 299,349 priests, seminarians and religious for 46 million Catholics in the United States. In 2008, for 69 million Catholics, there were 120,938, and the vast majority of the priests and sisters were well into their 60s and 70s.

Due to the decreasing numbers of priests, the Archdiocese has closed or merged 11 parishes and five missions in the past 11 years. It has combined, linked, or clustered 41 other parishes and ministries. As a result, 41 priests have been given responsibility for two or more parishes or ministries. Nine more parishes are scheduled to be linked.

In Waterbury, a frail Italian priest with vision so poor that he could not drive a car, was assigned a second parish on the other side of the City. And the rate of increase in one-priest parishes, now 123 out of 213, means that more priests than ever are living alone. When I began my present assignment at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, CT on July 3, 2007, I knew that when the pastor of the neighboring parish retires, I, too, will have two parishes. The decline in the number of servants of God may increase the likelihood of isolation of these priests.

2. Declining Attendance and Services

The average number of persons attending Sunday Mass in the Archdiocese, which covers the three central counties of Connecticut: Hartford, Litchfield, and New Haven, has diminished every year. From 1969 to 2005, the October census of persons attending Sunday Mass dropped by 46 percent; the total number of Catholics in the Archdiocese dropped by 26.9 percent.

In addition to decreased Sunday Mass attendance, we have also witnessed declining statistics regarding Catholic schools. From 1969 to 2009, we closed 41 Catholic elementary schools and eight Catholic high schools. Each closing was emotionally difficult for the priests, faculty, students, and alumni. As of the 2008-2009 school year, we have 59 Catholic elementary schools and nine Catholic high schools; in 1969 the numbers were 110 and 18, respectively. As the number of teaching nuns diminished, school budgets and costs grew to accommodate larger lay teachers’ salaries.

At the national level, our ability to deliver health care services also diminished. From 1976 to 2006 the Church closed 87 hospitals.⁷ In spite of these closings, the Catholic Church is still the largest purveyor of non-governmental health, education, and social services in our country.

3. The Upheaval of the 1960’s

During the 1960’s the Catholic Church lost the support of a friendly media and a church-friendly culture. The drug scene and the turmoil over the Vietnam War, Watergate, President Nixon’s resignation, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy, the burning of parts of American cities, and the Free Speech Movement were among the many catalysts that brought simmering conflicts to a boil.

Archbishop Timothy Dolan, formerly of Milwaukee, WI and now the new Archbishop of New York City, told a vignette about his memories of the tumultuous times of the 60’s.⁸ He relates that Auxiliary Bishop George Gottwald, ordained for 25 years as a priest and for another 25 years as a bishop, was nearing retirement when he was named Apostolic Administrator of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, MO, on the death of Cardinal Joseph Ritter in June of 1967. He was immediately thrust into a crisis at Kenrick Seminary.

One quarter of the priests on the seminary faculty had left the priesthood; the student body was decimated by departures, and the theology being taught was only minimally Catholic. The priests who remained on the faculty announced that they wanted to join an ecumenical theologate, because, according to their interpretation of Vatican II, Catholic theology, as such, probably no longer existed. In the early spring of 1968, they demanded that Bishop Gottwald come to a campus demonstration. He came, and they presented him with their list of demands in front of television cameras.

Into this lions’ den walked the elderly Bishop. He was shy, nervous, wishing he was still an unknown pastor in the Ozark hills of Missouri. The spokesman for the faculty and students informed him that Kenrick Seminary might as well close, since the whole enterprise of priestly formation and Catholic theology was “up for grabs.”

Bishop Gottwald replied that even with the legitimate questioning and probing of the Second Vatican Council, there were still clear, consistent truths that had to be passed on to future priests. The spokesman dared him to name one. All eyes and ears were on the Bishop. He recited the Creed.

Another sign of the great upheaval of the 1960s was the 1967 "Land O'Lakes Statement."

The heretical seeds of modernism that had long been nurtured in U.S. colleges and universities broke ground with the Notre Dame Statement. Only two years later the bitter fruit was produced on July 23, 1967, at Notre Dame's retreat center in Land O'Lakes, Wisconsin. The executives of the major Catholic universities in the U.S. and their sponsoring religious orders met, signed, and adopted a revolutionary document entitled "The Land O'Lakes Statement: The Nature of the Contemporary Catholic University,” which has subsequently been referred to simply as "The Land O'Lakes Statement...." [T]he focus of the Land O'Lakes Statement was not academic freedom. Its focus was solely and exclusively the manner in which Catholic universities would deal with questions to which "science" was incapable of providing answers; questions of faith and morals; questions traditionally addressed by philosophy and theology; questions ultimately involving the relationship between faith and reason. In these contexts, the Land O'Lakes Statement declared the universities' independence from the teaching authority of the Church..."⁹

Within the Catholic Church itself we experienced a weakening of our identity and conflicts about our authority in the tumultuous times after the Council. The Sexual Revolution hit us hard. The acceptance of contraception by so many Catholics caused divisions among the priests and among the laity. In addition, this acceptance created rifts among Catholics, liberal Protestants, and Jews. The 1965 Supreme Court decision in Griswold v. Connecticut¹⁰ legally protected contraception. Legal abortion came soon afterwards, with Roe v. Wade.¹¹ These government decisions demonstrate the increasing separation between the Catholic Church and contemporary culture.

4. Church Buildings

We sometimes forget that the Church is not only the mystical Body of Christ; it is also a physical plant that has to be built, maintained, and preserved for future generations. Malcolm Muggeridge, a famous convert to the Catholic Church who served as a Moscow correspondent for the Manchester Guardian during the 1930’s, once commented that there had not been one beautiful building built in Russia since 1917. Some critics say the same about the years 1960-2005 with respect to the architecture of Catholic churches built in the United States.

In Rerouting the Protestant Mainstream,¹² the book that inspired me to conceive this Project, Hadaway and Roozen said that Church buildings should compel worship. There were many hasty improvisations when we turned the altars around, placed the tabernacles to the side, and eliminated the altar rails. Many new Catholic Church buildings lacked the verticality, inspirational church art, and the sense of permanence common to churches built before 1960. Michael Rose discussed this phenomenon in his clever book, Ugly as Sin.¹³

In addition, and especially in urban areas, we sometimes have to defend our properties. I felt terrible when I had to put the neighborhood baseball players out of our inner city playground-parking lot. It was either put them out, sometimes with the help of the police, or pay to fix the expensive, double-sided thermal windows in our school building.

5. The Sexual Abuse Scandal

One of the worst disasters that we face within the Church has been the recent scandal of priests and bishops betraying the sacred trust accorded them through the sexual abuse of innocent children. The sexual abuse scandal has not only caused untold misery for the victims, but has also brought great pain to priests, whether or not they have been implicated in the scandal. The criminal behavior of a small number of priests and bishops has been an agony to the Church. It has also cost the Church millions of dollars and tremendous expenditures of time and energy as she has responded to this evil by developing ways to protect our children.

To prevent these terrible abuses to innocent children, and also to protect the clergy, church workers, and volunteers from false accusations, our Bishops set up mandatory programs like Virtus. Virtus is an educational process for all church professionals and volunteers who come into contact with children. But in order to respond rapidly to complaints of abuse, and to make up for irresponsibility in the past, our Bishops now immediately remove accused priests from pastoral responsibilities. Many innocent priests agonize when the accusations against them or their colleagues appear in the media.

Priests have made personal responses to the scandal, in addition to the corporate response of the Church. I set forth here two entirely different models of response; one an individualistic response, and the other, our Fraternal response. Both are examples of responses made in good faith, but I posit that the Fraternal response more efficaciously heals the wounded Body of Christ.

a. A response in isolation

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Sydney, Australia, was a leader of the Australian National Committee for Professional Standards. He was not satisfied with the response of the Pope to his plan for preventing scandal in the future. He retired from his office as auxiliary, ostensibly for reasons of ill health, although he stated: "I eventually came to the point where I felt that, with the thoughts that were running through my head, I could not continue to be a bishop of a church about which I had such profound reservations."¹⁴ He remains a Catholic and continues to celebrate Mass. He wrote Confronting Power and Sex to describe a "better church that is not contrary to the mind of Jesus Christ." It is a challenging book, but I think he goes too far; he prescribes decapitation to heal a brain tumor.

b. A response in Fraternity

The Fraternal response to the scandal rose out of a conviction that we do not shoot our wounded brothers, but rather, are called to minister both to the victims and their victimizers. This dual ministerial role posed tremendous challenges, which we saw as compelling a response in brotherhood.

Fr. Robert Grant, a member of our local Fraternity, fired his custodian at St. Mary's Church in Union City, CT. Three months later, the custodian's 15 year-old son made a complaint of sexual abuse against Fr. Grant. He was taken off duty immediately, arrested twice, forbidden to wear priests' clothing, and was sent to live at the Abbey of Regina Laudis, hidden away in Bethlehem, CT. He patiently waited there for a year and a half until his trial. He was promptly acquitted of the charges, and is now serving at St. Thomas Parish, in Thomaston, CT.

Fraternity members attended his trial. It was a great blessing for us to see the jury decide so quickly that Fr. Grant was not guilty; he has always been one of our most enthusiastic members. Nevertheless, some priests like him are declared innocent and return to active ministry exonerated, but crushed and humiliated. For these priests, as with Fr. Grant, reception into a Fraternity of supportive brothers could do much to heal.¹⁵

B. The Challenge of Internal Realities

Let me return momentarily to the analogy of the tanker plane and the fighter jets. At the very outset, the relationship between tanker and fighter starts with a recognition by the fighter crew that its equipment needs refueling. For fighter crews, that means remembering to glance down at the fuel gauge. For priests, an awareness of the need for refueling is not so easily come by. Hence, first and foremost the Fraternity helps us deal with the internal reality that we need ongoing refreshment and renewal in God. Whatever the mission, we can't and don't do it all by ourselves. We need God. We also need each other.

The great disciplines of poverty, chastity, and obedience present mental and emotional challenges to members of the Fraternity. In the context of internal realities, each of these disciplines is to be understood in its widest context. Thus, poverty can be understood to encompass humility, as well as financial restraint. Chastity, sexual continence, can also encompass the foregoing of certain pleasures, as in fasting, over against the pleasure of eating to satiety. Obedience can be understood as submission to the demands of orthopraxis, as well as submission to the will of Superiors.

Maintaining orthopraxis can be a draining experience. It takes integrity to do what is right when no one but God is watching. It takes integrity, character, and personal will to counter strong emotions and social currents. It takes integrity to maintain boundaries. It is also challenging to be faithful to the daily prayer of the Divine Office. We aspire to virtue, but we succumb to weakness. The mission of the Fraternity is to embed orthopraxis into a healthy, supportive network of brothers.

1. Challenges to Poverty

The Church is the Bride of Christ, and all of its members share in that brideship. It is altogether natural for women, especially women religious, to proclaim proudly that they are in a spousal relationship with Christ. But in our culture, with its sensitivity to maintaining male gender boundaries, monks and priests sometimes need great humility to rise above homosexual imagery to see themselves in a spousal relationship to Christ. We cannot be macho in relationship to Christ, the Husband of the entire Church.

Christ's Divine love, His desire for His beloved, encompasses -- even as it far surpasses -- all of the dimensions of human love and desire. It can be tremendously difficult for priests to speak of their love for Christ in its totality. The totality of love for Christ can only be expressed in human terms; our culture does not have, and perhaps no culture has, a language for the fullness of love that priests can feel for Christ. Hence, there can be great shyness in trying to articulate the very love for God that the Fraternity is so zealous to experience and to communicate. To overcome that shyness and to embrace the fullness of being the “Bride of Christ” can be a challenge overcome only in great humility.

Closely related is the challenge to humility that can arise from our covenant to present personal and spiritual matters to the Fraternity for discernment (Kingdom Discipline No.7; see fn.3, supra). Men in our culture are encouraged from youngest boyhood to keep their feelings private. Admitting personal failings and weaknesses can be a humiliating enterprise for men. It is one thing to admit weaknesses in a bar with your best joking buddies and a few drinks under your belt; it is quite another to open oneself in an atmosphere of holy discernment and the expectation of accountability. It takes humility to overcome this reticence, as well as great trust in the discretion and discernment of the Fraternity. As well, it can be a challenge to humility to see those very failures as ultimately counting for nothing in light of God's power to do everything. There can be a false pride in seeing one's failings as so very terrible.

Another challenge to humility is the task of grappling with hard questions to which we do not yet have articulate answers. There are questions to which we are certain we know the answers, only to find that God, in the fullness of time, has answered these questions quite differently. There is great pressure on priests to do the right thing; people, especially parishioners, can have unreasonable expectations that priests will know the right thing, as well. It takes great humility to accept that Divine Mysteries are, indeed, mysteries, and that the fullness of time for knowing certain answers has not yet arrived.

An additional challenge which most priests have experienced at one time or another, is doubt. Over against the mandate to empower God's people in the Holy Spirit, doubt can make priests preach defensively. This, in turn, can both reinforce doubt in oneself, and spread it among the laity. A close kin to doubt is spiritual aridity, which can sap enthusiasm and joy from every aspect of the priestly life. The Fraternity lifestyle allows us to share our doubts and thereby, lighten their weight.

2. Challenges to Chastity

Chastity, understood as an overriding fidelity to Christ and His Church, challenges us to set and observe boundaries. The need to observe boundaries is especially necessary in the ministry to distressed persons. This is a core part of the priestly mission (Mat. 25:31-46).¹⁶ The most wrenching crises in the lives of parishioners -- the death of loved ones, particularly children and spouses, infidelity and divorce, loss of jobs and indigency, addictions in adults or children, sexual abuse, abortions, and suicides -- call for deeply human, deeply compassionate responses. The urge to render personal help can be strong, and carries with it the danger of inappropriate intervention. Akin to this is the problem of cries for help from manipulative people who consciously or unconsciously seek to breach appropriate boundaries.

Problems of loneliness and isolation, discussed in the External Realities section, come into play as an internal challenge to fidelity to the Church. There is a natural willingness to make friends among parishioners, but even the most laudable friendships involve the possibility of forming “insider groups” of favored people. If not kept within boundaries, such insider groups have the potential to rend a parish, to make those outside the favored group feel unwelcome, and to encourage the insider groups to exercise subtle power plays.

3. Challenges to Obedience

Despite our best selves, we cannot like everyone; we cannot like every authority. Despite our most humble outlooks, we cannot be enthusiastic about every mandate from our bishops. Our culture encourages men to be bold, independent thinkers and doers. There is, in fact, a strong cultural bias towards “rugged individualism” in men. This inculturation can make it difficult, at times, to maintain willing and cheerful obedience to Superiors.

Rugged individualism can also strain against the demands of mutuality in the Fraternity itself. There can be temptations to keep problems to oneself so as not to “bother” the group, or so as not to reveal oneself as being in the wrong. There can be reticence to give criticism and tough love when it is needed. Again, the Fraternity lifestyle helps us deal with these issues.

100. The Fraternal Response to External and Internal Challenges

The key to the Fraternity's response to both external and internal challenges is the fact that our responses are covenanted. We don't simply intend the Kingdom Disciplines; we covenant to live them. This, in turn, gives stability to the enterprise. When a priest's world is rocked by internal and/or external pressures, our stability grounds him.

1. A Sacred Space

We covenant to undertake a daily Holy Hour (Discipline 1); to attend meetings faithfully (Discipline 2); to read Scripture daily and keep a journal (Discipline 3); to fast weekly (Discipline 5); and to present personal and spiritual matters to our brothers for discernment (Discipline 7). In practicing these particular disciplines, we are taken out of our daily struggles, out of our very selves, and projected into a hallowed time and sacred space. Because we bring our struggles into these sacred spaces, our struggles are not deracinated from the words of Christ, from Church doctrine, or from the Holy Spirit expressed in the discernment of fellow priests. The dilemmas I've listed all have in common some lack of internal coherence; in the Fraternity, our struggles are given a coherent context. We are daily docked to the tanker plane.

2. The Reward of Discipline

To paraphrase St. Augustine, the reward of discipline is discipline. It bears repeating that we don't simply engage in individual intentions, which can fall by the wayside when our wills are weak. Instead, we engage in self-reinforcing disciplines that are covenanted and for which we are accountable to specific others on a weekly basis. And the accountability goes both ways. The discipline of overcoming reticence to reveal a personal or spiritual dilemma, for example, calls for the corresponding discipline of fraternal correction.

One key aspect of the discipline of the Fraternity, borrowed from Alcoholics Anonymous, is its discretion. Priests must be able to trust in the absolute anonymity of the Fraternity meetings. As in an AA meeting, what is said in Fraternity meetings is not repeated outside of the meetings.

Another key aspect of our discipline is the Sabbath. Our culture over-values production and getting things done. Our culture sees the need for rest -- even the need for sleep -- as weaknesses to be overcome. We view Sabbath broadly; within the notion of Sabbath we include rest and recreation throughout the week, and not just on Sundays. We view Sabbath as absolutely necessary. We discipline ourselves to the Sabbath, and view it as an expression of humility. The discipline of living Sabbath is a powerful antidote to such common priestly problems as fatigue, burnout, and constant distraction. The Fraternity's notion of Sabbath is, accordingly, profoundly countercultural as we set aside time each day for prayer.

CHAPTER II

A THEOLOGY OF FRATERNITY

What follows are the theological underpinnings for the Fraternity. We need friendships, but as will be developed, we need specifically spiritual friendships. A theology of fraternity is essential. A theology of fraternity provides spiritual cohesion to what might otherwise devolve into a mere circle of great guys with whom to drink beer. The elements of our theology of fraternity are conversion, communion, and commission.¹⁷

A. Conversion

The need for refueling, as in the cry of Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Mine, O thou lord of life, send my roots rain,”¹⁸ requires a turning towards God, metanoia. I think again of the tanker and the fighters; in order to be refueled, the fighter jet must turn into the flight path of the tanker and position itself, just a little aft of the tanker, so the tanker can lower its fueling hose and dock onto the fighter. This repositioning, this turning, in the religious sense, is the sublime act of conversion.

Conversion is the process of surrendering our wills to the will of God, expressed through Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium of our Church. When I see the license plate logo, "God is my co-pilot," I want to correct it; I think it should read "God is my pilot," because He is the only one who really knows where I am going.

Thomas Sterns Elliot reportedly said that the most important line in all of literature is the line from Dante Allegiere's Divine Comedy, "In His Will is our peace." We pray, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." In heaven, God's will is done perfectly. We struggle to do His will here on earth because of original sin, and because of the hardness of our hearts.

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church, conversion is linked with contrition, interior penance, and conversion of the heart:

Interior repentance is a radical reorientation of our whole life, a return, a conversion to God with all our heart, an end of sin, a turning away from evil, with repugnance toward the evil actions we have committed. At the same time it entails the desire and resolution to change one's life, with hope in God's mercy and trust in the help of his grace.¹⁹

Conversion is the totality of a person's turning towards God. St. Ignatius Loyola, who founded the Society of Jesus in the sixteenth century, wrote a prayer, the Suscipe, which is said daily during the 30-day Jesuit retreat:

Receive, O Lord, all my liberty. Take my memory, my understanding, and my entire will. Whatsoever I have or possess, Thou hast bestowed upon me; I give it all back to Thee and surrender it wholly to be governed by Thy Will. Give me love for Thee alone along with Thy grace, and I am rich enough and ask for nothing more.

Conversion is not mere submission of will, but submersion of one's life into the very Life of God. Before Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger became our Holy Father, he had this to say about conversion:

'It is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.' (Gal. 2:20). By its very nature, being a Christian means conversion, and conversion in the Christian meaning of the word is not just a changing of some of our ideas, but a process of dying. The boundaries of the I are broken open, the I loses itself in order to find itself again in a more noble form that encompasses heaven and earth, past, present and future, and so touches truth itself. The 'I but no longer I' is the Christian alternative to nirvana. We might even say that the Holy Spirit is the alternative. He is the power behind the openness and the fusion into that form that we call the body of Christ or the Church. It is surely evident here that this fusion is no trifling matter. It is possible only for one who possesses the courage to be converted, to let himself be broken open like the grain of wheat. The Holy Spirit is fire; one who does not want to be burned ought not to approach Him.²⁰

A vivid example of this level of conversion is embodied in the life of Leo Tolstoy. Tolstoy was a wealthy Russian who did not have to work. He was very negative; he thought life was evil. He even considered suicide. He observed poor people who worked hard, but were smiling and happy with the little they had. He asked them the secret of their joy, and they told him, "Jesus Christ. He taught us to love each other and gave us the power of his Holy Spirit." Tolstoy then said, "...I remembered that I only lived at those times when I believed in God ...in God ...I live, really live only when I feel Him and seek Him....To know God and to live are one and the same thing. God is life."²¹

The great Shema from Deuteronomy 6:4-5 says, "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Therefore, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength." Jesus affirmed the centrality of this commandment when he answered the question of the Pharisee, "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, 'You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment" (Mt. 22:37-38).

I can say, as a Christian, a priest, and as a member of the Fraternity of Priests, that I am in love with Jesus. In our Fraternity, we know that we all love Jesus, maybe to the point of "being in love with Jesus."

What does it mean to fall in love with Christ? This is a fundamental question in the path to him. Whereas in most cases, human love arises as an emotion that then puts down roots in an act of judgment, love for Christ is born of a judgment that then “expands” into an emotion. In this path that runs from judgment to affection, we must ask, 'Who are you, unknown Savior?' so that our lives are slowly transformed in the experience of knowing him. We ask so that we can recognize the One whom John the Baptist describes: 'Among you stands one whom you do not know.' (Jn 1:26).²²

To add an historical perspective to my thoughts on conversion, I read a book by Derwas J. Chitty, called The Desert A City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire.²³ In it, the author discusses what it was that attracted men and women to choose to live their lives in very brutal desert areas. They went into the desert because they were responding to God's call to conversion. They thought that God was calling them to go into the desert to fight a spiritual battle which is not "against flesh and blood, but against principalities, powers, the world-rulers of darkness, against the spiritual things of wickedness in the heavenly places."²⁴

The Fraternity differs from the Desert Fathers and Mothers in this respect: the overarching mandate of priests to be fighters in the battle of good against evil finds its best practice, we believe, not in the isolation of the desert life, but in fraternal support, mutuality, and accountability in the Archdiocese of Hartford.

B. Communion

We are not meant to live lives as “lone rangers.” "We are called to belong, and not just to believe."²⁵ We are to belong to Christ’s family and to be members of His Body. Baptism, the very sacrament that brings us into the Body of Christ, is not only a symbol of salvation, it is a symbol of fellowship.

Fellowship is a prerequisite to a life of holiness. The trouble with living sacrifices is that they keep crawling off the altar; something must be put into place to keep us grounded on a day-to-day basis, to keep our lives on the altar. Constant conversion -- conversatio -- is not practicable without a structure within which it is made plausible. The shared faith experiences of the Fraternity make our religious beliefs and practices, plausible. As Wade Clark Roof explains,

...[F]or a person’s religious world to be plausible, one needs to be integrated into a ‘plausibility structure’ wherein definitions of reality are reconstructed and maintained on a regular everyday basis. Individuals who are well integrated into a believing community are reinforced by others whose convictions and daily examples serve as reminders of faith. Such a collectivity is indispensable for maintaining a strong and vibrant faith, especially in the modern setting where a secular rather than religious ethos predominates.²⁶

My own personal theology, which I bring to the Fraternity, is summarized in two words: "obedient faith" (Rom.1:5). Perseverance in obedient faith, or surrender to Jesus Christ, finds a powerful plausibility structure for me in the Fraternity.²⁷

In the earlier days of the Fraternity, we had a slogan: "Communion before Mission." By this, we recognized that unless we had spiritual brothers and sisters with us when we went out to convert the world, there was a danger that the world would convert us. The battle can go either way; in the Irish musical "Dancing at Lugnasa," for example, the priest who went off alone to convert the “primitive” Africans was converted by them to a kind of Dionysian Druidism, to the great consternation of his five sisters at home.

The Fraternity realizes that we need conversion and communion. Without the grace of conversion, priests can place their own needs and agendas before the common mission of the Church. We must make Jesus Christ our number one priority; unless we do that, we fail at meaningful, long-lasting relationships with each other. Once we undertake ongoing surrender to Christ, once we consciously actualize our Baptism, we become members with each other in the Body of Christ and the Communion of Saints.

In our 23 years' experience of living the model of the Fraternity, we have come to know that we have to live in communion with each other; we need to have brothers to whom we can come home. When priests clash with the unconverted culture, for example, we can always expect a few snipers who are unhappy with our message; when you start getting more flak, it means you're getting closer to the target. We “Band of Brothers” need help to take the arrows out of our backs -- to heal our wounds. We get this in our weekly meetings, our phone calls to each other, and the time we spend together. We get this in communion with each other.

Cardinal Ratzinger had this to say about Communion:

...Communion means that the seemingly uncrossable frontier of my 'I' is left wide open and can be so because Jesus has first allowed himself to be opened completely, has taken us all into himself and put himself totally into our hands. Hence, Communion means the fusion of existences; just as in the taking of nourishment the body assimilates foreign matter to itself, and is thereby enabled to live, in the same way my 'I' is "assimilated" to that of Jesus; it breaks through the lines of division. This same event takes place in the case of all who communicate; they are all assimilated to this "bread" and thus are made one among themselves -- one body.²⁸

These great insights of the Cardinal lead us to appreciate the nexus of communion and community.

C. Communion and Community

The great mystery of the Trinity means that there is one true God in Three Divine Persons. This is the archetype into which we are created; Pope John Paul II once actually referred to the Trinity as a "family." The structure of the Fraternity's meetings, wherein we talk with one another, has its foundation in the notion of the Divine Family, and in the family practice of Tischreden, “table talk.” The great examplars of Tischreden are, of course, the Lord's meals, taken with his disciples and friends,²⁹ culminating in the Lord's Supper in Communion with the Apostles (Matt. 26:26-30; Lk. 22:14-20).

My own family's Tischreden greatly informs my theological approach to the Fraternity. It was within my family that I learned "obedient faith," or surrender to Jesus Christ. I can never thank my parents enough for the legacy they bequeathed to us, their five children.

We went to Mass together or in shifts every Sunday after my father helped me with my Sunday paper route. We had the experience of praying in our home before meals. At a particularly devout and closely bonded time in our family, we prayed the rosary together every evening. Our Tischreden complemented our devotions. The children shared their classroom adventures at St. Francis Grammar School and St. Mary's High School in New Haven, and Notre Dame High School in West Haven; my parents shared their experiences of God.

When I was 15 years old, the tragic death of my five year-old brother, Mark, helped to deepen my faith and belief in the Resurrection. When I was in the last stages of preparing for Ordination, and was having qualms about preaching the Resurrection, I remembered how my parents responded to the heartbreak of Mark's death with deep faith in God. This was a wonderful example for me and helped me to understand the great prayer of Job: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." (Job 1:21).

D. Little Platoons

We are social creatures, “wired” to need each other. While religious order priests have a built-in community life to enhance their communion with each other, this does not always mean that they communicate at deep levels with each other. Our Fraternity had a Passionist priest who came to our weekly meetings because he was not able to find the support he needed in his own monastery.

We no longer get the support we used to get from our contemporary culture, so we have to affirm ourselves in our commitments to each other. Ex-Marine Charles Colson borrowed the term “little platoons” from the political philosopher Edmund Burke; Colson used it to describe parish teams of laity who share the pastor’s vision and enjoy working with him. Some groups of the laity work in various ministries with minimal connection to any priest, when no priest is available. We need to raise up “little platoons” of priests as well as “little platoons” within a small group of laity. This is what is giving new life to my parish in Bethlehem, CT.

Diocesan priests have ministry friends among the laity in their parishes, but we also need the company of other open-minded priests. The chief idols in our contemporary culture are money, pleasure, and power; we need help from brother priests to keep the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience, which serve as antidotes to cultural idolatries.

E. Augustinian Friendship

The life and teachings of St. Augustine emphasize our common social nature and the great importance of spiritual friendships. "In this world," he writes, "two things are essential; a healthy life and friendship. God created humans so that they might exist and live this life. But if they are not to remain solitary, there must be friendship."³⁰

For Augustine, friendship was not merely benevolence to the other, but a union of hearts, a con-cordia, a oneness of heart, for which we were created. Our Fraternity calls this "committed brotherhood." We are not only members of the same pension plan; we are brothers who have covenanted time for God and for each other.

Augustine says:

True friendship depends on God being the glue that binds friends together. This is the reason one can speak of the universal friendship of the heavenly city. We are joined together there because we are all 'glued' to God and, through Him, glued to each other. We lose ourselves in God, become drunk with his fullness, and thereby destroy the boundaries that separate us from one another.³¹

St. Augustine himself grew more responsive to God's guidance as he accepted from his holy friends more and more of the disciplines of obedient faith. He became a Bishop, a canonized Saint and a Doctor of The Church.

Our intimate and humble relationship with Jesus Christ, our Lord and Brother, gives us the ability to get beyond the reticence to share human feelings with other men in the weekly Fraternity meetings. We set aside a special time, which we call a time of mutual ministry. During this hour we have teachings, we share our triumphs, and also share our disasters and mistakes.

Every once in awhile we say the Litany of Humility together, to help us overcome our fear of vulnerability to one another.³² We also know that strict confidentiality is absolutely necessary so that we can be fearlessly open to God and to each other during this time. One of our members told us that he prays this Litany every day. Humility is a necessary virtue; some have said that it is the most fundamental virtue. Fr. John Hardon, S.J. (1914-2000), a prolific spiritual writer, taught his disciples not to waste times of personal humiliation. He maintained that times of humiliation were the best times to learn the virtue of humility. Life kicks us in the teeth occasionally, and it is wonderful to have committed friends to listen, console, and challenge.

F. A Communion of Praise

None of our Fraternity members lives in the same rectory with other Fraternity members. We do, however, get together weekly for fellowship, brotherly support, healing, and prayer. We schedule our weekly meetings at different rectories, so that we can all share the duties and pleasures of hospitality to other priests. We initiate our Augustinian friendships specifically with prayers of praise.

Like the desert monks, we have great familiarity with the Psalms, which we pray daily as part of the Liturgy of the Hours. Praying the Psalms at home, and our prayers of praise at the beginning of our weekly time together, have made us more joyous and positive, more open to God's inspirations. Every day, our recitation of the Breviary starts with Psalm 95: "Come, let us sing to the Lord and shout with joy to the Rock who saves us; let us approach him with praise and thanksgiving, and sing joyful songs to the Lord." We pray the Canticle of Zacharias at our morning Breviary prayers (Lk. 2:68-79) ("Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, for he has visited and brought redemption to his people..."). We pray the Canticle of Mary at our evening prayers (Lk.1:46-55) ("My soul magnifies the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my savior....") Praise is effective because it focuses our attention on what God does for us, rather than on what we do for Him, or our own needs. Praise lifts us from negativity, whining, and the narcissistic temptations of the “pity party.”

I have long noted that before Jesus performed miracles, he first praised and thanked his Father for his goodness. For example, before raising Lazarus from the dead, he first said: "Father, I thank you for hearing my prayer. I myself know that You hear me always...." (Jn. 11:42).

Likewise, praise precedes Christ's great miracle of Transubstantiation; each of the four main Eucharistic prayers, and the Eucharistic prayers of the two Masses of Reconciliation, all contain significant prayers of praise to the Father. The first Eucharistic prayer begins with the words: "We come to you, Father, with praise and thanksgiving through Jesus Christ, your Son." Eucharistic Prayer II reads, just before the words of consecration, "Before He was given up to death, a death he freely accepted, He took bread and gave you thanks." The third and fourth Eucharistic prayers are similar, and all the Eucharistic prayers have the same conclusion: "...all glory and honor is yours, Almighty Father, for ever and ever. Amen."

G. Commission

The third part of the Fraternity's trinitarian template is Commission. Commission arises from the Sacrament of Holy Orders. We are sent out by the authority of our Bishop. We are not private contractors; together, we are his agents. We are members of a team; we have a co-mission to work with him and with other priests and laity. Our commissions are our marching orders; they constitute our credentials to commission others to ministry in our parishes.

Priests are important links in the chain of authority of the Catholic Church. This means that we have to reach out beyond the confines of our parish roster to fulfill the Great Commission of Jesus Christ: "Then Jesus approached and said to them, 'All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.'" (Matt. 28:18-20). By this Great Commission, we are called to make disciples and convert the world.

It takes a lot of commitment and energy to fight year after year on the side of traditional Catholic teaching in regard to other issues, as well. These issues include but are not limited to female priests and deacons, married clergy, homosexual behavior, human cloning and fetal stem cell research. These issues blatantly contradict the quality of life we seek. In addition, we insist that Catholic priests live holy, celibate lives and not seek elected public office, nor use the Church for partisan politics. All of these efforts must be fueled, spiritually, humanly, and financially. We need help from above.

Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, in this book Secularity and the Gospel, seeks to defuse polarization between theological liberals and conservatives. He points out that we have to be missionaries in our own culture:

We need to become missionaries again within our own culture, among our own children. Secularity is now the culture that, it would appear, the church must most addess in terms of taking to heart Jesus' parting challenge: 'Go out to all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.'³³

H. The Human Commitment to Meaning

Twenty years ago, Dean Kelley impressed me with his book Why Conservative Churches are Growing.³⁴ For him the task of the Church is to help people find purpose in life.

Lifting the level of human commitment to meaning is the hardest work there is, and there is no shortcut or gimmick that will make it any easier ...What costs little, accomplishes little. The greater the effect desired, the greater the effort required to achieve it. And there is no effect greater than what some would call the salvation of souls.³⁵

Reading Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Life Together³⁶ deepened my awareness of the difficulty of finding and communicating spiritual meaning in life; Bonhoeffer took on the challenge. He faced the ominous onslaught of the Nazi movement, and the quick capitulation of many German church leaders to Nazism. He felt called to train seminarians to withstand these threats.

It is not easy to develop virtues like courage and authentic patriotism; Bonhoeffer said that June of 1935 was the fullest time of his life. At that time, he started a small seminary in Finkenwalde, Germany. He taught future ministers that the Christian community is the living Body of Christ. He emphasized the Psalms, sacred music including Negro spirituals, meditation, confession, and community. Critics charged that he was running a Roman Catholic monastery. Bonhoeffer wanted his students to experience Jesus Christ in their lives together and thus find the strength to overcome sin, especially the sin presented by Hitler's co-opting the churches. The Nazi government soon caught up with him and closed his seminary in September of 1937.

Impelled by a great passion to rid his country of Nazi atrocities and to hasten the end of the war, Bonhoeffer courageously took part in a plot to kill Hitler. The plot failed; Bonhoeffer was caught and executed by hanging, naked, just two weeks before the war ended. This was just five days before the liberation of Flossenberg, the concentration camp wherein he was kept prisoner. According to the prison doctor who witnessed his last moments, he died bravely: "In all the almost fifty years I have worked as a doctor, I have hardly ever seen a man die so entirely submissive to the will of God."³⁷ Bonhoeffer was a model and example of counter-cultural witness, speaking truth to power. The Hartford Fraternity invokes his intercession to encourage us.

I. The “Wesleyan Dilemma”

The final part of my discussion of the theology of fraternity involves what might be called the “Wesleyan Dilemma.” When we have done our best to fulfill God's will and build up the community of faith, we still have to face the challenge of "Wesley's Law," that is, how to survive success.

When John Wesley effectively evangelized many of the working poor in England's cities and mines, their lives changed for the better. Because of their conversions to Christ, their life styles improved. They became industrious and frugal. As a result of their hard work and frugality, they gradually acquired wealth. This very wealth and the cares that came with it, distanced them from the Christ whom they'd come to know and love. Wesley bemoaned that the Christian religion contains within itself the seeds of self-destruction.

But a robust theology of fraternity sees the tanker plane as ever tracking us. I end my discussion of the theology of fraternity with an observation made by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, in a collection of essays published in 1983:

The fact that there can be long-lasting periods of decline in the Church is, unfortunately, plain enough from history. Yet history also shows that the totality of the Church -- which extends through the whole world and through all times and is held together and embodied by the Petrine office -- bears within itself the power of regeneration, so that it rises again and again from the dust to proclaim the meaning of salvation.³⁸

CHAPTER III

THE FRATERNITY OF PRIESTS AS A RESPONSE

TO THE PRESSURES OF DIOCESAN PRIESTHOOD

The Fraternity of Priests grew out of the Annual Summer Conference for Priests, which has been held every summer since 1975 at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio. Every priest and deacon in the United States was, and still is, invited to this Conference. Many seminarians also receive invitations. The largest attendance that I remember was 1,100 priests, deacons, and seminarians.

It was at the 1975 Annual Summer Conference that many of us first experienced singing in tongues and witnessing healings. Almost every priest went to confession and spent many hours in prayer, especially praying the Divine Office with new understanding and fervor.³⁹

The Fraternity seemed a good way to deepen what we had discovered and found so encouraging at the Steubenville Annual Conference. Two of the early leaders in the Fraternity, Fr. John Dreher of the Providence, Rhode Island Diocese, and Fr. Ken Gallagher of the Diocese of Bismarck, North Dakota, presented a prototype Fraternity Conference at the Mont Marie Retreat House in Holyoke, Massachusetts, from January 23 to 26, 1988. About thirty priests attended from Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. I was invited to participate through a personal invitation from Fr. Brian Jeffries, a present Fraternity member and former leader of our local Fraternity.

The 1988 Mont Marie Conference showed us how the Fraternity was part of God's Visitation to His people in our time. The 1988 Conference gave us the sense of freedom of diocesan priesthood, together with the sense of community of a religious order. This conference was the setting for a presentation of the whole scope of the Fraternity; our national office reports over 350 member priests in 57 Fraternities, located in 13 countries throughout the world.

In a religious order, the novitiate, the formal program of initiation, fosters a candidate's encounter with Christ. It also serves to verify the novice's appreciation for the order's particular charisms. The 1988 Mont Marie Conference taught us the need for our own “novitiate” experience within a local Fraternity. We decided to host a local Fraternity Conference to give current and prospective members a systematic overview of the Fraternity lifestyle.

A. Philosophical Underpinnings of the 2008 Conference

There has been a series of ideas and inspirations which brought about the Fraternity Conference of 2008. For example, during a Colleague Seminar at Hartford Seminary in the fall of 1995, I came across the book Re-Routing the Protestant Mainstream, by Hartford Seminary's own Professor David Roozen. Professor Roozen emphasized the importance of personal and corporate holiness that I had been taught in the earlier years of my seminary studies. He brought me back to the basics. In the pages of Re-Routing the Protestant Mainstream, I found a provocative quote from Leonard Sweet: "Churches whose primary concern is making people full of God are churches whose pews will be full of people."⁴⁰ This lead to my idea that if our Church were a business, holiness or sacramental access to God would be our “marketable product.” Hence, part of the motivation for the 2008 Conference was to make possible such “marketing.”

B. Signs of Support

We were also inspired by the motto of the Fraternity of Priests, which is "To Gather Priests to Christ and to Each Other." We strive to remain rooted in Christ and in our Fraternity and friendships with each other. We know we need to affirm each other in spirituality, giving priority to God and each other, assisted by the traditional disciplines for celibate priests. The Fraternity has helped brother priests live the traditional disciplines and the Kingdom Disciplines on a weekly basis for over 23 years. The joy of the Fraternity and the brotherly sharing act like magnets that attract priests and lay people to help us. In developing the Fraternity Conference of 2008, we hoped this powerful and joyous attraction would inspire new members to join.

We came to realize that there was real, tangible support for local Fraternities. The national office of the Fraternity of Priests, located in Steubenville, OH, publishes a monthly newsletter, "The Visitation," which is sent to all Fraternity members and laity who are interested in the spiritual growth of their priests. The national office disseminates news about what local Fraternities are doing, and solicits funds and tithes through the newsletter. The funds received show the great support the Fraternity receives from priests and laity who value this type of mutual help for priests.

C. A demanding model

We also came to realize that, as Dean Kelley says, demanding religious groups prosper. Rick Warren cautions, and very wisely, I would add, that it is very important how the demands are presented. He argues that churches grow when their members hold conservative beliefs and are loving to outsiders. Warren says that great churches are built on love for God, for church members, and for unbelievers.⁴¹ I have come to believe that we are present in church for the sake of those who are not yet with us.

The notion that we ought to be demanding of each other in the Fraternity finds a good example in our Holy Hour. The Fraternity of Priests' Holy Hour is seen by many priests who do not yet belong as a wonderful ideal, but something hardly realizable. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen said that he prayed a Holy Hour every day of his more than fifty years of ordained ministry. Archbishop Sheen attributed all his inspirations and creativity to the fruits of his daily Holy Hour. Jesus Himself told us to take the narrow path and not the wide road that leads to destruction (Mt. 7:13-14). "Could you not watch one hour with me?" (Mk. 14:37).

Experience shows that we constantly face the temptation of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” As Bonhoeffer and his students resisted Nazi paganism, so we must resist Western secularism and consumerism. Our “competition” is much more subtle than Bonhoeffer's was. While church parking lots thin out on Sundays, mall parking lots become ever more packed with cars. When churches empty, jails fill up. Our response to the evils spawned by secularity is to spend more time with God and with each other. This is facilitated by our accountability toward each other. In the Fraternity, we ask each other if we are being faithful to the daily Holy Hour, and to the other disciplines like fasting and arriving at meetings on time.

D. A friendship model

Friendships are a key element of the Fraternity of Priests; it was necessary for us to think about friendships in order to create our local Fraternity. Friendship requires openness. Sadly, we may not be able to be friends with the priests who live in the same rectory or in our neighborhoods. However, after 23 years of weekly and annual meetings, phone calls, retreats, and vacations with Fraternity members, we have experienced that vital friendship each of us seeks, even though we have occasional skirmishes with each other. Friendships greatly ease the occasional stings of mutual accountability, as well as alleviating loneliness and isolation. We are determined to preserve this model of friendship in our local Fraternity.

1. Bringing Seminary Teachings to Bear

In our Hartford Seminary Colleague discussions we addressed the issue of the most suitable environment for clergy to make friends. Making friends among priestly colleagues was one of the outcomes of our signature manner of studying ministry at Hartford Seminary. It gave me the opportunity to be friendly with Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim clergy and faculty.

The discussions on making friends was a definite inspiration for discussions in the Fraternity. The subject is especially important for celibate clergy. If we look only to the members of our congregations for friendships, we can cause problems by unfairly giving greater access to friends and thereby limiting access to others. We have to be careful about cliques perceived as “running the parish.”

2. Ministry within bounds

Access to colleagues and friends among the clergy also helps defend against being manipulated by those to whom we minister. This is essential for survival in the ministry. It is important to set boundaries with those we seek to serve, not letting the dysfunctional behavior of others destroy us as we try to help them. How many of us find ourselves in a ministry to manipulators? In order to survive in this type of inter-personal ministry, we have to maintain balance and observe boundaries. Here is a statement from the "Journal of Safe Management of Disruptive and Assaultive Behavior:"

Setting limits is one of the most powerful tools that educators and other human service professionals have to promote positive behavior changes for their students, clients, residents or patients. Knowing that there are limits on their behavior helps the individuals in your care feel safe. It also helps them to learn to make appropriate choices...

As professionals, we need to think about effective ways to set limits with those in our charge. But we also need to think about the limits and boundaries we set for ourselves. Do we maintain healthy limits on the amount of our time that is consumed by our work? Do we establish appropriate boundaries between our personal and professional lives? Can we say 'no' when necessary?

Just as those in our care learn to make better decisions through the limit setting process, we can help ourselves to avoid high stress levels and job burnout by setting appropriate limits in our personal and professional lives.⁴²

The values of accountability, stability and setting boundaries are readily apparent in the following incident. There was a young priest of the Hartford Archdiocese who, had he belonged to the Fraternity, may well have benefited thereby. He tried to minister to a young mother in his parish after her husband committed suicide. She had three small children to care for. He ended up leaving the priesthood to marry her. He might still be with us today if he had companions to challenge and help him to observe proper boundaries.

A similar thing almost happened to me when I tried to minister to a young mother whose eldest son had killed his step-father, her husband. But with the help of my Fraternity brothers, and a tough-love confessor, I emerged safely from this precarious situation.

CHAPTER IV

DEVELOPMENT OF THE FRATERNITY

CONFERENCE OF 2008: A HOW-TO

A. The Nuts and Bolts

The priests in our local Fraternity had convened a first Fraternity Conference, which was held from October 10-12, 2004. I have to give my brother priests credit for their initiative; ordinarily, Fraternities invite one of the national leaders to present a Fraternity Conference. We are the first local Fraternity I know of ever to have done so on its own.

1. Support of the Bishop

The success of our first Conference convinced us to hold a second Conference. With the approval and support of Archbishop Henry J. Mansell, we held a second Conference in April of 2008, which is the subject of this study. Archbishop Mansell encouraged us by visiting the Conference and sharing lunch with us. He supported us by arranging with the Office of Ministry Enhancement to rebate the costs of both the 2004 and 2008 Conferences for each priest who completed the Conferences.

2. Invitations

To prepare for the 2008 Conference, the Fraternity mailed an invitation letter, together with a copy of the latest "Visitation," to all priests of the Archdiocese, in October of 2007. We adopted some of the procedures we had used in 2004 to send the invitations.

The local Fraternity worked together to prepare a simple tri-fold flier which showed the schedule for each day of the Conference,⁴³ and a cover letter which invited participants. We used the latest outline on "Presenting a Fraternity Conference" by Fr. Tim Graff, then Chairman of our National Board. He has presented Fraternity Conferences in our country, Europe, and Asia. We adapted the outline according to our local needs and experiences. Fr. Brian Jeffries, who had invited me to my very first Conference, included his phone number, address, and e-mail address for any priest who needed additional information.

Building on our experiences of the 2004 Conference, we set a deadline of January 31, 2008 to address and mail the fliers and cover letters to 300 priests and seminarians. We divided the names in the 2007 Archdiocesan Directory and assigned a group of names to each member of an Invitations Committee. Committee members agreed to donate envelopes imprinted with their parish logos, and address and stamp the envelopes.

After our 2004 Conference was completed, we had purchased 400 copies of the "Visitation" which told the story of the Conference, and mailed them to all the priests in the Archdiocese.⁴⁴ In that instance, we divided the mailing list so we could share the task of hand-addressing and hand-stamping the envelopes.

In anticipation of the 2008 Conference, we again sent out copies of the latest "Visitation." Again, we divided the task of addressing envelopes, but this time, we obtained a bulk mailing permit that significantly cut the cost of postage. The newsletters reached 340 priests and 10 seminarians.⁴⁵

3. Advertising and the Media

For cost-effective advertising, we sent notices to parish bulletin editors to ask for prayers for the success of the Conference. We also asked our Chancellor to include a news item about the Conference in the official newsletter of the Archdiocese. He graciously complied with our request.

In 2008, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the International Fraternity, and the 22nd anniversary of our local Fraternity. These anniversaries gave us a good “news-hook” on which to hang publicity for the Conference. Accordingly, we sent a press release to The Catholic Transcript, the official Archdiocesan newspaper. We also sent the press release to the Waterbury Republican and the Hartford Courant.

Our efforts at publicity paid off. On January 2, 2008, the Hartford Courant published a story, written by Elizabeth Hamilton, in which she interviewed me. The story carried the headline: "A Priest's Lonely Ministry: As Fewer Join the Catholic Clergy, Many Must Contend with Isolation."⁴⁶ My picture appeared on the front page of the paper; I was shown sitting in a rocking chair, looking out the front windows of the rectory. It made me look lonely, but I didn't mind, as long as our story got out. Archbishop Mansell, in a homily that morning, hoped the article and picture wouldn't discourage vocations because of the story's initial focus on loneliness.

The Courant article certainly got the attention of many of the priests in the Hartford area. I received e-mails from all over the United States. The retired priests of St. Thomas Seminary, of Bloomfield, CT, discussed it over the breakfast table; Monsignor Charles Daly, a St. Thomas retiree, wrote to me to say that it was a good story, and the St. Thomas retired priests had enjoyed it. The story provoked over 100 blog commentaries, both pro and con.

The article began by listing the many challenges facing Catholic priests today, especially the challenge of loneliness. It moved into an engaging story about our Fraternity and the upcoming April 2008 Fraternity Conference. The Conference and the Fraternity were reported as possible answers to loneliness, especially for the increasing number of priests who would be in one-priest parishes.

Not to be outdone, the Archdiocesan newspaper, The Catholic Transcript, followed up with a story entitled "Bolstering the Brotherhood of Priesthood."⁴⁷ The story carried a photo featuring Fraternity brothers enjoying a meal together at St. John the Evangelist Rectory, in Watertown, CT.

4. Financial Costs

From our first Conference in 2004 to the second in 2008, costs doubled. Montfort House in Litchfield, CT, the site of both Conferences, required for the 2008 Conference that we book a group of at least 15 priests. This entailed a commitment of $4,000 and a signed contract. In faith, I signed the contract prior to the booking, trusting in God that we would cover all our expenses. We requested that conferees stay full time at the Montfort House rather than commuting; we have long since learned to ask for and expect a generous response to our sincere prayers.

The Conference charged $375 per person if booked before March 31, 2008 and $400 per person thereafter; the prospect of saving money encouraged early reservations. We found that payment in advance helped some of the less motivated to actually get to the Retreat House. As things turned out, we lost two members because we did not assertively insist on their down payments. We asked attendees to write their checks to Montfort House, and mail them to Fr. Jeffries well in advance of the Conference. Fr. Jeffries handled all funds.

5. Agenda

The Conference was scheduled to last three days and three nights; we felt we needed this amount of time, at the very least, to spend together with God. The literature I read about retreats emphasized being generous with our time for God. Reluctantly, we made the difficult decision to accept priests who could not stay for the entire Conference. We had to compromise on this issue precisely because of the difficulty in finding replacements to take up duties in one-priest parishes, an issue with which Fraternity members are all too familiar.

We invited Fr. John Gordon, one of our national board members, to present the first two Conference seminars. I assigned six other seminars to our local members. Not only did we cover the agenda topics, we also provided examples from our own experiences. In addition to presentations, Fraternity members were assigned to celebrate daily Mass, and lead the daily readings of the Divine Office. We expected each priest attending to take his assigned duties seriously, and to see himself as an important, indeed, integral part of the team presenting the Conference. We wanted to avoid any perception of "Us" versus "Them,” that is, a veteran presenting team talking down to “novices.”

Even though the Conference schedule was crowded with presentations, we ensured time for exercise, rest, recreation, and silence. These are activities which we encourage our brothers to practice in their home parishes. Every evening, we watched a video together. A committee was selected to choose the videos; they showed three films which had been proposed by my mentor, Professor Kelton Cobb.

B. Summary of Our Preparations - A How-To

After putting on three Fraternity Conferences, I would say that it is a lot of work, but that it is worth the effort. We all joined in to recruit attendees in the months leading up to the Conference. We prayed to God for His blessing during our weekly meetings.

We learned that we needed a whole range of different strategies to invite priests to come to the Fraternity Conference. We needed newsletters, repeated timely mailings, personal invitations, personal phone calls, and invitations to lunch to motivate priests to come to the Conference. We needed support and validation from Archbishop Mansell. We needed financial support from the Office of Ministry Enhancement (formerly known as the Office for Continuing Education of the Clergy). We also needed little pep rallies among ourselves. The latter were very important. We had to remind each other how much new members would add new life and longevity to our group.

The nuts and bolts of putting on a Conference demand care. Above all, a local Fraternity has to embrace the project. It is important to seek support from the local bishop. Members wishing to put on a Conference must secure an affordable location and create a budget for the project. The budget should include reasonable rates for attendance.

Fraternity members can download Conference outlines from the website of the national office.⁴⁸ The outlines are contained in a password protected “members only” section of the Fraternity web site; conference planners may call the national office or ask a member of another local fraternity for the password to the “members only” section. Use the outlines from the website to create an agenda. Assign the presentations to capable members, making sure to include both veteran and newer members. Each presentation should be read and approved by a knowledgeable member of the fraternity hosting the Conference. It is important to allow time for the proposed presentation to be typed, submitted for review, and revised, if necessary. Then, establish a time frame for mailings, advertising, and media publicity. Create subcommittees as needed for all the elements of putting on the Conference. This involves the membership, giving them a stake in the success of the project, and ensuring that the work does not burden a few, overworked members.

CHAPTER V

THE CONFERENCE

A. Delegated Responsibilities

Ultimately, we had 12 priest-participants at the Conference, nine of whom stayed the full time. Delegation of duties and division of labor worked very well for us. Each priest was given responsibility for one or more tasks. This division of labor not only prevented any one person being overburdened, but also helped assure his attendance, as it gave each priest a vested interest in the success of the Conference.

One priest accepted the responsibility to appoint leaders for morning and evening prayers. Another priest appointed celebrants and homilists for the concelebrated daily Masses. Fr. Will-Roger Malave was in charge of hospitality and complaints. He assigned the bedrooms and placed a “Welcome” sign and the priest's name on each door. Fr. Malave's sensitivity to hospitality was evident by his ensuring that the loudest snorer received a room as far from the others as possible. I reserved for myself the task of coordinating meal times and dealing with the administration of the retreat house.

The Conference began on Sunday, April 6, 2008. We started with dinner. The meals throughout the Conference were uniformly tasty and abundant; they were well appreciated. Our mealtimes were important not only as sustenance, but also for the time they gave us to relax and talk to each other. Our table talk reinforced the concepts we were trying to teach. We watched three foreign movies together after dinner on the three nights of the Conference. They were The Edges of the Lord, by Yurek Bogayevicz; Casomai, a clever Italian film about marriage; and Boxed a movie about an older priest, a younger priest, the Irish Republican Army, and the seal of confession. They were not appreciated, partly due to the bad condition of the ancient television on which we watched the videos.

B. Presentations

The presentations started after dinner on Sunday night; we went into a presentation room to hear Fr. John Gordon, a member of the Fraternity's International Board of Directors, who gave the first of two presentations. His first was, "What is the Fraternity of Priests?" In this talk, Fr. Gordon traced the stages of development of the Fraternity of Priests from its origins in the Steubenville Summer Conference of 1975, to the present time. He emphasized that the Fraternity is international in scope as it motivates and supports priests.

The following morning, he gave a presentation called "The Visitation Message." In this presentation, Fr. Gordon spoke of how God is visiting His people today. He told us that these visitations call us to an immediate, urgent, and generous response. He pointed out that ours is a vital moment; he reminded us that we are in a time of spiritual warfare, and that we priests must be the watchmen. As a speaker, he was a virtuoso, having given such talks many times before.

As with each of the presentations, there was time afterward for questions and commentary. Since we did not use any audio-visual aids or textbooks, the feedback time was important as a means of fleshing out the talks, and identifying parts of the talk that we found to be especially meaningful. The discussions after Fr. Gordon's presentations were wonderful. They motivated us to share our failures and successes. Discussion time after the presentations was one of the best parts of the entire Conference because the priests shared generously their reactions to the talks.

Our first concelebrated Mass followed the Monday morning talk and discussion. After lunch, I led the third presentation, "Praise and Worship." I emphasized that our prayer must first be focused on praising God, and only then on our own needs. Strong, active praise through hymns and vocal prayer helps us to banish distractions and enter into deeper relationship with God. Praise, hymns, and vocal prayer enable us to be more focused on God and more open to His inspirations. Our local Fraternity calls the time of inspiration, “entering into God's Throne Room,” a quiet time after praise to listen to God.

After feedback and some rest, Fr. Paul Halovatch led the fourth presentation, "On Pastoral Care." The focus of this talk was to show that our Fraternity is deeper than mere surface sociability. Pastoral care means we help others come closer to Christ. We are committed to be available to each other for serious growth in holiness and relationship; we make ourselves available to one another through our meetings, shared meals, and phone calls.

Monday concluded with dinner and a Holy Hour which incorporated Evening Prayer. Conferees had the option of watching a movie after the Holy Hour.

Tuesday morning began with breakfast, followed by Morning Prayer which was integrated into the concelebrated Mass. Fr. Halovatch led the fifth presentation, entitled "God's Action, Our Response." Archbishop Mansell came to this presentation, and stayed for lunch afterwards.

Fr. Halovatch spoke of God's calling to us and empowering us by the gift of His Spirit. God shares His nature with us. We properly respond by the surrender of self and by deep openness to the Holy Spirit. This leads us to embrace the disciplined commitments which help us to grow in holiness.

Later in the afternoon, Fr. Brian Jeffries led a sixth presentation, on "Re-rooting our Priesthood/Empowered by the Spirit." He emphasized that our identity must be in Jesus. We must be close to Him and ask Him to fill us with His Spirit. More important than any task is our relationship with the Father in Jesus and the Holy Spirit, through our brother priests.

Fr. Robert Rousseau, who for 18 months served as Interim National Leader for the Fraternity in Steubenville, led the seventh and eighth presentations. Fr. Rousseau's leadership of the Fraternity made him particularly well-qualified to give the final two presentations. The first of his presentations, "Evangelization and Committed Brotherhood," focused on the importance of lived example. By living real brotherhood, we respond to the call of Jesus to love one another, drawing others to imitate us and be renewed. We closed Tuesday with Evening Prayer, integrated into our Holy Hour.

After breakfast on Wednesday we combined Morning Prayer into the Mass, and then Fr. Rousseau led the eighth presentation, on the "Fraternity Call to Holiness - Kingdom Living." He spoke on the 10 Kingdom Disciplines of the Fraternity. Living these disciplines helps us grow in holiness. The priests' commentaries on this talk were especially beneficial because we were able to discuss our failures and successes in trying to live each of the Disciplines. This was the most personal and practical of the eight presentations.

Each evening of the Conference, we had a general discussion focusing on the new challenges facing us, such as the increase in one-priest parishes (now numbering 123 out of 213 parishes), and the priests who now have two parishes, or a parish and a specialized ministry (now numbering 41 priests). We also discussed the question, "where do we go from here?"

We encouraged each participant to take time to write down some of the issues that prompted him to come to this Fraternity Conference. We also asked for any suggestions they might have for "self-care," and any strategies they might have for "self-preservation." One priest, who already has two parishes, told us how he cares for both of his parishes. One of the biggest challenges he faces, for example, is changing the Sunday and weekday Mass schedules in a way that best serves both parishes.

Two priests signed a three-month commitment to live the Kingdom Disciplines and, after lunch, we had a little ceremony of commissioning. We returned to our parishes with a renewed sense of hope and optimism.

CHAPTER VI

EVALUATIONS

The 2008 Conference was presented in the context of the growing number of one-priest parishes, priests being assigned to two or more parishes, and the benefits of mutual support. Our first goal was to help ourselves and other priests to appreciate the great value of being in a Band of Brothers. I sent out a questionnaire to Conference participants that asked, among other questions, “Why did you participate in the Fraternity Conference?” The participants' evaluations of the value of being in a Band of Brothers were embedded in their response to this question.

The second goal was to explore the relation between the growing number of one-priest parishes and the possible increase in loneliness. After the Conference, I sent out another questionnaire specifically tailored to the issue of loneliness among priests, which was a key context for the Conference. The questionnaire posed three questions: 1) Has the growing number of one priest parishes contributed to the loneliness of priests? 2) Can you describe incidents of loneliness? 3) How has the Fraternity helped (or not helped) to deal with loneliness? The issue of the relationship of one-priest parishes to loneliness gave rise to a varied response. Some priests reported loneliness as a problem, while several others stated that they rarely felt lonely, partly because of the camaraderie of the Fraternity.

The third goal was to introduce novice members to the history, growth, and entire theological spectrum of the Fraternity. Our hope was that others would join our existing group, or form an entirely new group of at least four covenanted members.

As to this goal, there was no interest in forming another local group. It was felt that breaking into sub-groups at Fraternity meetings, sharing time, adequately gave each priest time to speak and be heard, while larger numbers during the time of praise made for a more powerful experience of our praise together. In addition, two of the priests who attended the Conference, who had not made any previous commitment, signed up for a three-month probationary period. Unfortunately, one of these priests had to return to Haiti, and the other rarely comes to meetings.

A. General Responses

My own reaction to what God had done in our 2008 Conference was euphoric. Our personal sharing of our relationships with God energized me so much that I had the feeling we had "re-evangelized" each other. What a wonderful thing it was to gather like-minded priests together for three days and nights; I felt I was walking on clouds for two weeks afterward.

The experience of being with brother priests, and sharing our failures and successes in living the Kingdom Disciplines, was a powerful affirmation of the Fraternity. We inspired each other and deepened our commitments as hopeful priests.

Three months after the Conference, I contacted each participant to ask for a response to some questions which I wanted to discuss over the telephone or in person. I asked: 1)Why did you come to the Conference? 2)What help or disappointment did you find? 3)How have you used your learning in your ministry? 4)Would you refer a priest friend to the Fraternity? 5)Why or why not? One priest shared his disappointment in the Conference. The priest, a native of Colombia, attended the Conference and signed up for a three-month probationary period, but ultimately chose not to attend any meetings. He expressed an appreciation for getting the Fraternity newsletter, and getting cards on the anniversary of his ordination. But he also expressed his disappointment that the Fraternity Conference had not addressed any global concerns, such as the war in Iraq.

The discussions of these questions were, in the main, however, encouraging. A priest who had attended the entire Conference said, “I renewed my sense of brotherhood with the other priests and discovered a new zeal to be more faithful to the disciplines of the Fraternity.” He added, “My association with the Fraternity has opened up new opportunities to experience the church together. For example, on September 9 and 10, 2008, seven of us traveled to Staten Island to the Headquarters of Priests for Life for an overnight visit with Fr. Frank Pavone, one of our most prominent and gifted Pro-Life leaders. I would never have done anything like this all alone.”

Another priest said that because of the April 2008 Conference he perceived the working of the Holy Spirit in his own life more vividly. He said he also saw this in his Fraternity brothers.

Since the Conference, our attendance at weekly meetings has increased from an average of five, to an average of eight members. Sometimes, we have had eleven out of twelve members at our meetings. Almost all of the priests who gave feedback during the Conference sessions and afterward reported a positive correlation between the support they get from fraternal relationships, and the effectiveness of their ministries among the laity.

B. The Value of a Band of Brothers

The very core of priestly fraternal relationships is an obedience to Jesus. Jesus sent out his disciples to evangelize, two by two. Without some form of priestly fraternal relationship, one-priest parishes and missions do not conform to Jesus' model of evangelization. Hence, there is an urgency to promote fraternity among priests. Why the need for mission in twos is answered liberally throughout the Wisdom literature of the Bible, including Ecclesiastes, the Proverbs, and the Psalms, as in this passage:

Better two than one alone, since thus their work is really rewarding. If one should fall, the other helps him up; but what of the person with no one to help him up when he falls? Again: if two sleep together they keep warm, but how can anyone keep warm alone? Where one alone would be overcome, two will put up resistance; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Eccl. 4:10-12)

Jesus' own words give the ultimate reason for the need for fraternal priestly relationships:

I give you a new commandment:

love one another;

you must love one another

just as I have loved you.

It is by your love for one another

that everyone will recognize you as my disciples. (Jn. 13:34-35) (emphasis added).

In other words, without fraternal relationships, the core mission of the priest is compromised. Without such relationships to strengthen priests and hold them accountable, those to whom priests are sent may simply not recognize the priest as a true man of God. They may see him representing himself, his wounds, and his own needs, rather than as an icon of the Kingdom of God. Writing in the specific context of priestly loneliness, psychiatrist Richard P. Fitzgibbons describes the distorting effects on a person who does not experience or give fraternal love:⁴⁹

Emotional symptoms seen with loneliness include insomnia, lack of enthusiasm, chronic irritability, anger, sadness, excessive sleeping, listlessness, chronic tiredness, an inner emptiness or void, a lack of joy, and severe depressive or manic-depressive illness...The intellectual difficulties seen with loneliness are a decreased ability to concentrate, to remember and to make decisions; impaired judgment; and a false belief of being unlovable.

Such conditions can't be hidden forever from parishioners; lack of fervor, irritability, anger, sadness, and lack of joy would seem to be the antithesis of all that a priest would want to convey to parishioners about God through the priest's ministry.

On the other hand, when asked why he came to the Conference, one priest answered, in part:

I came to be with other priests who believe in Jesus. Priests who believe He is real and active in their lives. I want to be with priests who are striving to be good priests. By that I mean men who pray, who study the scriptures, who go to confession and see these things as important in their lives.

I enjoy being with priests who are basically happy and at peace being priests. By happy I do not mean that they do not have problems to face or challenges to overcome, but that they are able to face these things with courage and realistic expectations.⁵⁰

Another priest spoke of the sense that the Conference gave him of being grounded in his ministry:

I felt a greater sense of conviction in the importance of my work celebrating the sacraments for my parishioners, preaching God's word and confronting administrative challenges in the parish. By listening to brothers in the Fraternity discuss their own faith and work in their respective parishes, I appreciated more profoundly our common work in the Catholic Church. I also gained a clearer sense of my own unique identity in relationship to others; I realized that Christ had a specific ministry that I exercised based upon my personal gifts.⁵¹

It is far more likely that parishioners will recognize happy, solidly grounded priests as true disciples, true men of Christ, than unhappy priests who are emotionally deracinated from their ministries.

Furthermore, when laypeople see priests giving life to each other or receiving life from brother priests, they are amazed at the value of it and want to help priests do more for each other. They sense a community that is attractive and they want to promote it. They respond by engaging in lay ministries that free the priest for spiritual and sacramental work. This goes hand in glove with stewardship principles.

C. Loneliness

Several priests completed the questionnaire on priestly loneliness.⁵² The signal response to the question of loneliness was that loneliness itself is part of the human condition: “First of all, it must be acknowledged that loneliness is a fact and inevitable reality of life. In other words, it is real and can be experienced in every state of life.”⁵³ “There are, of course, moments when I am lonely, as is true for all persons.”⁵⁴ “Loneliness is a natural phenomenon, a universal symptom that affects the human person. It visits every human soul at some time, in any culture, every race, every class, every age, and at all times in human history.”⁵⁵ “First, there is an inherent loneliness in us all since as St. Augustine says, 'Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.'”⁵⁶

I have come to believe loneliness is part of the human condition. You who read this, if you are truthful with yourself, are lonely sometimes yourself. No human intimacy, whether friendship, soul mate, spiritual guide, lover, can stop it. St. Augustine is oft quoted, “my heart is restless, until it rest in thee.” Or Psalm 43: “My soul thirsts for you, O Lord, like a deer pines for running water,” is the heart of the matter.⁵⁷

Having acknowledged that loneliness is part of the human condition, the responses gave some specific triggers for priestly loneliness. Most dramatically, there was the sexual abuse scandal, which one priest experienced as isolating because he felt he was living within a dishonest or inauthentic culture. When asked whether the growing number of one priest parishes has contributed to the loneliness of priests, this priest answered:

I do not know the answer for others but I can say for myself it has not contributed to my sense of loneliness. What have contributed more significantly are the sexual scandal and its cover up by some of the bishops. I believe they are insincere in their desire to address the roots of the scandal among themselves. A bishop exercises a double standard, for example, [when] he does not police himself and resign when he knows what offenses he has committed. Rather, he continues to act as if he had nothing on his conscience. I find it very difficult to have confidence in the moral integrity of the present hierarchy of the church. Each bishop for me personally will have to prove himself to me before I will trust him....⁵⁸

Another aspect of the abuse scandal would have led to devastating loneliness for one priest, except for the intervention of the Fraternity:

[In] 2007 I was falsely accused of child molestation...I was placed on administrative leave and lived on the property of a religious order. I lived there [for 18 months]. I was quite alone, although I was allowed to be out and about with some limitations. But most of the time I lived, worked, and prayed [alone]. Loneliness was nearby but never entered, mainly because of the Fraternity of Priests that I belonged to. We met every Monday and prayed with and for each other. We shared our experiences and difficulties with each other and always in a positive faith-filled way. This encouraged me enormously, thank God, and enabled me to go from day to day with a modicum of patience till it was over.⁵⁹

The priest, quickly exonerated at trial, clearly relied on his supportive relationship with the Fraternity of Priests to combat the isolation and loneliness that could otherwise have arisen from living in a women's contemplative monastic community, and being falsely accused of a heinous crime.

A further specific trigger for loneliness arose in the context not of a one-priest parish, but in an unfriendly rectory:

The only time I felt profoundly lonely in the priesthood was when I was stationed with a pastor who was very angry and negative. He created a tense atmosphere in the rectory. I experienced depression for the whole time I was stationed with him as my immediate superior. I was in that parish for six years.⁶⁰

A more general context for potential loneliness in priests is the inherent tension of being a priest: “God calls us out of the world and yet we still live in this world.”⁶¹ Part of this tension is work in isolation, wherein a priest may be left to wonder whether his ministry is a success or a failure, paired with the belief that priestly ministry is a conduit for Christ's ministry:

A genuine priest (single or in a group) is doing the good works of Jesus Christ the high priest...What human minds see as success or failure may not be truly so in the sight of Jesus Christ the master, because he sees the heart of his ministers. The priest is always called to trust in his master for the graces and blessings necessary for his ministry...When I was alone I may have felt lonely when I did not get much support from the Bishop or the fellow priests or from the people. It was not difficult for me to overcome it because I trusted in God and Christ, whose ministry I was carrying on.⁶²

Not all priests found themselves lonely when working alone. For some, the tension between parish ministry and a contemplative life is a creative one:

It goes without saying that some people enjoy and long for times to be by themselves as a way of rest. This is indeed very necessary and we all have the opportunity to do this by means of a retreat or a time to study or reflect. However, that being said, just as God has wished to reveal himself by way of relationships: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we can conclude that God as a “Social Being” has created us in his image as “social individuals.” There will always be that need to love, care, build and reciprocally expect the same from our fellow priests in order to attain the level of sanctity and personal experience of God that he intends for us to have.⁶³

And from another priest:

My experience in a one man parish allowed me very little time to even reflect on loneliness and I never, thank God, felt it. This was so for me because of the times I set aside for my personal prayer and devotions. Most days, I longed for a bit of solitude. Other priests in the “fraternity of priests” which I belong to have similar desires. Inasmuch as Jesus Himself is to be a celibate priest's “significant other”...this desire for time alone with the Lord is understandable....The desire for solitude does not preclude a form of intimacy with others, family, friends and other priests. What a joy it is for me to meet weekly with the Fraternity for prayer, sharing, and finally a meal together. And I see this joy in my brother priests' faces as well.⁶⁴

What was clear from all of the responses is that the Fraternity, or a religious community, or a circle of friends, provides a plausibility structure for combating loneliness. From a religious order priest:

With regard to the stated question has the growing number of one priest parishes contributed to the loneliness of priests? I would answer the following: As a member of a religious congregation I would say this makes a huge difference. It sure is very comforting to come back after "work in the heat of the day" to a supportive and loving community of priests and religious that look out for you just in the same way or even more than you do for them.⁶⁵

From a priest who has created a circle of friends:

The general thinking in our culture is priests are lonely and they should have the choice to marry. Getting married, having a lover for life, doesn't solve the loneliness problem even though I believe priests, as St. Paul said, should be celibate if they feel called to it only....I myself have some close and would say some intimate friends, a spiritual father confessor, a spiritual mother, spiritual director, a therapist who I visit once a month to process my own “junk,” and to help me process some of the “junk” people come to me with. The Fraternity of Priests are part of this fabric.⁶⁶

Specific instances of the Fraternity as plausibility structure arise for foreign priests: “I have personally experienced fraternity care and concern as a foreign priest working in a new environment, where I saw myself as alone, but the fraternity group then provided a support system of friends and family.”⁶⁷ Another foreign-born priest, whose loneliness might otherwise be exacerbated by the distance from his homeland and the task of assimilating into a new culture, said:

The priests' fraternity solved my problem of not having my immediate family living here in America...I have learned much through the Fraternity of Priests about American culture; their reflections on various experiences in ministry have become a single source of support, socially, spiritually, and politically. The meetings of the priests' fraternity help to keep my mental status very active and also is an opportunity to relax, and fill an emptiness in me.⁶⁸

As discussed earlier in this work, a plausibility structure is a system for sustaining – stabilizing – a dynamic situation. In the priesthood, the dynamic tensions are many and varied, ranging from the spiritual growth needed for personal sanctity and effective ministry, to the ongoing battles with fatigue, loneliness, and burnout. In fighting loneliness, the Fraternity offers more than camaraderie as a plausibility structure; most of the respondents cited one or more Kingdom Disciplines of the Fraternity as keys to combating loneliness. In answer to the specific question “How has the Fraternity helped (or not helped) to deal with loneliness, this response was typical:

The fraternity of priests has helped me deal with loneliness because of its purpose and its practice....We can safely and respectfully share the private and intimate parts of our lives. We share our fears, hopes, joys, frustration, failures and sins. We know that we are accepted by each other. We belong to each other in this concrete way. We can trust each other. We have given each other permission to challenge and correct each other...We encourage each other to develop and mature in the priesthood...We speak the same language of faith.

What sounds like camaraderie is, in fact, disciplined practices of attending meetings faithfully (Discipline #2), accepting the leadership and teaching of the Fraternity (Discipline #6), presenting personal and spiritual matters to the group for discernment (Discipline #7). In addition, priests cited their time for personal prayer (Discipline #1) and scripture reading (Discipline #3) as important to quelling loneliness. Taken as a whole, then, the Kingdom Disciplines are an important structure for stabilizing situations wherein the negative aspects of working in one-priest missions might rise to the fore.

Christopher P. Meade, in his book Icons and Iconoclasts, recounts the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles, in the form of tongues of fire. Meade recounts that the tongues of fire resembled a flock of birds flying in formation before splitting off and settling on the head of each Apostle. Meade says: “The action of the Pentecost fire signifies an inherent tension in the lives of the Apostles that extends to the life of priests today, the tension between autonomy and community. The fires of Pentecost descend as one unified power upon the unique and autonomous personality of each recipient.”⁶⁹

Meade, who was a priest of the Archdiocese of Hartford for nine years before resigning in the wake of the sexual abuse scandals, finds in the Fraternity of Priests a contemporary paradigm of the original Apostles in the way the Fraternity holds autonomy and community in creative tension. He states:

Most often a man's wife or children help him to stay grounded and responsible. In the case of priests, in particular a Catholic priesthood that does not permit marriage or family as a part of the normal life of clergy, groups like the Fraternity play an important role in giving priests a safe and healthy place to find solidarity and true fraternal concern. Through the Fraternity of Priests I established some friendships that helped offset the gnawing loneliness and isolation I felt as a celibate priest without a wife or family of my own.⁷⁰

Meade also sees in the Fraternity's transparency and humility an antidote to what he perceives as certain patterns of church leadership that are “secretive, insulated, and capricious.”⁷¹ To the degree that some priestly loneliness is rooted in the same sense of episcopal secrecy and capriciousness, as the Evaluation at Appendix 16 indicates, the Fraternity relieves some of the pressure.

D. A Final Success

The best sign of the success of our Conference was the unanimous decision on the part of all the conferees to put on a third Conference. We chose to set the third Conference for April 26-29, 2009 at the Enders Island Retreat House in Mystic, CT. We have since completed that Conference, with eight priests attending. Unfortunately, we did not publicize it as well as we did the 2008 Conference, nor did we get the boost of front-page coverage in the Hartford Courant. Nevertheless, the Conference was a success.

E. Enhancements to my Project Proposal

Together with three other members of the Hartford Fraternity, I traveled to Tucson, Arizona from August 3-8, 2008 to attend the 25th Anniversary International Fraternity of Priests Annual Conference. The priest who led the Tucson Conference, Fr. Philip Merdinger, was a fellow student of mine at the American College in Louvain, Belgium; I was able to renew my relationship with Fr. Merdinger. I sent a copy of my Project proposal to him for commentary, and Fr. Merdinger, who now teaches at St. John’s Seminary in Brighton, MA, was very responsive. He read my Project proposal twice, wrote me a letter, and discussed my Project over the telephone.

Fr. Merdinger and I had several extended conversations. He told me that he thought the Fraternity of Priests is a great organization which faces several challenges. “To expect a new member to come up to speed quickly regarding the commitments seems more and more unrealistic, especially with the demands placed upon even the youngest of priests, a very different generation than ours, and the ecclesial world is much different as well.”⁷²

He also stated that “a meaningful and attractive association of priests needs both a home-base and a mission to provide an alternative to the unremitting pressures and pleasures of parochial life.”⁷³ He said that a “home” was where we hold each other accountable and decide together how to accomplish our particular missions.

I explained to him that the Fraternity's “home” is our weekly meeting, where we listen to each other’s stories, pray for each other, and try to heal the bumps and bruises we encounter on the job. Our weekly meeting serves to give us a “home” not in the sense of a building, but a regular time to look forward “to coming home to each other.”

Encouraged by Fr. Merdinger's response, I sent the Project proposal to many outstanding persons in Church renewal for their evaluations.

One of the longest and most interesting responses came from Steve Wood, who is the founder of The Family Life Center International, and the St. Joseph Covenant Keepers. He is a former Protestant minister who became a Catholic because he values the traditional Catholic emphasis on the indissolubility of marriage.

He said that he “couldn’t agree more with the need for mutual priestly encouragement in the face of today’s demanding pressures in the priesthood.” He added “When I was a Presbyterian minister, the pastors in the regional presbytery would regularly get together. It was a source of great encouragement. Many of the Baptist and independent ministers too often struggled alone without clergy support.”⁷⁴ The Fraternity certainly provides a model for supporting pastors of every denomination.

CONCLUSION

In a colleague seminar in my early years at Hartford Seminary, I wrote a paper about the difference between the Golden Rule -- "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and the Platinum Rule -- "Do unto others as they would have done unto them." In my paper, the Rule was applied to a business setting. I argued that the Platinum Rule was actually Christian, in that it invites the business owner to “walk a mile in the moccasins” of his customers, and view things from his customers' perspective. The Platinum Rule teaches the business owner to be truly interested in the customers' welfare. In turn, this inclines the customer to see the business owner as a trustworthy adviser. The Platinum Rule encourages building a relationship with customers, bonding with them, and a consequent growth of new and repeat business. As with business, applying the Platinum Rule to spiritual settings increases the life of the Church.

I chose to write about the Fraternity of Priests because promoting the Fraternity is such a passion for me. My experience with the Fraternity has, over the years, developed my experience of the Platinum Rule -- of treating people as they want to be treated. The Fraternity has been my plausibility structure for applying the Platinum Rule. (See pp. 25-26 for Wade Clark Roof's explanation of “plausibility structures.”)

I also chose to write about the Fraternity of Priests because, as Fr. J. Ronald Knott states:

There is a lot of material on priesthood, the relationship of individual priests to their bishop and even priests with the laity, but a lack of information on the relationship diocesan priests have with each other in a specific presbyterate, that 'intimate sacramental brotherhood' as the Council and the Catechism call it. We have always been warned that we are neither a 'religious community' nor a 'good old boys' club,' but what we actually are is waiting to be developed in official church documents.⁷⁵

We do not merely wait for the development of official church documents. Through the Fraternity, I have bonded with and forged lasting relationships with fellow priests as well as with others. Living the Fraternity lifestyle has energized me as a priest. Serving for 40 years in urban parishes with schools can be taxing, and filled with disappointments and losses. Living the Fraternity lifestyle has sustained me during times of discouragement and depression. It has helped me to appreciate my Catholic faith to the point that I am eager to evangelize parishioners and eager to honor other priests.

Townsend and Cloud say that "[our] most basic need in life is for relationship."⁷⁶ I witness the importance of nourishing relationships frequently in the Fraternity. As an example, very recently, one of our member priests went through a change in parishes; the change caused him both grief and shame. He hosted our weekly Fraternity meeting in his new parish. While we were at our time of ministry to each other, sharing what we thought that God was doing in us and with us, he suddenly started to smile for the first time in a long while. He said that he had "turned it over to God" and felt much more relaxed and happy. During the fine meal he had prepared for the ten of us, he took out his violin, which he had not played in 30 years, and serenaded us while we ate. When I witness healings like this, it lifts up my spirit. At times like this, I feel keenly my love for the Church.

Rick Warren expressed sentiments similar to mine in his book, The Purpose Driven Church.

I hope you have felt my passion for the church as you have read these pages. I love the church with all of my heart. It is the most brilliant concept ever created. If we intend to be like Jesus, we must love the church as he does, and we must teach each other to love the church as well. Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her .... Too many Christians use the church, but don't love it....⁷⁷

The Fraternity is one of the things that animates my love for the Church. I was hurt when I heard that William Buckley said, "Mater si, Magistra no." I had a chance to preach when he was in the congregation. I reminded those present that God's order is "Primum Sponsa, deinde mater, deinde magistra." First, we have to love the Church as our spouse, as Jesus did. The spousal relationship comes before the Motherhood of the Church; the teaching authority develops from this wedded Motherhood. If we leave out the courtship and marriage -- the love of Church -- it is easy to short-circuit the process of developing the teaching authority, and make unnecessary mistakes. Buckley did recant when he eventually saw the light.

The love and zeal I feel for the Church comes to me as an anointing by the Holy Spirit, through the Fraternity. That love and zeal comes forth as a boldness in me, encouraging me to prophetic acts. For example, I used our church parking lot for a "condom roast," lampooning the thinking of those who want to turn our country into a “condom-nation.” The condom roast was caricatured in the July 1989 issue of Playboy Magazine. The Fraternity wants, prophetically, to help “playboys” grow up and learn to act like real men.

Dr. Jerry R. Kirk wrote a very valuable book called The Mind Polluters,⁷⁸ which details excellent strategies for combating pornography. In it, he quotes author Richard J. Foster: “Superficiality is the curse of our age. The doctrine of instant satisfaction is a primary spiritual problem. The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people, or gifted people, but for deep people.”⁷⁹

Just as the Fraternity wants to help 'playboys' grow into real men, we want to form deep people - men and women of character who raise children of character. This moves us from the dimension of spirit and prayer, to the dimension of corporal ministry. Thus, in another prophetic act that grew out of the Fraternity, we closed one pornography store, and cut another down to 50% of its floor space.

All this would have been impossible without the support of the Fraternity. You can see why I chose to promote the Fraternity in my Project and to offer its fruits to other priests. I think we need a history of the Fraternity and of priestly lifestyle, and of our successes and failures in living out our ideals. This Project is not an abstract theology of priesthood, but an accounting of the lived Fraternity of actual priests.

EPILOGUE

A PRIEST’S PRAYER FOR HIS PRESBYTERATE

Several of the works I cited have their own special prayers included in their texts. I would like to set forth a prayer here, because it affirms that our help comes from above, like airborne refueling:

Loving God, I ask for a special blessing on all the priests of my presbyterate. Help us to remember always that we do not work alone, but that we are an 'intimate sacramental brotherhood' under the leadership of our bishop, a ministry team for which we are all responsible.

For the sake of our unified and coherent ministry, help us to remember that the ministry we do is not just personal, but a share in our bishop’s ministry. For that reason, keep us always respectful of and obedient to his leadership.

Help us to be diligent in our ministry, absorbed in it, so that our commitment may be evident and our service helpful.

Help us to take good care of ourselves and to be attentive to becoming more effective in our service.

Show us ways to encourage our brothers in the seminary, those in formation who will someday be partners with us in service to the Church. Help us to set a good example for them in all that we do.

Support our sick, retired and absent brothers with your loving care.

I ask this in the name of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen!⁸⁰

APPENDIX 1

STATISTICAL SUMMARY - Years 1969 and (2009)

Priests

Diocesan ...........................................................594 (320)

Religious ...........................................................173 (106)

From other dioceses ..............................................3 (43)

Total ...................................................................770 (469)

Brothers, Religious ........................................................ 92 (30)

Sisters, Religious ........................................................2,017 (748)

Parishes .........................................................................207 (213)

Schools:

High: Number .......................................................18 (9)

Enrollment ....................................................10,526 (4,868)

Ninth grades, Parish, Number ................................12

Enrollment ...........................................................713

Elementary, Number .............................................110 (59)

Enrollment ......................................................40,424 (12,770)

Total Catholic Population ......................................812,011 (644,653)

Total Population .......................................1,673,200 (1,910,591)

APPENDIX 1, Pg 2 - DIOCESAN MAP

APPENDIX 2

LITANY OF HUMILITY

(Cardinal Raphael Merry del Val y Zulueta, 1965-1930)

O Jesus! meek and humble of heart, ....................... Hear me.

From the desire of being esteemed, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being extolled, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being honored, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being praised, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being preferred to others, ......... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being consulted, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the desire of being approved, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being humiliated, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being despised, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being rebuked, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being calumniated, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being forgotten, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being ridiculed, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being wronged, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

From the fear of being suspected, ....................... Deliver me, Jesus

That others may be loved more than I .................. Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That in the opinion of the world

others may increase and I may decrease, ......... Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be chosen and I set aside, .............. Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be praised and I unnoticed, ............ Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others may be preferred to me in everything, ... Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it

That others become holier than I, provided

that I become as holy as I should, ..................... Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

APPENDIX 3 - TRI-FOLD – front

APPENDIX 4 – VISITATION FEBRUARY 2005

APPENDIX 4 cont.

APPENDIX 5 – VISITATION – OCTOBER 2007

APPENDIX 5 cont.

APPENDIX 6 – HARTFORD COURANT

APPENDIX 6

A PRIEST'S LONELY MINISTRY: AS FEWER JOIN THE CATHOLIC CLERGY,

MANY MUST CONTEND WITH ISOLATION

ELIZABETH HAMILTON

Hartford Courant, Hartford, Conn.

Jan. 2, 2008

The rectory is very peaceful - a little too peaceful, if the Rev. Joseph Looney is being honest about it.

Looney has been stationed at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem since July, and lives behind the church in a small ranch house surrounded by trees and a deep backyard of grass.

When the phone rings, or a parishioner drops by to pick something up, the sound cuts through the stillness so abruptly it makes you jump. Occasionally, there's muffled bird song outside the window, or a truck rumbling by, but that's about it.

"I've never lived in the suburbs before, so it's very quiet," Looney says, looking around his sparsely furnished living room. "I'll have to find some way to deal with it or it will get very lonely."

Looney is not alone in his loneliness.

Of the 213 parishes in the Hartford archdiocese, 123 are led by a single priest, and that number is expected to increase if the clergy shortage in the Roman Catholic Church worsens over the next decade, as predicted.

It's meant dramatic changes for Looney, who began his ministry in 1967. He was assigned early on to a parish in New Britain, where he was one of four priests living and working in the rectory. A cook prepared "nice meals" every day and their two-room suites were kept clean by a housekeeper.

More important than the daily care, though, was the fellowship of other priests.

"I had lots of hopes and dreams, especially about being able to talk to other priests about their work and their relationships with God," Looney says. "Having that companionship around the table was important."

But the number of diocesan priests in the Hartford archdiocese has dropped sharply, falling to 372 in 2007, compared with 585 in 1969, according to the archdiocese. Nationally, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, there were 35,925 ordained diocesan priests in 1965. In 2007, the number was 28,462.

Not only is an entire generation of men aging out of the priesthood, but fewer young men are joining its ranks. When Looney was ordained, for example, he was one of 21 young men joining the Hartford archdiocese. In 2006, he says, the archdiocese ordained only six new priests - and that was the largest number in years.

With this drop in clergy have come changes for both parishioners and priests as Catholic churches and schools across the nation have been combined or closed.

And while the loss of a full-time priest or a reduction in the number of Masses is stressful for Catholic parishioners, it is arguably harder on the priests, who are celibate.

"Loneliness was often cited as a reason for men leaving the priesthood, particularly from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s," says Andrew Walsh, associate director of the Leonard Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College.

"But the way it presents itself is much more forceful these days."

DIFFERENT MODEL

Walsh, who teaches a course at Trinity on the U.S. Catholic Church, says the old model of the priesthood - a young man enters seminary in his teens, is ordained and proceeds to build his entire social life around being in the priesthood - has faded.

"It was like a replacement for the family. They socialized together; they lived together," Walsh says. "In fact, if you appeared at the rectory on a certain day of the week you'd see four or five priests sitting on the porch together, hanging out, on their day off."

Nowadays, as more men take their vows later in life, the chances that those priests will feel lonely and isolated might actually be slimmer, Walsh says, because they already have established community ties and solid friendships to sustain them.

And while some priests undoubtedly prefer to live and work alone, many others, like Looney, can feel isolated in their solitary posts and crave the company and support of other priests.

The Rev. Zecharias Pushpanathan, who was ordained in India and has served four years as pastor of St. Anne-Immaculate Conception Church on Park Street in Hartford, is one of them.

Pushpanathan knows all about loneliness after spending 13 years as a missionary in a

APPENDIX 7

COMMITMENT - FRATERNITY CALL TO HOLINESS

Candidates: Lord Jesus Christ, I come before you this day to offer myself to You as Your disciple, to worship You as my only Lord and Savior and to commit myself as priest to serve You and love You with my whole being.

I offer myself also to You through the Fraternity of Priests. I want to commit myself to these brothers and to living out this commitment.

I pray that You will effect this commitment in me, Lord Jesus Christ, through the grace of Your Spirit to the glory of God the Father. Amen.

Leader: We know that in order for us to be truly a brotherhood of one mind and heart, we need to serve and care for one another in this priestly Fraternity. We need to understand and accept the Fraternity call to holiness which makes our life together possible.

In order to help us to fulfill God's call to priestly fraternity, I ask you to commit to the following:

1. To pray an hour a day

2. To attend meetings faithfully, not missing without reason and notice.

3. To read Scripture daily and to keep a journal.

4. To tithe 10%.

5. To fast weekly.

6. To accept the leadership and teaching of the Fraternity.

7. To present personal and spiritual matters to the fraternity for discernment.

8. To have zeal for a personal committed relationship with the Lord and with my brothers.

9. To proclaim the Visitation Message.

10. To empower God's people in the Holy Spirit.

Candidates: I commit myself to the Fraternity of Priests through this local body of my brother priests and together with them will strive to live out the Fraternity call to holiness, with the help of God. Amen. Date:

APPENDIX 8

FRATERNITY GROUP: HOW TO BE BROTHERS IN THE LORD

1. We are together in fraternity as brother priests who want to support and encourage one another in living more fully for God. We want to have the strength and support of others who want to know and love the Lord as deeply as they can and who want to serve the Lord as well as they can.

As scripture says, a brother helped is like a strong city (Prov. 18:19). Woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up (Qo. 4:10). Though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not easily broken (Qo. 4:12). He who walks with wise men becomes wise, but the companion of fools suffers harm (Prov. 13:20). Being with others gives us more enthusiasm for life and service because the Lord did not create us to be alone. It is good and pleasant when brothers dwell in unity (Psalm 132/3:1). To love our fellow priests as brothers in the Lord is a spiritual work.

2. We will love one another earnestly from the heart, desiring to serve and care for one another, warmly expressing our brotherly affection for one another, always showing a respect and honor to one another, being willing to obey and submit to one another, not insisting on our own way with one another, putting away any difficulties and disputes with one another, being ready to teach and admonish one another, eager to support one another in difficulties, bearing one another's burdens, constant in encouraging one another to fervor, strength and endurance in love and service.

3. Our care for one another in the Fraternity aims at helping each of us to know and love the Lord as deeply as he can and serve the Lord as well as he can. We care for one another in many ways, in mutual support and sharing of our personal lives, in mutual prayer and intercession for one another, in practical service and help for one another in time of need, in mutual encouragement to greater fervor and faithfulness in prayer, study of God's word, fasting, almsgiving, and other charitable works.

4. Our commitment as brothers goes beyond participating in Fraternity group meetings. Our commitment involves mutual or “fraternal” care for one another. We will not leave all initiative and care simply to the leader of the Fraternity group. We will regularly look for opportunities to build up, strengthen, and support our brother priests and to express to them our brotherly love and commitment.

5 We also want to be a protection for one another in our daily living. We are committed to being open with our brothers about our whole lives, not letting anything remain in the dark. We will aim to speak freely about our individual lives with one another, not trying to hide failure or wrongdoing. We will aim to have nothing significant

Appendix 8 cont.

in our lives which we do not share with at least one other brother. We will stand by one

another in our weakness, preserving a respect for one another and doing what we can to see that our brother priests are respected by others.

6. When we are together, we will normally use opportunities for talking and sharing as a chance to support, strengthen and encourage one another as men of God, so that we may promote the knowledge of all that is ours in Christ. We should share what has been happening to us, what the Lord has taught us and what we have read or heard about that glorifies the Lord. We should use our opportunities for sharing together to know how our brother priests are, to express to them our affection and support, and to hear what they wish to share with us. We will regularly exchange with one anther whatever knowledge or information we have that may profit our brother priests.

7. We will regularly encourage one another to maintain attitudes of faith, joy, and fervor, and to avoid attitudes of negativity, fearfulness, criticism, sarcasm, and all speech that does not strengthen one another in the Lord. We will only use humor that is encouraging, joyful, and under control, and we will avoid expressing negative attitudes, criticisms, or disrespect toward our brother priests under the cloak of humor. We will speak to one another straightforwardly, correcting one another directly or stating our preferences openly if we wish to state them at all, since we are brothers We will speak in a way that shows honor and respect to one another.

APPENDIX 9

Covenant Relationships

I Committed Relationships

- as priests we are called to knit our lives together in committed brotherhood

- St. Gregory the Great writes:

“Beloved brothers, our Lord and Savior sometimes gives us instructions by words and sometimes by actions. His very deeds are our commands; and whenever He acts silently He is teaching us what we should do. For example, He sends his disciples out to preach two by two, because the precept of charity is two-fold – love of God and one's neighbor. The Lord sends his disciples out to preach in twos in order to teach us silently that whoever fails in charity toward his neighbor should by no means take upon himself the office of preaching” (Office of Readings, Feast of St. Luke, October 18.)

- the spirit of the world, the spirit of deception, has taught us very well to be loners, to be independent both in life and ministry

- this is the way he has stripped us of power and effectiveness

- part of the effectiveness of the early Church is found in Acts 2:14; when Peter stood, the other eleven stood with him

- what a contrast to the lone ranger style and the competitiveness of so much priestly ministry today

II What Is a Covenant Relationship?

- David and Jonathan in 1 Samuel 19-20 are an example of covenant relationship and committed brotherhood

- A covenant relationship is a knitting together of lives in such a way that it calls forth integrity, veracity, sincerity, loyalty, and a standing together in times of testing

- It also calls forth an enjoyment and a delight in one another

- But covenant includes a 3^rd element, the covenant in 1 Sam 18 was not just between Jonathan and David; it was between Jonathan, David and the Lord

- True community or the kind of relationship described as a covenant is not humanly attainable

- Acts 2 and 4 give evident witness that the Holy Spirit is the bearer of unity

- We become one only in the Spirit.

- The covenant relationship presupposes Baptism in the Spirit as a necessary source

Appendix 9 cont.

III. The Kingdom Disciplines and Committed Relationships

- The Holy Spirit is the bearer of the gift of unity and community and the necessary source of covenant relationship and committed brotherhood

- This gift must be developed by discipline, by death to self, by effort and hard work

- Several of the Kingdom Disciplines help to develop this gift

- To attend meetings faithfully, not missing without reason and notice

- We say a man's family, his wife and children must be his priority even before his job

- Our brothers take priority in the same way

- Committed brotherhood cannot happen without the most serious commitment to attend meetings

- Charity and consideration of the brothers also demand punctuality

- To accept the order and teaching of the Fraternity

- No unity or community or brotherhood is remotely possible without - a willing submission and agreement to a certain order and pattern of - operation as well as certain truths and teachings

- It means a willingness to lay down our lives for each other

- To have zeal for covenant relationships with the Lord and my brothers

- We make a deliberate effort to go after covenant relationships

- We die to ourselves

- It does not happen automatically

- To submit to leaders personal and spiritual matters.

IV Pastoral Care

- One of the most important aspects of the Fraternity

- Who shepherds the shepherds?

- An indispensable part of every meeting

- We do become our brother's keeper

- We become accountable to each other in our lives as men and in our ministry as priests

- We affirm each other, build up each other, admonish and exhort and correct and advise one another

- Pastoral care is best done in small groups or one-on-one

APPENDIX 10

Talk # 1

What is the Fraternity of Priests

Typical Weekly Meeting

One hour of praise and worship

One hour for teaching and appropriation

One hour of fraternal groups

One hour for social brotherhood

Character of the Fraternity

Proclamation of the Visitation Message in our time

God is visiting us in a special way

Topic of an upcoming teaching

Response to the Visitation Message through a mission to bringing priests to:

Deeper conversion and relationship with God

Committed relationships with one another

Being equipped to respond to God's Visitations

Learn to Minister in the Spirit

Praise and worship

Hearing God's Word and acting upon it

Training to build our lives together and to acquire a Christlike character

Fraternity Charisms include:

Rerooting our lives and priesthood in Christ

Empowerment by the Holy Spirit

Use of the gifts of the Spirit

A call to repentance and a new direction for our priesthood

Focusing on prophetic evangelization and the Word of God

Engaging in Spiritual warfare

Leadership Structure

The way Jesus discipled the apostles and disciples is used as normative for Church

He preached to the thousands but worked at building a “College of Apostles”

Withing the apostles he had a 3 man pastoral team and one designated overall leader in Peter

A local fraternity has:

An overall leader

Appendix 10 cont.

Sufficient supporting leaders to handle fraternal groups of 3 to 5 priests

The supporting leaders will receive pastoral care from the overall leader

Overall leader will look to one of the supporting leaders for his own pastoral care

Discussion Questions

What am I looking for during this retreat?

As I hear about the character of the Fraternity what do I find attractive?

APPENDIX 11

The Kingdom Disciplines: An Overview

1. Basic Commitments

- We call them “Kingdom Disciplines” because the fulfillment of them in the right spirit will help us as persons and as a Fraternity to remain in and to move on to the Kingdom of God.

2. How to Approach These Commitments

- Some you may fulfill already, some you may never fully attain.

- They are to be taken as criteria by which you assess where you are in your growth.

- They are goals and standards to guide you.

- They are not to be seen as prescriptions of outward behavior.

- To approach these commitments in that way would be to return to the legalism and cultural religion that God is trying to bring us out of .

- A family that has no standards, roles or rules would be chaotic and dead, but a family with correct behavior would be mechanical and dead in another way, if there were no personal relations.

- We relate to God and our brothers, not to a system.

- The commitments give to the Fraternity structure and guidance.

- Like the Law, they also provide a safety net to catch us when we fall away from faith and love.

3. To Pray an Hour a Day

- We are talking about daily personal prayer.

- This is a commitment to minister to the Lord.

- It has a priority in our lives and priesthood .

- Some elements of this daily prayer are song, vocal praise, tongues, worship, inspired spontaneous songs and prayers, quiet time and Scripture reading.

- Though personal prayer, it may be done with others.

- The hour of prayer, as a goal and standard, does not include Liturgy, the Rosary, etc.

4. Finding the Right Time of Day

- It should be when your energy is high and you will not be disturbed or distracted.

- In 95% of cases early morning works the best.

Appendix 11 cont.

- Those who agree to the priority and have control over their schedule may take time during the day.

- Try to find a place where you can pray loud, undisturbed by others.

You need to explain to other priests, staff, people, that this is time given to the Lord and that you will only take real emergency calls during this time.

5. Finding the Right Place

- Ideally the place is in the Church before the Blessed Sacrament at a time when no one is around.

- Occasionally you may need to pray in a place where you cannot sing or speak in a strong voice; even then it is good to vocalize and sing in a quiet way.

- To have such restrictions placed on you for a long period of time will usually result in stifling your prayer.

6. Receiving Pastoral Care

- To come to the place of praying a full hour every day of the week over a period of months and years will bring a lot of benefits.

- Fruitfulness: the Lord will give you joy each day as you draw near.

- You will have inspired insights and grow in spiritual strength.

- Healing: you will often find some obstacle between you and the Lord as you come to prayer.

- Praise and spiritual warfare in vocal praise and tongues will enable you to break through.

- As you come into the presence of God, power and healing will be released in your life.

- Faithfulness to prayer in the long run will bring a great deal of healing to your spirit, mind, heart and body.

- Uncovering problems: when your prayer becomes a struggle then you will be uncovering things in your life that need to be dealt with: unresponsiveness of your will, insensitivity in your spirit, resistance to allocation of time to this priority, areas for growth.

- Your prayer time can be a time to examine yourself and discover what you need to submit to the Lord.

7. Charism of the Fraternity

- We see praise as a part of the basic charism of the Fraternity.

Appendix 11 cont.

- We believe that the Spirit is reaching back to the time of the Apostles and the founding of the Church to restore an element of prayer that had grown weak in the Church.

APPENDIX 12

TEN PRINCIPLES FOR A PRIEST'S LIFE PATTERN

W. BREUNING AND K. HEMMERLE

1. How I live as a priest is more important than what I do as a priest.

2. What Christ does through me is more important than what I do by myself.

3. It is more important for me to live in union with the presbyterium than to be alone and absorbed in my work.

4. The ministry of prayer and the word is more important than serving at tables.

5. It is more important to work united with my fellow workers than to do the maximum number of jobs all by myself.

6. It is more important to concentrate on a few points and to influence others, than to be hurried and incomplete in everything.

7. Joint action is more important than isolated action, no matter how perfect. Thus, cooperation in work is more important than work, communio more important than action.

8. The cross is more important than efficiency: it is more fruitful.

9. Openness to the whole (community, diocese, Church throughout the world) is more important than a particular interest, no matter how important that may be.

10. It is more important that the faith be witnessed to all, than that all "traditional" demands be satisfied.

.

APPENDIX 13

Why did you come to the conference?

I came to be with other priests who believe in Jesus. Priests who believe He is real and active in their lives. I want to be with priests who are striving to be good priests. By that I mean men who pray, who study the scriptures, who go to confession and see these things as important in their lives.

I enjoy being with priests who are basically happy and at peace being priests. By happy I do not mean that they do not have problems to face or challenges to overcome, but that they are able to face these things with courage and realistic expectations.

I also came because I knew that I would be reminded of the ways to improve my conscious contact with God. I also came to enjoy the company of other priests whom I respect and who respect me.

What help did the conference give me for my ministry?

First of all I gain a new perspective of what I am experiencing in my ministry. I have the opportunity to discuss what I am doing with other priests. They give me feedback on how I am doing and suggestions that I might try in my ministry setting. This helps me to improve the foundation on which my ministry is grounded. It does this because I have brother priests who are my partners in ministry.

Secondly, I am encouraged and reminded that Jesus is the Lord, the living God, and he is my focus and ultimate strength. In other words I am encouraged to seek his will and guidance through my brother priests. With this encouragement I am more actively looking for evidence of Jesus' guidance in my life.

This seeking of his guidance is directly communicated to my congregation as I tell them of my experience and encourage them to follow my example. Their faith is strengthened by the real experience of the presence of God in their lives.

Thirdly, I need to belong to a band of brothers. I have always desired to be connected to other people.

I also benefit from the fact that others need me. This helps me to be less selfish and put the legitimate needs of others ahead of my own. St. Paul teaches that we are the body of Christ, and each member has an important part to play. Each member of the body needs the other members. The conference helps me to think about how I can foster authentic membership in the body of Christ for myself and those in my church.

Would I encourage a friend to come to the Conference?

Yes I would encourage a friend to come to the conference. I would share my experience with him, explaining how important and life giving it has been for me. I realize that his experience will be different than mine in some of the details. Yet I know the fundamental experience of faith and life together as priests is the common fruit and benefit of the conference. These benefits can also be his if he chooses to continue the experience as a member of the Fraternity of Priests.

APPENDIX 14

Why did I participate in the Fraternity Conference?

It is always a challenge to live out one's commitment. This is equally true of one's commitment to the priesthood. It is necessary to recognize that the Lord called us to the diocesan priesthood, but not to the eremitic life. Therefore it is essential for me to be with brother priests and to share time and education with them.

The Conference offered an opportunity to do just that. We came together and shared prayer, meals, teachings and fellowship over a period of several days. It broke up the ordinary schedule of ministry and reinforced our brotherhood. Being human, we need the concrete experience of brotherhood shared in this kind of venue.

When I am with the brothers, especially on a Conference there is always something to learn. Someone's insight on a particular Scripture passage; someone's way of dealing with a particular pastoral situation; a different way of thinking about certain issues – all of this surfaces when we are together praying and talking and relaxing. I learn more about myself in these exchanges as well.

Without a doubt I would and have recommended this Conference to brother priests. It has always been helpful and life enhancing and I would like to share that with brothers. There is a little selfishness in wanting to share the experience as well: I learn from every brother who participates and therefore, the more priests who come, the more I can learn and grow.

APPENDIX 15

1. Why did you come to the 2008 Fraternity Conference at Montfort House?

I [had previously] attended a conference at the Monfort House in 2000-2004. I do not recall the exact year. I attended the [2008] conference to enjoy the sense of communion and solidarity that is a special quality of the priests in that group.

2. What did you take from that conference that you are able to use in your ministry?

I found that the conference strengthened my sense of solidarity with brother priests who were active in ministry. I felt a greater sense of conviction in the importance of my work celebrating the sacraments for my parishioners, preaching God's word and confronting administrative challenges in the parish. By listening to brothers in the Fraternity discuss their own faith and work in their respective parishes, I appreciated more profoundly our common work in the Catholic Church. I also gained a clearer sense of my own unique identity in relationship to others; I realized that Christ had a specific ministry that I exercised based upon my personal gifts.

3. Would you invite another priest to come to such a Conference?

Yes, I would invite and encourage other priests to attend a Fraternity Conference. Diocesan priests are constantly exercising the three munera, acting in the person of Jesus Christ the Good Shepherd as priest, prophet and king, in relationship to their parish community. The Fraternity enables brother priests to minister to one another, to feed one another, and, to thereby, share those three munera with one another. In this sense the Fraternity helps in the process of sanctification of the individual priest.

APPENDIX 16

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Has the growing number of one priest parishes contributed to the loneliness of priests?

I do not know the answer for others but I can say for myself it has not contributed to my sense of loneliness.

What have contributed more significantly are the sexual scandal and its cover up by some of the bishops. I believe they are insincere in their desire to address the roots of the scandal among themselves. A bishop exercises a double standard, for example [when] he does not police himself and resign when he knows what offenses he has committed. Rather he continues to act as if he had nothing on his conscience. I find it very difficult to have confidence in the moral integrity of the present hierarchy of the church. Each bishop for me personally will have to prove himself to me before I will trust him.

The opposite is true in regard to an individual priest. If I, for example, were accused of wrong doing I would be immediately removed from my post and held in limbo and perhaps never return to the parish or active ministry even if I am innocent of the charge. The same is not true for a bishop. A bishop has the resources to stay in place and is only answerable to the Pope.

Archbishop Weakland only resigned after those he had molested would no longer keep their silence. The same is also true for the Bishop of Springfield Mass., Bishop Dupree; he finally resigned when he was publicly confronted. The bishop of Phoenix, Arizona resigned after he killed a man with his car. He however was involved with sexual misconduct long before the accident.

Also I am disheartened by the number of priests who are not faithful to their promise of celibacy. They have lovers openly and behind closed doors and don’t see that this is a contradiction and a fraud. In our own Archdiocese senior priests have had affairs in the rectory and when it was reported to the bishop nothing was done to correct the senior priests' behavior. In other words we have been taught one way of life and when other priests have given it up, the authority looks the other way. This undermines the value of celibacy and the priesthood in my eyes. I find it very difficult to encourage young men to consider becoming priests.

The only time I felt profoundly lonely in the priesthood was when I was stationed with a pastor who was very angry and negative. He created a tense atmosphere in the rectory. I experienced depression for the whole time I was stationed with him as my immediate superior. I was in that parish for six years.

I must say that I have always wanted to be a priest and derive great satisfaction from my ministry among the people in the church and the community. I would like to think I am a happy priest but you ask me about my experience of loneliness and its source.

Second Question: How has the Fraternity helped (or not helped) to deal with loneliness?

The fraternity of priests has helped me deal with loneliness because of its purpose and its practice. The purpose of the fraternity is to gather priests to Christ and to one another. And it follows that ...

1) The fraternity is a brotherhood. The members in my experience welcome each other and are interested in each other’s well being. We are willing to help each other in our individual places of ministry.

2) We can safely and respectfully share the private and intimate parts of our lives. We share our fears, hopes, joys, frustration, failures and sins. We know that we are accepted by each other. We belong to each other in this concrete way. We can trust each other. We have given each other permission to challenge and correct each other.

3) We are good company for each other. Our relationships with each other are maturing. We have fun, we enjoy each other’s humor. We encourage each other to develop and mature in the priesthood. We share the goal of being good and faithful priests. We speak the same language of faith.

4) We share a faith in Jesus and openly speak about our experience of this faith. We encourage each other in faith. Our individual experience of the faith serves to validate the faith of each brother.

5) We pray with one another and for one another. Shared prayer deepens our relationship with Jesus and one another.

In summation the fraternity of priests has helped me deal with loneliness because as a member of the fraternity I belong to a brotherhood. I am not alone nor can I be isolated from my brothers in the fraternity. Whatever loneliness I may experience in life is quickly diminished by the fruits of my membership in the fraternity of priests.

APPENDIX 17

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Dear Fr. Joseph,

Thank you so much for offering the possibility to share in your research paper. With regard to the stated question has the growing number of one priest parishes contributed to the loneliness of priests? I would answer the following:

As a member of a religious congregation I would say this makes a huge difference. It sure is very comforting to come back after "work in the heat of the day" to a supportive and loving community of priests and religious that look out for you just in the same way or even more than you do for them. Whether a priest is a member of a religious congregation or belongs to the secular clergy a support team should always be present as God calls us out of the world yet we still live in this world (Jn 17, 11). Our bonds of friendship and camaraderie will always be there as part of our human makeup both to assist others and be assisted ourselves when needed.

It goes without saying that some people enjoy and long for times to be by themselves as a way of rest. This is indeed very necessary and we all have the opportunity to do this by means of a retreat or a time to study or reflect. However, that being said, just as God has wished to reveal himself by way of relationships: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, we can conclude that God as a "Social Being" has created us in his image as "social individuals". There will always be that need to love, care, build and reciprocally expect the same from our fellow priests in order to attain the level of sanctity and personal experience of God, [that] he intends for us to have.

Well, Fr. Joseph, hope these ideas are somewhat clear. Have a wonderful week and I'm glad to know you're feeling so much better. Count on my prayers always and God bless!

Yours in Christ.

APPENDIX 18

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

SINGLE PRIEST: PARISHES AND LONELINESS

I am a Catholic priest from India. I was in parishes and high schools with a group of priests except for ONE parish, where I was alone (not lonely) for 3 years in India. I am a priest for 39 years (35 in India and 4 years in the US).

Every priest is called to be ALTER CHRISTUS because he shares the eternal only priesthood of Christ. The ministry of a priest is to carry on what was the ministry of Jesus Christ. A genuine priest (single or in a group) is doing the good works of Jesus Christ the high priest. He does not have to worry about the success and failure of his ministry because he is doing the ministry of his master. What human minds see as success or failure may not be truly so in the sight of Jesus Christ the master, because He sees the heart of his ministers. The priest is always called to trust in his master for the graces and blessings necessary for his ministry, like the celebration of the sacraments and the other ministries like teaching and healing. He always believes that his ministry is "IN PERSONA CHRISTI.”

When I was alone I may have felt lonely when I did not get much support from the Bishop or the fellow priests or from the people. It was not difficult for me to overcome it, because I trusted in God and Christ, whose ministry I was carrying on.

It is often said, "one can be lonely in a crowd." In this perspective, a Catholic priest can be lonely in the company of the other priests. What counts is how the priest/priests communicate or relate to his fellow priests, to the people or to the superiors. If he is honest, humble, transparent and outgoing, I am sure he has all the reason to be happy and content and nurture an excellent RAPPORT with the superiors, priests and the people.

Hence I believe and assert that the Fraternity of Priests is a good group of praying priests who are able to rise above the petty and so called loneliness, if the members of the Fraternity often meet, discuss, share and care for one another and then the Fraternity can easily iron out any sort of loneliness of its members.

This is what I believe of the Fraternity of Priests.

APPENDIX 19

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

LONELINESS: AN INEVITABLE FACT OF LIFE

First of all, it must be acknowledged that loneliness is a fact and inevitable reality of life. In other words, it is real and can be experienced in every state of life. However, the adverse effects of our secularistic society, which increasingly thrives by its overemphasis or encouragement of over exaggerated individualism, is a great feed for loneliness in our time.

Besides, there is a distinction between loneliness and being alone. In other words, one can be alone without being lonely just as one can experience loneliness even in the midst of the crowd. Therefore, without getting into the detailed implications and intricacies of loneliness or being alone and their concomitant interplay with each other, it must be maintained once again that loneliness is an inevitable fact of life that cannot be completely denied regardless of one's state of life whether married or single.

In view of the above, I see loneliness as one of those stones that our life here on earth throws at us. Hence, one can use it as a stepping-stone or allow it to be a stumbling block. Therefore, from my perspective there is no doubt that the fact of one being a priest and at the same time living alone in a parish can contribute to loneliness. That notwithstanding, even having many priests to live in a single rectory would not in itself be a guaranteed solution to loneliness. But I think appreciation, respect, and honest interest in the well being of each priest by priests themselves[,] whether living together or not, will go a long way. Among others, this entails encouraging, supporting, understanding, loving and bearing with one another with patience as well as being able to challenge each other with compassion. These I believe will go a long way to enrich the life and ministry of every priest and at the same time help each priest in dealing with other realities of life including that of loneliness.

Furthermore, even though in my own life so far, I don't consider loneliness as a problem or an issue for me, yet I cannot help but think about the fact that sometimes, I wish my immediate family members were close by enough so that I would be able to easily spend some time with them during my free time. This is because coming from a large family where we all are very to close to each other and our other extended family members, the reality of being far away from them dawns on me once [in] awhile. But I thank God for [the] telephone which makes it possible for me to talk with them often. However, in all, I see it as part of my sacrificial love for Christ and his Church.

As for whether the fraternity brother priests are helpful or not, I think so far, they have been. My meeting with them sometimes feels like a mini-retreat for me. At this point in time, I am still open to see what I will do with them. So, my prayer for all priests is that we may always [strive] to remain close to Him whose priests we are, regardless of the challenges that we face in our lives and in our ministries.

APPENDIX 20

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Just a few thoughts on the F of P and loneliness.

Loneliness is not a major issue for me. There are, of course, moments when I am lonely, as is true for all persons.

My lack of a "spouse" is a reality that I am fairly comfortable knowing (and being truly at peace with), that this is a small gift I can return to God for all He has given me.

The need for connectedness is definitely helped by my ongoing interactions with parishioners; it is helped by my active ministry with many people in many circumstances; it is helped by the F of P.

I know the brothers are there faithfully on a regular basis (weekly usually); I know they are a phone call away when I need to talk or need advice or support; I know that I am there (and they appreciate me for this) for them in the same way. They are a weekly source of support and strength and acceptance. We are walking together on this journey and just knowing that is the support needed to keep walking and growing through the "loneliness." Hope this helps.

APPENDIX 21

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Fraternity of Priests Has

Really Helped Me To Cope with Loneliness

Introduction:

Loneliness is a natural phenomenon, a universal symptom that affects [the] human person. It visits every human soul at some time, in any culture, every race, every class, every age and at all times in human history. In my own introspective analysis on how it affects me:

a) Feeling an emptiness in spiritual life and distance from God

b) When I'm disconnected from my fellow priests or faith community where I preside In Persona Christi.

c) Feeling unacceptable in any environment or avoided by those around me or disconnected among friends or groups.

No wonder someone described it this way: Loneliness is not being alone; it can happen to the individual who lives alone and has no family at all, and also to the person who is constantly surrounded by crowds of people. It can affect a child in school, a person who marries into a foreign family and doesn't know the language. For instance, a wealthy person can suffer loneliness even though there may be plenty of people around him. Therefore loneliness is an inner feeling, a condition of feeling unfulfilled in living active lives, or inauthentic lives (forced to find fulfillment or stay alone).

d) I have appreciated the priest fraternity because it is a good ground to express my emotions, challenges of pastoral work as well as receiving feedback from fraternity priests. The feedback helps me to see myself better, empowered to cope [with] responsibilities as well as get[ting] connected once again.

e) The priests' fraternity solved my problem of not having my immediate family living here in America. And also I see our gathering as a network of support [and] assistance that helps me [in] ongoing formation in my priestly life.

f) I have learned much through the fraternity of priests about American culture; their reflections on various experiences in ministry have become a single source of support, socially, spiritually, and politically. The meetings of the priests' fraternity helps to keep my mental status very active and also [is] an opportunity to relax, and fill an emptiness in me.

APPENDIX 22

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Fraternity of Priests Has Really Helped Me To Cope With Loneliness

(A) Our fraternity group experience has continued to be characterized by collegiality, reunion and concern for the well-being of other priests within CT and outside. The telephone calls I receive very often and [the] exchange of visits has really helped me with [the] loneliness of staying idle.

(B) I have personally experienced fraternity care and concern as [a] foreign priest working in [a] new environment, where I [saw] myself as alone, but [the] fraternity group then provide[d] a support system of friends and family.

(C) The fraternity of priests has been able to assist me in identifying key issues on how I can serve my parishioners better.

(a) Eating together as a family with your fellow priests

(b) Praying together and general pastoral awareness

(c) Human relations and empowerment to remain steadfast in faith even when I feel unaccepted.

APPENDIX 23

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Fr. Joe asked me to write up a few thoughts about loneliness in the priesthood, especially regarding priests in a one man parish. I cannot speak, of course, for other priests but for myself, having been in that situation and another where I was quite alone, I will share a few thoughts. First, there is an inherent loneliness in us all since as St. Augustine says, "Our hearts are restless until they rest in thee." God is our final end and we all are on a journey to Him.

My experience in a one man parish allowed me very little time to even reflect on loneliness and I never, thank God, felt it. This was so for me because of the times I set aside for my personal prayer and devotions. Most days, I longed for a bit of solitude. Other priests in the "fraternity of priests" which I belong to have similar desires. Inasmuch as Jesus Himself is to be a celibate priest's "significant other" (words of Bishop Paul Laverde in a homily years ago), this desire for time alone with the Lord is understandable. Indeed, the gift of celibacy includes this desire. One of the “kingdom disciplines” of the Fraternity of Priests is an hour of personal prayer, and with the Liturgy of the Hours; there are other times as well.

The desire for solitude does not preclude a form of intimacy with others, family, friends and other priests. What a joy it is for me to meet weekly with the Fraternity for prayer, sharing and finally a meal together. And I see this joy in my brother priests' faces as well.

I pray I do not misjudge the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas when I recall his saying that the highest calling is a partly contemplative and partly active life in God's service. This is the vocation of the parish priest. This is my calling. May Jesus Christ be praised forever.

APPENDIX 24

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

Reflections requested on the topic given: "Loneliness and the Catholic Priesthood"

A philosopher once said it's not the right answers, but rather the right questions to ask that make life fulfilling. Loneliness and the priesthood (Catholic) is the wrong question. The right question is loneliness and all humankind.

I talked to a permanent deacon in my church years ago. We were good friends. He was very active in his ministry, very happily married, and very in love with his wife of 30 years who was also very active in the Church's outreach to street people. They had six children, three boys & three girls who at the time we talked were grown up & all happily married, except his oldest son, [who] at the time was studying for the Catholic priesthood. The deacon had a satisfying & good paying job. I visited him on their farm & he said, "Paul, let's go for a walk." We walked his farm with the St. Bernard and dachshund following us. He said, "Paul, look at all the happiness I have in the world; and you won't believe I am still very lonely. Very lonely, very alone in the world." I was rather young then and I was a little surprised. I thought to myself, 'he has everything a man would want.' I have come to believe loneliness is part of the human condition. You who read this, if you are truthful with yourself, are lonely sometimes yourself. No human intimacy, whether friendship, soul mate, spiritual guide, lover, can stop it. St. Augustine is oft quoted, "My heart is restless, until it rests in thee" (God). Or Psalm 43: "My soul thirsts for you, O Lord, like a deer pines for running water," is the heart of the matter.

The general thinking in our culture is priests are lonely and they should have the choice to marry. Getting married, having a lover for life, doesn't solve the loneliness problem even though I believe priests, as St. Paul said, should be celibate if they feel called to it only. (By the way, there are 91 married priests in the U.S. who were converts from other Christian Church traditions, so we already have a married clergy in the R.C. Church.

I do believe it is important to have intimate friends. To be intimate does not necessarily mean a sexual relationship.

I myself have some close and would say some intimate friends, a spiritual father confessor, a spiritual mother, spiritual director, a therapist who I visit once a month to process my own "junk," and to help me process some of the "junk" people come to me with. The Fraternity of Priests are part of this fabric. I meet regularly with all of the above. They each in a different way become my support group, my soul mates, guides through life. Regular Monday meetings with the Fraternity of Priests enriches my prayer life, fulfills some of the need for camaraderie, and the brothers are both willing to support and be supported, to consult and be consulted, to pool pastoral experiences and goals and wisdom, etc. Life is multi-faceted, and on so many levels.

I believe the people who are very lonely are those who do not have any kind of a support system. I believe people who are very sick and can not do for themselves and have few or no one to be care providers for them, are very lonesome.

Sounds kind of depressing, doesn't it? But I think when people think of the word loneliness, they really mean a lack of intimacy (Phileus, in Greek). I think we all need that. These reflections are a flow of consciousness rather than a well-defined outline or presentation of what I want to say. I hope they help to clarify the question of loneliness.

I will say in conclusion: If there is no loneliness, there is no God.

APPENDIX 25

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

[In] 2007 I was falsely accused of child molestation...I was placed on administrative leave and lived on the property of a religious order. I lived there [for 18 months]. I was quite alone, although I was allowed to be out and about with some limitations. But most of the time I lived, worked, and prayed [alone]. Loneliness was nearby but never entered, mainly because of the Fraternity of Priests that I belonged to. We met every Monday and prayed with and for each other. We shared our experiences and difficulties with each other and always in a positive faith-filled way. This encouraged me enormously, thank God, and enabled me to go from day to day with a modicum of patience till it was over. I was exonerated [by a jury after a trial].The ordeal was a blessing in disguise for which I owe the Lord Jesus a great debt and great gratitude.

Loneliness is always lurking and not only for the celibate priest who lives alone. For the priest I believe a fraternity of some kind with other priests can be instrumental in keeping this loneliness at bay.

APPENDIX 26

Response to Sept. 14, 2009 Questionnaire

LONELINESS IN THE PRIESTHOOD

1) A few thoughts

2) I can't recall any period of loneliness in my priesthood

3)Present state - Retirement. Big helps to me have been the following for no loneliness:

a) Fraternity - great help, frequency, good friends - very kind and positive in their outlook, etc.

b) Family - very few members of my family remain. I see an older relative (95 years old) almost weekly after Sunday Mass.

Adoptive Family - since retirement I have been "adopted" by a number of families (5 or 6). We exchange visits, telephone calls, letters (especially with religion questions).

c) Weekly Parish Masses - Sundays (Waterbury) - Wednesday - Southington - like members of "my parish circle."

d) Weekly dinner on Saturdays for all priests in town - mostly with fellow retired priests.

4) Retirement Home - I have my own condo & enjoy it very much. If I had to do it over, I don't know whether I would have chosen St. Thomas Seminary (home for retired priests).

(Finally: Sundays, Mondays, Wednesdays, Saturdays - I meet with people - drives the "blues" away.)

6) Daily Holy Hour - mostly every day. Good opportunity to pray - to talk to the Lord and also to listen to him. Big help for preparation for next day's Mass.

APPENDIX 27

IDENTIFYING, RESOLVING LONELINESS IN PRIESTLY LIFE

Richard P. Fitzgibbons – The Priest, September 1989

Loneliness is one of the most painful of all human conditions because it has the potential to disable and limit laity, Religious and priests.

Adults in every life state have difficulty serving the Lord with gladness when powerful wounds of loneliness burn within their hearts. As a result, many people will go to great lengths to deny that they have struggled with this type of emotional pain.

This denial is accomplished through the power of the intellect, which is the major defense attempted to control all emotional pain.

Many priests may suffer from severe loneliness arising from deep disappointments in relationships during childhood and adolescence. They may unconsciously use their intellects as defense mechanisms. Thus, childhood and adolescent loneliness can emerge suddenly in adult life.

The victims of such pain often mistakenly think their sadness is exclusively the result of their adult life experiences or commitments. They ignore or deny earlier years of severe emotional disappointments.

As a result, priests may make their major life mistakes in an attempt to escape from their loneliness, and its associated sadness, without being fully aware of the true causes of such pain.

Loneliness is a very serious, and an increasingly common problem in the lives of priests. This is the result of a number of factors, especially those which interfere with healthy loving relationships in men.¹

Loneliness can be defined as being without company, as not feeling comforted in love, as feeling cut off from others, and not feeling love come into oneself from others, and as experiencing sadness.

For Christians, it can be distinguished from being alone since it is possible to be alone and, at the same time, to feel loved and consoled.

A certain degree of loneliness is appropriate and should be expected, especially in celibates. This pain, however, is felt also by those who have very healthy, loving and sexually intimate relationships.

Inner emptiness

Periodically, happily married parishioners often fall victim to the pain of loneliness even though they may enjoy a good loving relationship with their spouse. Why? Because their needs for a warm, physically affectionate and tender relationship with a father, mother, sibling or peers were not fulfilled earlier in life.

The unrecognized or untreated emotional wounds of loneliness from early life can produce an effect which is similar to that occurring in rheumatic heart disease. Heart damage occurs early in life, but is not diagnosed. It leads to major difficulties, however, in the 30s and 40s.

There are some priests who have been very lonely from lack of joyful, gentle female love from the time they were little boys. This inner emptiness was the result of having mothers who had difficulty in being physically affectionate or in communicating their love.

In adult life, a priest with such a wound may mistakenly think that his loneliness is solely the result of not having an affectionate woman at his side.

Also, priests who may not have been athletically gifted as young boys and who experienced repeated male rejection over many years may believe, erroneously, that only an ongoing homosexual relationship can give them the acceptance and male wholeness for which they have always yearned.

Fortunately, these powerful emotional wounds experienced within the family or community can be resolved.

Loneliness produces numerous physical, emotional, intellectual and behavioral symptoms.

Over the past several years, research studies have shown that loneliness seems to have a very specific effect on the immune system. Particularly affected are the T cells which play a critical role in our ability to fight infections.

These studies have shown that those who are lonely, regardless of age, have a significant impairment in the functioning of their T cells. Loneliness often results in a feeling of physical exhaustion or weakness and in acute or chronic pain for which no organic cause can be found. Common sites for such pain are the head, neck, stomach and colon.

Emotional symptoms seen with loneliness include insomnia, lack of enthusiasm, chronic irritability, anger, sadness, excessive sleeping, listlessness, chronic tiredness, an inner emptiness or void, a lack of joy, and severe depressive or manic-depressive illness.

Many priests report feeling a restlessness or nervousness in the evening when they are alone in their rooms. This is one of the most frequent manifestations of loneliness among priests.

The intellectual difficulties seen with loneliness are a decreased ability to concentrate, to remember and to make decisions; impaired judgment; and a false belief of being unlovable.

The behavioral manifestations include a tendency to avoid people or to constantly be with others superficially, decreased communication, excessive dependency, avoidance of the rectory, and various types of compulsive behaviors such as drinking, excessive eating or smoking, compulsive masturbation, and homosexual or heterosexual acting out.

These are attempts to fill the inner emptiness from various life stages.

Finally, loneliness can cast a cloud over a priest's spiritual life, resulting in a loss of his ability to pray, and a sense of his being cut off from God's love.

If, on the natural level, one does not experience love coming into oneself from others, it becomes very difficult to enjoy receiving Divine Love.

Types of Loneliness

There are multiple types of loneliness depending upon the specific relationship in which a priest's emotional needs were not met.

Many priests fall victim to loneliness in adult life because of a failure to experience a family life in which love flowed regularly between a mother and father.

This particular emotional pain may predispose a priest to feel very sad in a rectory in which priests do not get along well. It reminds him of the distance and unhappiness between his parents.

Young priests sometimes leave the active ministry after such experiences because they mistakenly believe their sadness is caused solely by their priestly life, and they will never be happy living in a rectory.

Facing the truth of how loneliness has touched their lives at different developmental stages is very difficult for many priests because of the need to idealize family life.

Fortunately, the pain of loneliness diminishes when all the causes of this emotional disorder are understood clearly.

Finally, a number of priests experience a unique type of loneliness caused by not having athletic gifts when young.

Unfortunately, in our society, when young males lack coordination or interest in sports, they are rejected regularly and repeatedly by their peers. They may even be ridiculed, with their peers frequently hurling the most cruel insults at them, such as calling them a sissy.

These rejections interfere with the development of a positive male image and may result in the victim feeling extremely depressed and often very inadequate as a male.

This type of loneliness is common in men to whom God has given special creative and artistic talents.

Multiple factors in adult life predispose priests to loneliness.

One of the major ones is rooted in the failure in seminary training to communicate the critical importance of receiving love in order to function effectively later as a priest.

Some priests are isolated because they have not been treated as special in family life or in priesthood. This absence of feeling special creates a sense of being unlovable, which fosters a pattern of isolated behavior.

In many parts of the country the most significant cause of loneliness today is the result of the crisis in vocations, leading many rectories to be staffed by only one priest.

Another factor is the failure of priests to experience the rectory as a warm, loving home. In numerous rectories many priests do not appreciate how important it is that the rectory be a place of renewal in love and, subsequently, do not commit themselves daily to that goal.

Unfortunately, in countless numbers of rectories, the brothers do not live together in unity.

Other causes of loneliness in priests are the result of losing close priest friends who have left the active ministry. This may lead to a fear of becoming vulnerable to friendships.

Some priests are lonely because they lack trust in their brother priests. This is the result of hurts at different life stages and in the rectory.

Others fear that close interpersonal relationships result in more stress and pain than in comfort and happiness.

Still other causes of loneliness in priests include an excessive sense of responsibility for activities in the parish. This results in a preoccupation with worries and, subsequently, too little time for ongoing friendships.

A major source of loneliness in many associate pastors arises because pastors exclude them from all important decisions. As a result, the assistant pastors often feel excluded and isolated. Excessive anger, criticism or sarcasm in priests lead others to avoid them.

Of Critical Importance

Finally, a lack of understanding of the critical importance of ongoing friendships with brother priests produces loneliness.

Since loneliness is one of the most painful of all human experiences, we are driven, consciously or unconsciously, to escape its pain. To do that, many priests pursue some type of consolation, emotional high, companionship, or warmth.

Drinking is a behavior which can provide a certain warmth to the body. It consoles temporarily. Drugs can also produce a high which will mask, for a period of time, the underlying sadness complex.

Other behaviors, which are attempts to rise above the hurt of loneliness, include chronic masturbation, pornography, heterosexual or homosexual acting out, voyeurism, pedophilia, and a preoccupation with dirty jokes.

Still other compulsive behaviors include compulsive television watching, eating, shopping, exercising, and smoking.

Fortunately, the wound of loneliness can be resolved regardless of how long it may have been present in the life of a priest. Numerous lonely individuals take encouragement from the first words spoken about the human condition in Scripture when the Father said: “It is not good for man to be alone.”

Other Scripture passages which provide encouragement to those struggling with loneliness include:

“I only need say that I am slipping and your love, Yahweh, immediately supports me. In the midst of all my troubles you console me and make me happy.”

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word and we shall come to him and make our home with him.”

“He will give a home to the lonely.”

Priests who reflect upon these passages regularly come to feel that God would not have spoken thus without meaning to console and comfort His people.

Loneliness is not a curse of the priesthood, as some believe. It can be completely eliminated from the lives of priests by taking certain steps on the natural level and on the spiritual level.

In order to resolve loneliness, the first step is to stop denying and to start recognizing and understanding where loneliness has touched a person's life at different developmental stages.

For many, this is not any easy process.

Regular Renewal

Some priests refuse to acknowledge that they ever felt this pain before adult life. They make an emotional investment in blaming others in their adult life for their loneliness.

Others find this process very difficult because they are deeply discouraged. Unconsciously, they often feel that the loneliness in their lives cannot be resolved or healed.

After moving beyond denial, it is important to try to identify the masks of loneliness and the behavioral patterns or temptations caused by the pain of loneliness.

Then the priest has to come to recognize the need to be consoled and renewed in love daily in order to overcome loneliness. It is psychologically and emotionally healthy for priests to come to the realization that they cannot function without being renewed regularly in human and Divine Love.

Some priests have difficulty receiving love because their ability to trust has been damaged at various life stages. If a priest has difficulty trusting in friendships with his brother priests or with the laity, it is probably the result of being hurt either in his family background, in his seminary years, or in his years of priestly ministry.

This mistrust is rooted in anger. Therefore, it becomes imperative to resolve the anger associated with this lack of trust.

Such a priest may need to spend time picturing himself at different life stages. Then, he must try to forgive those who have hurt him at those stages, including parents, siblings, peers, fellow priests, religious women and parishioners.

In this process, many priests are surprised to discover how much anger toward their brother priests they have denied.

Resolving anger and forgiving play a major role in diminishing the pain of loneliness. When one has been hurt in important life relationships, the first wound of the heart is sadness, followed by anger. Then the emotion of anger can encapsulate experiences of sadness at different life stages.

In order to resolve the wound of sadness, the capsule of anger must be removed. This can only be done through the process of forgiveness since the expression of anger does not truly free individuals from their inner anger.² Priests benefit greatly by forgiving – intellectually, emotionally or spiritually – at different life stages. This process takes some time, but it is regularly and repeatedly followed by experiences of significant emotional relief.

Family responsibility

Those who have lost their ability to trust must try to live with a more vulnerable heart. Some priests have been hurt so deeply, however, that this movement to vulnerability is almost impossible on a natural level.

Such individuals are helped regularly by asking the Lord for the gift of trust, which is the experience of feeling safe and protected in close personal friendships.

Priests can also diminish loneliness by striving to let go of their excessive sense of responsibility for different aspects of their priestly ministry. This can be accomplished by sharing their ministry with other priests, Religious, and laity.

In addition, the use of meditation can be effective in relieving daily pressures. The use of centering prayer techniques can be very helpful when worries are excessive. They can benefit greatly by meditating twice daily for 10 to 15 minutes on the Lord as being more responsible than they are, or on giving all their worries and concerns to the Sacred Heart.

Some priest are most burdened by an excessive sense of responsibility for members of their families, which may result in their spending their time off at home rather than in rest and recreation with their brother priests or other friends.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for siblings to put excessive pressure on priests to bear more than their share of responsibility for a sick or aged parent. In such circumstances priests need to be assertive with their siblings and insist that they be treated fairly.

Loneliness also diminishes when a priest is thankful for his very special gifts because appreciating one's God-given beauty enhances the ability to receive love.

Unfortunately, many individuals are unable to receive consoling and refreshing love because they don't like themselves and never did.

Rectory as home

Another major factor in not being able to receive love comes about when priests unconsciously model themselves after a father or other male authority figure who suffered low self-esteem or who had difficulty allowing himself to be loved.

This conflict is extremely common in men in all life states and can be undone by trying to make a daily commitment to repeat a father's good qualities, but not his weaknesses.

Resolving this father-conflict is facilitated also by the use of past-forgiveness exercises.

Loneliness decreases significantly in priests' lives when rectories become truly homes and places of love. Making a rectory a home includes trying to make mealtime pleasant, avoiding competition with one's brother priests, working at enjoying those one lives with, confronting dysfunctional priests, and having the freedom to compliment and praise one's brother priests.

Loneliness also diminishes in rectories when pastors are good team players and welcome the input of assistant pastors in parish decision-making processes.

Some priests have such deep wounds of loneliness they can only be healed in the spiritual dimension of their lives, especially through the use of meditation. These emotional wounds are so deep that no human being's love can fill the emptiness they have in their hearts.

Priests certainly are not the only individuals with such wounds. Many married men, who had emotionally distant mothers, act out sexually in their marriage, even though their wives love them very much. In such cases the love of a wife is not able to make up for the profound wounds of loneliness from childhood and adolescence.

Also, married men may engage in compulsive homosexual behavior because their needs for a father's love and/or peer acceptance were never met in earlier critical stages of emotional development in spite of excellent loving and sexual relationships with their wives.

Over the past several years, doctors have increasingly appreciated the powerful therapeutic effects of meditation.

Dr. Herbert Benson, director of the hypertensive clinic at Harvard's Beth Israel Hospital, indicates in his book, Beyond the Relaxation Response, the tremendous therapeutic value of meditation for those with hypertension and coronary artery disease.

He recommended spiritual meditation for two 15-minute periods in the particular faith dimension of his patients' lives.

Not alone

It has also been our clinical experience in treating loneliness in priests, sisters, married and single adults, and adolescents that the use of faith meditation which focuses on the experience and the reality of being loved has powerful therapeutic value in resolving the wound of loneliness.

An example is a 31-year-old single woman whose loneliness was producing severe sadness which made it increasingly difficult for her to function at work. The time of day she found particularly difficult was her return from work since there was no one in her apartment to greet her and to lovingly console her.

She was painfully jealous of some of the married women with whom she worked who returned home every day to experience the warmth of love from their husbands and children.

This woman's loneliness diminished significantly when she began spending the first half hour upon her return home meditating on the loving presence of the Risen Lord holding her in His arms.

This young woman would remind herself during that half hour: “I am not alone, the Lord is here loving me. Even though I don't have a husband and children here, the loving Lord is here with me and His love is a great treasure and a source of joy.”

Significant relief

Over time, this meditation exercise brought significant emotional relief to this woman. She began to look forward to returning to her apartment daily because it became a place where she experienced great warmth and love.

In this process of using meditation, it becomes important for the individual to recognize the specific type of Divine Love needed to fill this inner emptiness.

In addition, a person needs to recognize his basic human need to be held in love.

For example, in a person suffering loneliness from a distant-father relationship, meditating upon the heavenly Father's loving concern and affirmation in early childhood, grade school, high school, etc., will, in time, fill his inner emptiness.

In someone whose loneliness is the result of not having athletic gifts or not having close friends in the early stages of emotional development, meditating upon the presence of Jesus as a loving brother and the best and closest of friends during times when there was rejection from peers or siblings is consoling.

Mary's presence

This particular meditation is most effective when the individual can imagine the Lord relating to him that he was very special and gifted even though he did not have athletic gifts. When used regularly, this meditation helps heal the male insecurity caused by the absence of such gifts.

In those whose loneliness is the result of having a distant-mother relationship, healing occurs through a process of meditating upon Mary as a joyful, loving woman who is always present and who holds the individual in her arms and heart, just as she did with Jesus.

As the priest meditates upon the joyful and loving presence of Mary in early childhood, grade school, high school, seminary, and priesthood, the emptiness resulting from a distant-mother relationship or for a yearning for more female love can slowly be healed. With this healing comes a feeling of greater wholeness and happiness.

Using rosary beads and meditating on each bead upon Mary's loving and joyful presence, or by asking Mary to comfort in love seems to enhance the healing process.

For those priests who are struggling with a particularly difficult female friendship, meditating repeatedly through the day on Mary as the joyful female in their lives – not X or Y – can be very consoling and liberating.

Best time of day

These meditations seem to be much more powerful and effective when done in the presence of the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, many priests report a diminishing struggle with loneliness after daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament. Thus, having a small chapel in the rectory can be extremely important to priestly ministry because it can help protect priests from the disabling pain of loneliness.

These meditations must be used regularly. They require discipline and perseverance because of the depth of the wound of loneliness within some priest's hearts, or because of the degree of stress in ministry.

In our own clinical experience using these meditation techniques in treating many priests, we have witnessed a total resolution of sadness, inner emptiness, and different types of compulsive behaviors employed in an attempt to escape from this wound.

The faith/love meditations are particularly effective at the beginning of the day, in the evenings, and when an individual finds himself slipping into behavior which is a manifestation of underlying loneliness.

Some priests experience loneliness most acutely at the end of the day. Therefore, this is the time when they find meditating particularly effective. These priests are often helped by spending 15 to 30 minutes each night asking the Lord to heal the pain of loneliness which has touched them at every life stage of their lives.

Meditating on a picture of Mary holding the Christ Child, and reflecting that her love has enfolded them at every life stage can be a source of great comfort and strength to many priests.

Also there is a great value in sitting in front of a picture of the Lord, and reflecting upon God's love flowing into oneself to strengthen, refresh, and renew. In time a priest who had previously been lonely may become overwhelmed by the amount of love which is present in his life. No longer does he feel cheated or empty, but full and joyous.

For many priests there is a significant struggle initially with this process because their emotions try to convince them that they are alone and that they have been alone many times in their lives. In the faith dimension of their lives, fortunately, it is possible to respond to this error in thinking by reflecting that they are not alone and have never been alone, or that they are loved deeply and have always been loved.

What occurs is a process which may begin purely as an intellectual or cognitive exercise. However, when employed regularly, there is a movement from the intellect to the heart. In time, priests can truly feel that they are and always have been loved in very special ways.

Need concerted effort

The use of these meditation techniques may not produce significant results for a number of weeks or months. However, if they are used with perseverance, and if simultaneous steps are taken to build trust and self-esteem and to remove anger, this concerted effort has always been beneficial to those who suffer from loneliness.

These types of faith meditations are also helpful when ministering to the lonely. Frequently, in ministering to others, our own wounds may be touched.

Since the wound of loneliness is the single major area of pain which we deal with in our practices during the day, we have found great value in meditating during the day on the reality of being deeply loved at every life stage. This serves as a source of encouragement and energy in ministry.

Men have a particular need for female tenderness and love to balance their strength, and to refresh and comfort them. From early childhood, males seek comfort from their fears, anxieties and worries in their mother's love. Thus, it is a psychological reality that men need to be consoled and held in female love.

While it is certainly important for a priest to have female friends, it is particularly essential for a celibate to experience Mary as a joyful, consoling woman, whose love can be a source of happiness, warmth, and strength.

An obstacle often seen in this process of meditating upon being loved is the difficulty many priests have in setting aside activities and responsibilities, and in trying to be quiet. Many priests really have to work hard at being tranquil and quiet before they can allow themselves to be loved.

Finally, Ordinaries and religious superiors can help priests overcome the pain of loneliness, which is a major contributor to discouragement in ministry,³ by being close to and emotionally supportive of their priests, and by sponsoring workshops on techniques for overcoming loneliness, and improving the quality of rectory life.

Once a priest is aware that loneliness is present in his life, he can take specific steps to resolve this pain. This can occur through a process of improving the quality of rectory life and of daily enjoying human and divine love.

_________

DR. FITZGIBBONS is director of Comprehensive Counseling Services in Conshohocken, Pa. He trained in psychiatry at the hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and has given many conferences for priests and religious.

APPENDIX 28

Rev. Christoper P. Meade

I was ordained to the priesthood in 1998 and resigned from the ministry in 2007. I attended gatherings of the Fraternity for all of those years. I never officially became a member of the Fraternity but found my regular attendance on Mondays, gatherings, and social outings to be extremely rewarding. The brotherhood empowered me to act more effectively as a priest. The explosion of the sexual abuse scandal in 2002 and the dysfunctional behaviors I encountered in some brother priests were a challenge to me as I served in the Hartford Archdiocese. The vulnerability that priests showed in the meetings, in a context of trust and support, helped me to persevere, at least up until my decision to leave ministry. I still stay in contact with members of the Fraternity and continue to feel their support and kindness through conversations and social gatherings.