Priests In Crisis
by Benedict J. Groeschel, C.F.R.
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The Changing Face of the Priesthood
Donald B. Cozzens (Liturgical Press: Collegeville, MN)
I first heard of Fr. Donald Cozzens' book from seminarians whose reaction to it ranged from fury to scorn. A sample of reactions from diocesan seminaries was strongly negative, including some students who had been at the seminary where Fr. Cozzens is the rector. Admittedly, those I spoke to would be likely to be strong supporters of Pope John Paul II. The fault they find is that they believe Fr. Cozzens' picture of the contemporary seminarian is biased and inaccurate. They were also strongly reacting to Cozzens' assumption that a large number of seminarians are, to use his word, "gay." A number of seminarians thought that the book was simply another addition to the liberal agenda under the guise of objectivity.
When I first began reading The Changing Face of the Priesthood, I realized how many things the author and I had in common. We both have been working with priests, specifically, diocesan priests, for the last three decades. We have both been teaching and working with seminarians for as long, although I had a broader range of students because I also work with many members of religious orders. (A fact that is worth mentioning is that this book leaves out religious order priests except to mention that the spirituality of diocesan priests in the past had been a "monastic" spirituality imposed upon them by their teachers. Oddly, none of the orders he refers to in this regard — Dominicans, Franciscans and Sulpicians — are monastics at all.)
Nevertheless, I found many similarities between Fr. Cozzens and myself. We both had substantial psychological training and we both share some strong psychoanalytic background. We differ in this regard because I have always tried to retain some critical sense and to be cautious about various psychological theories. Although never a seminary rector, I have interviewed, since the early 1970s, 400 priests who have taken leaves from the priesthood. Our Trinity Retreat House founded by Cardinal Cooke to assist priests, has been a place where many (about 200) have resolved their difficulties or regained their strength and have been able to return to work with a new enthusiasm. We have given retreats at Trinity to thousands of priests and I have directed retreats for priests in over 50 dioceses in the English-speaking world. I am delighted to say, at this writing, 82 priests on leave have returned to the active ministry through Trinity Retreat. I mention all of this to lend credibility to my criticism of Fr. Cozzens' book.
The first thing that one observes in this book is that Fr. Cozzens loves the Catholic priesthood. In many passages he writes with respect and enthusiasm, but with a very particular point of view, which I believe is quite lopsided. His book reminds me of a visit I once paid to a progressive seminary. The librarian, a priest, boasted that 80% of the books had been written since 1965. He was less than amused when I told him that the place reminded me of a large pamphlet rack. There are similarities to that library in the index of Fr. Cozzens' book. There are 11 references to Sigmund Freud and in fact several whole pages given to his psychoanalytic theory, which right now is very passé in the behavioral sciences. There are also eight pages on themes of Carl Jung. There are only two references, both of them rather negative, to John Paul II. Although the Pope has written extensively on the priesthood and the theology of love, chastity and sexuality, none of this monumental work is even alluded to. There are four references and two pages of Andrew Greeley's thought but no mention at all of saints like Augustine, John Chrysostom, Thomas Aquinas, Alphonsus Ligouri and John Eudes, who all wrote extensively on the priesthood. One might offer the defense that these are writers in the past who did not share the contemporary Catholic concept of the priesthood. Well, Hans Kung and Richard McBrien each get several references but no mention of Avery Dulles' superb book The Priestly Office. De Lubac, Congar, Guardini and von Balthasar are all missing. They all wrote on the priesthood and shaped its identity since the Council and still inspire many.
There are several other indicators of the lopsidedness of Fr. Cozzens' position. His view of the priesthood is very much limited to what might be called progressive American Catholicism, an approach that has been co-terminus with the drastic reduction of the number of seminarians and the loss of vocations. It is my impression that his view of the priesthood is rejected by a large number of Catholic seminarians today. If Cozzens is correct about where the priesthood is going, it will get there without most of the men studying in the seminary today.
Fr. Cozzens concentrates on ideas of the priesthood only from the immediate post-Vatican II era. This was a confusing time, perhaps unavoidable, that saw an immense decline in vocations — a time that thankfully appears to be coming to an end.
I must confess my own biases. For the past 25 years I have been suspicious of fads. I taught in a seminary that long ago disappeared where the ultimate answer to every problem arrived about every six months. I learned to hold on to the faith and solid teaching and to be patient with the fads. I owe some of this caution to my teachers at Columbia University and the doctoral program in psychology. They have seen it all. People ask me if being a psychologist ever challenged my faith. Not one bit. Faith is a rock. Theories like those of Freud and Jung and many others are just that — theories. In science older theories are supposed to give way to better ones or at least to ones better related to that moment. Faith is a rock; psychological theory is snow. You fit the snow around the rock.
Fr. Cozzens does not appear to be adequately aware of the limitations of theories and he certainly seems to blow caution to the winds with the Oedipal theory of the priest's relationship to the bishop. This gets 20 pages, and again religious order priests are left out. I felt like singing, "I ain't got no daddy." Along with a fourth of the priests in the United States who are not diocesan priests, I still managed to be validly ordained without an Oedipal relationship to a bishop or abbot.
The point that needs to be emphasized and explained is that the particular psychological theories that Fr. Cozzens is using, those of Freud and Jung, are outmoded at the present time. You may have to take this on faith, but the whole field of behavioral science has moved from a psychoanalytic emphasis to a bio-social approach to human behavior, for better or for worse. It may surprise Fr. Cozzens and those who agree with him that because there is no empirical evidence for Freud and Jung's ideas, these two venerable figures are often called "mystics" by psychologists who don't know what a mystic is. They're so designated because they are seen as creators of myths, and very time-bound myths at that. This book contains an evaluation of the Catholic priesthood based on the point of view of a psychologist in Vienna in the 1920s.
On a far deeper level, I have a criticism that I hesitate to make but it is at the core of the problem of this book. Fr. Cozzens is obviously a sincere, dedicated priest. I give him an "A" for effort and I admit we probably could have a great dialogue on the fraternity of priests, which he celebrates. My prayerful conviction is that Cozzens' concept of the transcendent and his use of this idea is the core of the problem. He uses transcendence in an abstract philosophical way. He describes transcendence on page 29 as "those elusive moments in which we experience, literally, an unspeakable, harmonious, liberating union with creation . . . One feels both infinitely small as (the soul) experiences the vastness of the universe and yet significant, as a part of it, in communion with it . . . the soul, was created for such experiences."
I categorically and emphatically reject this philosophical notion of transcendence as the Christian experience. Indeed, it may well be antecedent to Christian prayer and grace-filled contact with God, but it is not what the Christian writers mean by transcendence. Paschal said in his description of his mystical encounter with God, "Not the God of the philosophers, but the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."
Christian spirituality is not philosophy, scriptural exegesis, theology or liturgy, although all of these may serve to help us relate to the transcendent God. Christian spirituality is a personal relationship with the living Christ and through Him to the Father and the Holy Spirit. This is Christian transcendence. It is, in every sense of the word, personal as is seen in the lives of such fervent Christians as St. Stephen who called out in his martyrdom to the living Christ.
Fr. Cozzens, having given us a very inadequate description of transcendence, then takes up the other dimension of priestly development, namely — intimacy.
His thoughts on friendship and intimacy show a depth of pastoral experience and understanding, although the ghost of Sigmund Freud seems to be standing in the corner.
He never seems to refer to that intimacy which is an essential part of Christian spirituality — intimacy with Christ which spiritual writers, Catholic, Protestant and Orthodox, all describe in a surprisingly similar way.
As someone who deplores the loss of a real sense of religious devotion as an essential component of a balanced personality I think that this lack of recognition of intimacy with Christ, Our Lady or the saints suggests a rather secularized approach to the Christian life. This is a key objection because this ultra-objective, emotionally uninvolved, ultimately defensive approach to the Christ of faith and of the sacraments has produced a crippling spiritual anemia in seminaries, religious orders and in Catholic life in general. Liturgical fads and the complete attention to liturgical details with no personal involvement have left most formation programs pale and intellectualized. It's no wonder that few seminarians hold on; and most of those who stay do so in spite of the isolated prayer forms they encounter. If I brought some of the simple good Gospel Christians of Harlem or the enthusiastic Latin American Catholics of the South Bronx to one of these intellectualized liturgical events they would all think we were mad or at least "that we didn't know Jesus at all." As Paschal said, "Fire, not the god of the philosophers. I have betrayed Jesus Christ."
Now we come to a part of Fr. Cozzens' book that I totally agree with — his criticism of the pre-Council seminary. I think he is too kind in his assessment. I thought seminary life was awful, oppressive, inhuman, arbitrary, and impersonal — even though these institutions were run by very good men who were themselves victims of the system. We went to the seminary fired up by the Holy Spirit to do anything for God and we spent years with no apostolate learning to do nothing for God; and some never got out of the rut.
Seminaries did change. New and fresh ideas came in. Only these ideas were often uncritically accepted — especially psychological ones at a time when psychology was undermining the moral foundation of 80-90% of college students. The same ideas were brought into the seminary.
This assessment by Professor Donald Campbell was given in his presidential address to the American Psychological Association in 1975. And mea culpa! I was part of this circus for a while, but then realized that something was terribly wrong.
Christian morality and tradition were replaced by very flimsy psychology and moral philosophy based on it. We had to change but in some coherent way integrated with what we already were. Just looking at Catholic higher education and seminaries in particular you could write a great book on the theme, "The children of this world are wiser in their own generation than the children of the light." I recently heard the new archbishop of New York, Archbishop Edward Egan, wisely observe that "We don't want to go back to the 1950s but we don't want to go back to the 1970s or 1980s either. We should go ahead."
Fr. Cozzens rightly places a great deal of emphasis on the ability of a priest to make good friendships particularly because he leads a celibate or solitary life. I could not agree more. However, even his discussion of intimacy leaves me with some serious questions. He makes such excellent observations as the following: "If the celibate intimacy with a few close friends is authentic, the priest discovers that the core of his heart remains fixed on God alone."
However, Fr. Cozzens falls into the trap of equating psychological maturity with spiritual growth. This is a semi-Pelagian idea, which has been so popular in recent years that it is accepted as a truism. The actual fact is that a review of the lives of saints or even people being considered for canonization at the present time does not reveal a great many people who fit into the modern psychological category of very well-balanced people. While I do think the saints have spiritual maturity, often very saintly people and profoundly religious people struggle with other personality conflicts. Fr. Cozzens makes a mistake even Pope Pius XII fell into at one time. Addressing a group of Italian health professionals, Pius said that all of the saints had the highest degree of mental health and stability. I seldom disagree with Popes but this is simply not true. My own patron saint was a mentally ill homeless man — St. Benedict Joseph Labre. Yet, whatever there was left of the poor soul, he gave it all to God.
What's the point of making this distinction? The point is that grace may build on nature but they are not the same thing. Persons become spiritually mature by surrendering themselves to God with all they have and as sincerely as they can. This is true of a priest as well. Because some have personality conflicts (and don't we all) they should not despair of the possibility of genuine spiritual growth. I am not disputing Fr. Cozzens' contention that a priest needs good friends. I consider good friends one of the greatest blessings of life, but the ability to make good friends is not the same as the ability to surrender oneself to God. It is that angular and somewhat difficult personality, St. John of the Cross, who made the observation that "It's best to live in a monastery as if you lived there alone." Yet this was a man of great charity and generosity. Nevertheless, his own confreres never understood him.
I think Fr. Cozzens equates the natural with the supernatural too easily and in this way looses some of the beauty of transcendence and the mystery of Christianity. This shortcoming is not unique to Fr. Cozzens. One can find it in much religious writing at the present time.
I do agree with Fr. Cozzens that the lack of transcendence leads religious people to boredom. Along with many young seminarians and priests as well as many committed young Christians. I find much of our attempts at worship, liturgy and even theologizing very boring. The glorious 1970s bring back perhaps an example of one of the most boring religious events in Catholic history. This was the "Bible vigil." Younger readers will not remember it. It was a pathetic attempt to supplant Eucharistic Adoration with a Bible procession, reading and sermon. It was so terribly boring that it disappeared out of sight almost immediately.
The central hypothesis of Fr. Cozzens' book is that priests and even bishops are engaged in a Oedipal conflict with the bishop and Pope, respectively. His reasoning on this is complex, in fact a tour de force — and one really would have to be familiar with psychoanalytic theory to understand all of the connotations of what he's saying. If I had the time and was so inclined I would be prepared to do a book on this subject and I might have done just that in the early 1980s.
However, Fr. Cozzens' rather orthodox Freudian point of view is not relevant at all to the present thinking on personality development. If we were to announce a Saturday seminar in New York on applications of the Oedipal theory, it would be largely attended by elderly Jewish women therapists. The men would be already dead of old age. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy elderly Jewish women therapists. In fact, it would be a lot of fun, but not very relevant.
Fr. Cozzens sees the unresolved clerical Oedipal conflict as the source of much unhappiness and immaturity and lack of fulfillment in the priesthood. He describes a priest who is still dominated by an unresolved Oedipal conflict as either a "pious effete cleric" or a maverick. I object to the use of the word pious as a negative quality. I happen to know many devout (pious, if you will) priests who have remained the loyal opposition of very liberal bishops. They have not been effete and they have not been sycophants as Fr. Cozzens suggests. As a matter of fact, lots of them have toughened up by living in an atmosphere where they are rejected and marginalized. In more traditional dioceses, I have observed some progressive priests who have been marginalized and become a respectable loyal opposition. Being at odds with the bishop on a number of serious issues is not a fate reserved for more progressive members of the clergy. Quite the opposite.
I would like to propose that a far more effective and time-tested and scripturally-based analysis of priestly maturity is the classical theory of the three levels of spiritual development and the intermediate steps. Writers as different as Fr. Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange and M. Scott Peck have explored these classic teachings and described the spiritually mature person in contemporary terms. I attempted to bring these steps into some agreement with contemporary psychology in two books, Spiritual Passages (Crossroad, 1983, still in print) and The Journey Toward God (Servant, 1999).
The initial steps of moral integration, maturity of faith and trust in God leading to a life of love of God and neighbor and dependent on the gifts of the Holy Spirit seem to me to be a far better framework for discussing personal growth as a priest, religious or even a dedicated Christian lay person. We all have the same road to travel and making a bishop or Pope Oedipus Rex ultimately seems to be a distraction. We are on the road of discipleship called by the Son of God — a road that has been well laid out in the New Testament.
Space does not permit a proper criticism of Fr. Cozzens' picture of his inadequate priest. While there is certainly some validity to his observation about priest archetypes and even about the Puer Aeternus (the eternal child), his observations can be hurtful and wounding to a number of people who simply don't fit the stereotype of the American self-actualizing personality. I am puzzled that anyone with this much experience could so blithefully fall into the culture-bound stereotypes of what is healthy and what is not. I have seen some of the very people whom Fr. Cozzens seems to dismiss as hopelessly inadequate grow and, by good will and grace, learn to serve God's people well, guided by the moral teaching of the Gospel and the Church. They have gained truly impressive reputations as priests. I've also seen some of the beautiful people he describes throw the priesthood over. He would tend to dismiss the healthy aspects of some who don't fit in well with his thinking. They come closer to his scathing caricature of saintly people whom apparently he does not like.
Finally we come to what is the most objectionable part of Fr. Cozzens's book. This is his discussion of what he calls "gay priests and seminarians." I object to the use of the word "gay" because it is a serious ambiguity. This cynical word was generated by the active homosexual community years ago in order to communicate the fact that people were not happy with this life-style. In the film The Boys in the Band there is a sarcastic remark — "Show me a happy homosexual and I will show you a gay corpse." Unfortunately, this word, which, if one is honest, means a life-style contrary to the teaching of the New Testament and the Church, is used here simply to mean homosexual, and not gay. Homosexual is a neutral word. A person could be homosexually oriented and a saint. A homosexual can lead a totally chaste life and many do. On the other hand, the word "gay" refers to the gay scene — an immoral subculture, one of many in our society. While Fr. Cozzens may not be using it that way, his use is entirely ambiguous.
Throughout this section of his book Fr. Cozzens discusses in a very detached way the behaviors and misbehaviors of some seminarians and priests. I did not find any clear moral statement that the engagement in homosexual genital acts is wrong and morally unacceptable. Those who without repentance are given to this behavior or even support this behavior without repentance should not function in the Catholic priesthood because they have a commitment to a life-style or to the defense of a life-style that is contrary to the explicit moral teachings of the Catholic Church.
When we put this anomaly into a spiritual context it's even worse. Any life-style at all which commits a person to immoral behavior — it can be heterosexual misbehavior, it can be simony, it can be calumny and detraction, it can be anything — such a life-style is utterly inconsistent with the life of a person publicly committed to the service of the Gospel and to Christian discipleship. I'm not saying that Fr. Cozzens denies this, but in his entire discussion I do not see any clear statement on the moral aspects of this whole question.
Also, the characterization of people as homosexual is problematic itself. What does the word mean? Does it mean behavior? Does it mean attractions? Does it mean conflicts? Some of the authors that Fr. Cozzens quotes with approval, including John Boswell and Richard Sipe, hide under ambiguity and use statistics in a way that I would simply call dishonest and a purposeful distortion. I have read their works and I am appalled that these and others would be positively cited in a book on the Catholic priesthood.
Much damage has been done and many vocations lost or destroyed because those in charge of formation programs for priests and religious were confused or even complicit in immoral behavior. If they were sinfully involved and they repented and asked pardon, an evaluation could be made as to their ability to remain chaste and to serve the Church in an appropriate way. This is exactly what was not done in some cases. Sins can be forgiven and sinful habits overcome but only if one repents them. A very simple line from the Psalms could have guided the confused in these decades. "Blessed are they who walk in the law of the Lord." And unblessed are they that do not.
I have known a number of persons, clerical and non-clerical, who have confronted and deeply repented homosexual behavior. They have struggled to put it out of their lives and with the help of grace almost always succeeded. The Courage movement throughout the United States assists Catholics of all vocations to lead a chaste life even though they may have compulsions in a homosexual direction.
Last year in the Seminary Journal there was a very fine article called "A New Generation Is on the Rise in Seminaries" by Fr. Richard Marzheuser. His untimely death was quite tragic since he was making a significant contribution to the faculty of Mt. Saint Mary's Seminary in Cincinnati. Generally speaking, those who knew Fr. Marzheuser said that he was of a more liberal cast of thought. This is especially interesting because his article makes the point very strongly that a new kind of seminarian is emerging and that among other things the new seminarians abhor passivity and moral delinquency. He says the new seminarians read and carry on intelligent conversations with educated people; they love to pray; they set high moral standards for themselves because they are weary of scandal and they are transparent, which means that they do not lead double lives. They are strongly committed to the Eucharist. Anyone who reads Fr. Cozzens' book would do very well to read Fr. Marzheuser's article in the Seminary Journal (Fall 1999, p. 21-31). They are writing about different populations.
I have been very critical of this book and I feel badly about this because its author is a Catholic priest. I am sure that Fr. Cozzens is a dedicated priest who sees things in an entirely different way than I do. He's expecting a new Church and I'm expecting the Church to reform.
We have very different views of the Catholic Church and where it is going. I can only say that I hope he's wrong and he's surely hoping that I'm wrong. But, let's put the differences out on the table. Let's admit that there are profound differences of approach, values and even, perhaps, belief. At the same time, we do belong to the same priesthood and the same Church.
I can only pray that in the future these profound differences will be resolved. Since both of us are getting on in years, I suspect that we will have amply opportunity to discuss our differences when we arrive in purgatory.
Fr. Benedict J. Groeschel, CFR, is a psychologist, seminary professor and Director of the Office of Spiritual Development of the Archdiocese of New York. He's one of the founding members of the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal.
© 2000 Robert Moynihan
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