Why Are So Many Young Priests Leaving Ministry?
Despite growing up Catholic, loving his faith, and enjoying constant encouragement throughout his seminary experience, Toby had nevertheless been harboring serious doubts about whether he could truly say “Yes” to priesthood. But he says expectations from family, supporters and the seminary itself created a situation where he felt it impossible to step back from ordination.
Though he immediately felt deeply insecure in the priesthood, Toby, on the advice of an older priest, decided to take his best swing at parish ministry.
“By Christmas, I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown,” Toby recalled.
Toby requested laicization just a few years after his ordination day. He told the Register he had always harbored a strong attraction to marriage; he’s happily married today.
The phenomenon of men leaving the priesthood in short order — for reasons that have nothing to do with misconduct or scandal — are more common than you might think.
Experts who work with U.S. priests told the Register they have increasingly seen, in recent years, the issues of burnout and loneliness drive men away from their vocation. And the data support this observation: According to a recent study by The Catholic Project, younger priests are reporting higher levels of burnout and loneliness compared with their more senior peers.
Father Peter — also not his real name — a young parochial vicar ordained roughly a decade ago who serves on the East Coast, told the Register that he knows “a notable number of guys” his age and younger who have left the priesthood, in his diocese and elsewhere.
He recalled one peer who left the priesthood after just six years, citing the “un-Christlike” behavior of fellow priests. Other peers — once they came to understand how “messy and broken” people who work in the Church can be behind the scenes — conclude the priesthood is not for them, he said.
“I’ve known guys who don’t want to leave the priesthood, but they feel they have no choice and no support from other priests, from their bishop,” Father Peter said.
“Basically, they get to a place of: ‘If this is what priesthood is, then I don’t want any part of it,’” he said.
Despite his relatively short time in active ministry, Toby — who ministered in the U.K. — said he was able to observe firsthand how the often-lonely priestly lifestyle can be damaging and push men to leave.
“Basically, we’re forming a community [in seminary], and then [after ordination] effectively asked to live pretty much a life of isolation, of solitude. … I saw that as a factor for other men who basically discerned their way out of seminary before being ordained. I know that was a big factor for a good friend of mine.”
The stresses, isolation and “bachelor lifestyle” that some priests fall into can lead to depression, hopelessness, substance abuse and even, tragically, suicides.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/why-are-...-isolation
Despite growing up Catholic, loving his faith, and enjoying constant encouragement throughout his seminary experience, Toby had nevertheless been harboring serious doubts about whether he could truly say “Yes” to priesthood. But he says expectations from family, supporters and the seminary itself created a situation where he felt it impossible to step back from ordination.
Though he immediately felt deeply insecure in the priesthood, Toby, on the advice of an older priest, decided to take his best swing at parish ministry.
“By Christmas, I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown,” Toby recalled.
Toby requested laicization just a few years after his ordination day. He told the Register he had always harbored a strong attraction to marriage; he’s happily married today.
The phenomenon of men leaving the priesthood in short order — for reasons that have nothing to do with misconduct or scandal — are more common than you might think.
Experts who work with U.S. priests told the Register they have increasingly seen, in recent years, the issues of burnout and loneliness drive men away from their vocation. And the data support this observation: According to a recent study by The Catholic Project, younger priests are reporting higher levels of burnout and loneliness compared with their more senior peers.
Father Peter — also not his real name — a young parochial vicar ordained roughly a decade ago who serves on the East Coast, told the Register that he knows “a notable number of guys” his age and younger who have left the priesthood, in his diocese and elsewhere.
He recalled one peer who left the priesthood after just six years, citing the “un-Christlike” behavior of fellow priests. Other peers — once they came to understand how “messy and broken” people who work in the Church can be behind the scenes — conclude the priesthood is not for them, he said.
“I’ve known guys who don’t want to leave the priesthood, but they feel they have no choice and no support from other priests, from their bishop,” Father Peter said.
“Basically, they get to a place of: ‘If this is what priesthood is, then I don’t want any part of it,’” he said.
Despite his relatively short time in active ministry, Toby — who ministered in the U.K. — said he was able to observe firsthand how the often-lonely priestly lifestyle can be damaging and push men to leave.
“Basically, we’re forming a community [in seminary], and then [after ordination] effectively asked to live pretty much a life of isolation, of solitude. … I saw that as a factor for other men who basically discerned their way out of seminary before being ordained. I know that was a big factor for a good friend of mine.”
The stresses, isolation and “bachelor lifestyle” that some priests fall into can lead to depression, hopelessness, substance abuse and even, tragically, suicides.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/why-are-...-isolation
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
