Be thankful for your wife and realize the favor you have received from God.
Proverbs: 18: 22

All across the world, priests have fallen in love with women, women with priests. Thousands have married. And many appear to have grown in Christian virtue, an example to their flock, and a blessing to all of us.

They give us hope, a refreshing change from the scandals that rocked the Church in the last decades, leaving children bewildered and frightened, parents angry beyond telling, and Sunday collections transferred to lawyers’ coffers, with Church property sold by Vatican real estate brokers.

The priest in question today is the Rev. Alberto Cutié. On Friday, he admitted to Miami Herald reporters that he has fallen in love with a woman in his parish whom he has known for about ten years. She is divorced and has three children.

Here and there, we will hear: “He was such a good priest!” “Wonderful with the people!” “His homilies were inspiring!”.

Does anyone stop to consider that it might possibly be the love between them that, with grace, helped him to be such a Christ-like priest? And who can doubt his good influence on her?

While the book by David Price, Shattered Vowsis fairly old by now, his efforts to travel around the country and interview countless married priests should be encouraging for all of us.

Father John Catoir has spoken of the conflict between good and evil in the Church. “The kind of spiritual anarchy is a growing trend among some Catholics who want to marginalize the pope and the bishops.”

For the most part, Catholics have no desire to marginalize either popes or bishops. And, thank You, Lord, not many bishops or priests want to marginalize Catholics, men or women, priests or lay.

Actually, considering the problems we have been through these past decades, it is a miracle of grace that priests still prepare and deliver good homilies. Parents still pray for their children and work to instill in them habits that will place them on the high road to happiness and steadfastness in difficult times. Sad to say, Rome has marginalized many of her people, particularly our women.

Somehow, I think Jesus has better plans for those who have served Him with such generosity and love. Without the benefit of Ordination, they have shepherded His sheep over mountains of confusion and across restful, peaceful valleys of certitude. They may not agree with the Church’s stand on every point of its man-made laws, but they know with certitude such disagreements do not place them in schism.

This Church belongs to every baptized child of God, no matter what age, and Thomas Merton has assured us:

In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.

And Father Donald B. Cozzens, speaks of shepherding,:

Pastoring, not for the faint of heart, is equally unsuited for the lazy of soul; it is for the adult leader. The priest is called to be such a leader– he is called to be innocent without being naive, committed without being aloof, a man of the Church without being clerical or elitist. Only the mature adult, full in the stature of grace, meets these demands.
“The Changing Face of the Priesthood” p.79

And Cozzens might have added: “Man or woman, married or celibate, young or old. All are called to the priesthood of Christ.

Alleluia! Alleluia! Amen.

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