As someone who has worked in the Catholic Church for over 25 years it is no surprise that priests are a big part of my life. Some of my best friends are priests. So when comments and posts started appearing on social media that priests’ lives mattered less than the sacraments during the initial months of the pandemic – I took great offense. My offense was much more than personal though.

Eucharist

            Yes that word deserves one line and centering because Eucharist is who we are as Catholics. We become who and what we receive. The inability to receive Eucharist when Churches was closed was crushing for Catholics. Eucharist is our spiritual food for the journey, and we were unable to receive.

            Eucharist is also about the body of Christ and respecting every member of the body of Christ. Catholic Social Teaching calls it Respect for Life and Dignity of the Human Person. It is rooted in “Love your neighbor as yourself.” We respect all life from womb to tomb – there are no exceptions. Yet I was seeing on social media that priests were suddenly an exception. There was a post that indicated that for a priest to die while/from giving sacraments was beautiful because he was dying from what he is called to do . . .

I cannot wrap my Catholic brain and heart around that concept. I realize in our history that there are priests who ministered during plagues. There are many saints who did the same. Each of those was a personal choice made with prayer and discernment. In fairness to today’s ministers it must be noted that they did not have the scientific information we do today. To make universal statements that all priests should minister anyway is completely unfair, and does not take into account the priests’ personal health situation. Many of our Catholic priests are in the vulnerable population for this pandemic. Universal comments do not take that into account.

Martin Luther King Jr. said, “The ultimate measure of a person is not where one stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where one stands at times of challenge and controversy.” (inclusive language changes made by me) If our respect for life is second to sacraments, well I think we have some thinking to do as the people of God. Before one makes the argument that our faith will protect all of us, I think it is extremely important to note that our moral theology is about making informed decisions with our well-formed conscience. Universal statements that are not based on our values or teachings do not reflect our moral theology.

            My concern is that some of our faithful believed that sacraments were more important than human life. I have a wise friend that notes Jesus taught the adults and played with the children. Our Church catechizes children and not adults. Perhaps that is another one of our failures.