Where the Rubber Hits the Road

The Perfect Priest The results of a computerized survey indicate the perfect priest preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 8:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $50 weekly to the poor. He is 28 years old and has preached 30 years. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens. The perfect priest smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls daily on parish families, shut-ins and the hospitalized, and is always in his office when needed. If your priest does not measure up, simply send this letter to six other churches that are tired of their priest, too. Then bundle up your priest and send him to the church on the top of the list. In one week, you will receive 1,643 priests and one of them wi...

The New Advent blog has posted an article linking to a comprehensive list of Church statistics. It is worth noting that whereas the media would have us believe that the Church is in severe decline as evidenced by the declining numbers of priests, the actual truth is that priest numbers have steady increased since 1985. To apply the wisdom of Mark Twain, the reports of the death of the church are greatly exaggerated.

Fr. Michael Smith (a 'happy soldier' in his own right) sent me an uplifting article today that was published by the Zenit news service about a priest from St. Louis in which he expresses his joy in ministry of over 55 years. Sometimes I might put out the image of being dour or unhappy by the negative issues that I often deal with in these pages. Rest assured folks that I too can state unequivocally that my 20+ years as a priests has been a very positive and happy experience for me. I cannot imagine that I would ever want to do anything else!! If God calls one to such a priestly vocation, happiness is a sure fruit of this ministry. I pray that more men will heed this divine invitation and experience the joy of the priesthood that I see in my life, and in the life of most priests that I have come to know.