(e) – Perfection Test

Forgive the short posts–I have a lot of thoughts and a little less time these days.

This is a response to a comment on the Orthosphere. I am trying to keep my critiques a little more segregated–no need to poke the hornets nest, especially since I am just as fallible as other commenters. But I also would like to be direct about what has drawn my criticism, since ambiguity serves to confuse rather than clarify the message. To wit:

If I’d have a son, I’d discourage him from joining the armed forces or becoming a priest. Joining the US military means being an agent of world Satanism. And the Church clearly does not want her sons to become priests, or else they would not spend a decade having psychologists looking for an excuse to weed them out, and they would not force them to operate under overwhelming presumption of guilt of any accusation of sexual impropriety. Until priests are allowed to wear bodycams 24/7, my standing advice is for no man to even consider it.

If compliance to the law is contingent upon the law-givers consistently living by that law, then there is no just exercise of authority.

Yes, the law-givers should consistently live by the law, but so should everyone subject to the law. If obedience to any authority is contingent on some person behaving some way, then one has misunderstood ones role vis-a-vis authority, and ones obligation to that authority.

Rather than applying a perfection test to lawgivers, perhaps we should be more concerned with the lawgivers applying a perfection test to us. Perhaps we should be more concerned with the Law Himself applying a perfection test to us. The Church needs young, bold priests, willing to take on the challenges of their vocation. Shoot, all of us need to be bold in facing the challenges of our particular vocation. How many husbands and wives fail the theological perfection test of the sacrament of matrimony? At least as many people as there are priests that fail in their duty to us as shepherds.

Maybe let’s try praying for our current, future, and former priests, rather than declaring an unwillingness to work to solve the problem until the problem is solved.

St. Paul, pray for us.

AMDG