Priestly fraternity and lay support are of vital importance. How can we do better?
When Toby — not his real name — approached the altar during his ordination Mass roughly a decade ago, he was understandably nervous — perhaps much more so than the average ordinand.
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.
“I was trying to do something wholeheartedly and properly and conscientiously, and my heart wasn’t there. Especially, saying Mass became very painful. It was this experience of this chasm between what I was doing and where I was [mentally].”
Toby requested laicization just months after his ordination day. He told the Register he had always harbored a strong attraction to marriage; he’s happily married today.
To be sure, Toby spent significantly less time ministering as a priest than most ordained men. But 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.
More: https://www.ncregister.com/news/why-are-priests-leaving-ministry-burnout-isolation
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