Golden reflections

Fifty years ago tomorrow, April 29, I was ordained a priest. To celebrate this milestone I am sponsoring a Mass of thanksgiving and chilling out with fellow happily-married ex-priests.

I honor the day with more than a passing mention because, modesty aside, I like the person I have become and this I owe to, after my parents’ upbringing, both my seminary education and the life I was challenged and accepted to live as a priest.

I have never regretted my decision to enter the seminary to become a priest. Nor have I ever regretted courting trouble from crusty religious superiors in working as an idealistic newly-ordained priest to implement Vatican II reforms.

I have never regretted either that I allowed my idealism to overflow into involvement with students, farmers, and workers who struggled for justice and human rights, the latter part of which consisted mainly in facing up to and suffering the savagery of Martial Law.

This at-the-time “unpriestly” lifestyle that I shared with a few other even braver and, so to speak, more “rebellious” priests naturally created a lot of tension between me, my peers and my superiors. The resulting alienation from traditional priestly life of saying mass and administering the sacraments eventually led to the decision (that I don’t regret either) to leave my priesthood of eleven years, get married and start a family.

The decision essentially was to revert to being just an ordinary Christian layman because I saw then and do now that an ordinary Christian has so much more freedom to live his/her faith in Jesus than an ordained priest who has a vow of obedience to his bishop (and some bishops’ orders, I must say, simply cannot be in conscience obeyed) in addition to his life being stymied by hundreds of canon laws that have very little or next to nothing to do with Christ’s message of love and service of one’s neighbor.

It is a tribute to the progress of Catholic thought that those who have contrary ideas today no longer have to leave the Catholic Church much less be burnt at the stake. Thus I left the priesthood but not the Catholic Church even if strictly I can no longer be considered a practicing Catholic.

Modesty aside though, I like to believe I am sincerely straining to live a Christian life and walk as closely as I can next to, if not on, the path blazed by Jesus Christ.

Obviously, I cannot celebrate the 50th anniversary of my ordination by renewing priestly vows of celibacy and obedience. I can only, and do hereby, renew my baptismal vow to renounce evil and promote Christ’s way of life.

To recap then, I am in celebration mode because I have come full circle back to no-religious-frills Christianity and I cannot be any happier for it.