From minister to ministry for Trevor
Ex Green Party leader has been ordained a priest
FORMER politician Trevor Sargent has said he has fulfilled his true calling in life after swapping the Dáil for the pulpit.
The former Green Party leader, who was ordained a Church of Ireland priest four months ago, said he has found his new vocation more fulfilling and stimulating than his past role as a government minister.
The once high-profile politician – who is responsible for four busy parishes in Co. Waterford – also described his day-to-day priestly duties as a ‘more real way of living’.
He said: ‘That’s what it feels like. It’s hard to explain, but I would say, and I would have said this to others who have asked me if I miss politics, would you ask a soldier if he misses a war?
‘That might seem a bit of an extreme analogy, but at the same time there’s an intensity in politics that comes from its competitive nature and challenges.
‘Sometimes it results from a certain level of deception in politics in that to get elected one has to convey a sense of being superhuman, that you’re capable of doing wonderful things.
‘As a priest, however, you’re wearing your vulnerability on your sleeve because you’re saying: “I too am a sinner and I am very thankful that God has been loving enough to recognise that I have possibility and a value and that I am loved and wanted”.
‘That vulnerability is also an honesty in that other people can identify with it.
‘If a politician comes out and says
Fulfilling his ‘true calling in life’
he is feeling vulnerable and that he doesn’t think he can do it, he wouldn’t get elected next time.’
Rev Sargent, who taught in Cork and Balbriggan for 30 years prior to entering politics, also acknowledged he always seemed destined for a life in the priesthood from a young age.
In an interview with Mature Living magazine, he recalled: ‘It came as no surprise to my parents when I told them I was joining the priesthood. Not in the slightest.
‘When I was a kid, I used to get my younger brother and sister to play church.
‘I’d get them to turn their seats around and kneel at them. I’d then ask everyone to be quiet, because we were going to have a church sermon. To be honest, I don’t remember that, but my mother tells me about it.’
But the Dubliner – who away from the demands of the parishes spends time at his home in Curracloe, Co. Wexford, with wife, Áine Neville – admits he still takes a huge interest in politics, not least the implications of Brexit on Ireland.
He said he still hopes that there will be a second referendum, blaming the result of the last vote on ‘the culmination of a long process of dishonest engagement and irresponsible media coverage where the European Union was blamed for all the various ills in Britain’.
Reflecting on his transition from politician to priest, he added: ‘When I lost the election in 2011, it was a classic case of God not closing one door, but opening another, and I was then “freed”, you might say, to pursue the path to ordination if that was still open to me. God smiled on that and here we are!’
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