Prayer of St John Fisher for good bishops

prisonment or even death. In early 16th century England priests did not expect that in just a few short years they would only be able to celebrate the Sacraments in secret, at the risk of being hung, drawn, and quartered if caught. They did not anticipate that their own bishops would betray the faith, would abandon them. Fathers of families did not anticipate that in just a few years they would only be able to attend the Holy Mass, and to refuse attendance at heretical services, at the risk of crippling fines, of imprisonment, and of the loss of all their possessions. And yet that is exactly what priests and fathers of families faced. But though they did not choose to live in a time calling for heroic witness, God chose them for that time, and God offered them all the graces necessary to be faithful to the Truth that comes from God, faithful until death.

Why did the prince of this world orchestrate such severe punishments for priests caught celebrating the Holy Mass? Because the devil is terribly afraid of losing a great multitude of souls through the apostolate of a priest. When God calls a young man to take up the spiritual arms of the priesthood, that young man is called forward to kneel before his bishop, who anoints his hands with sacred chrism, praying: “May it please you, O Lord, to consecrate and sanctify these hands by this anointing and our blessing. That whatever they bless may be blessed, and whatever they consecrate may be consecrated in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”4 “Receive the power to offer sacrifice to God, and to celebrate Masses for the living and the dead.”5 From that moment, the young man’s hands become capable of washing souls with the blood of Christ. No matter where the priest may be, men will always be able to receive from him absolution for their sins. And no matter where the priest may be, every day of his life, his hands will be capable of offering the Holy Sacrifice upon the altar - of rendering present Christ’s redeeming sacrifice of Calvary.

The greatness of the priesthood is enough to make some young men say: “I would never be capable or worthy of such a vocation. I’m so weak, so imperfect, so sinful.” It is quite true that you are unworthy of being consecrated a priest of Jesus Christ, that you are weak – most likely far weaker than you know – and that you are imperfect and sinful. But whom did Christ choose as His first priests, His first bishops? He chose weak, incapable men who had just shown all of Jerusalem how sinful and cowardly they were. All of Jerusalem knew that Christ’s closest friends, the apostles – except for one – had abandoned Him, had run away and hidden themselves during the Passion. Peter had even publicly denied that he knew Him. And yet God chose these weak, sinful men to become the foundation of His Church, to be the first men to embrace what the Church has always taught to be a superior state of life.6 As the Church reiterated in the encyclical Sacra Virginitas: “This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was, as we have already said, revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent, and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church.”7

One aspect of this superiority is, at times, overlooked: celibacy is a superior way of life in part because celibacy provides far more assistance for weak, sinful men – assistance in growing in holiness – than the married state. For several years I helped lead a youth group for the spiritual formation of young men. I met with them weekly during the year and then helped lead summer camps lasting from one to three weeks. It was striking to see the difference in the young men during those camps. Their personalities, with their combination of good intentions and inclinations to sin, were essentially the same during the summer camp and during the year. They were the same young men. But when they were at the summer camp, with a schedule that included daily Mass, the rosary, Eucharistic Adoration, and hard work calling for physical sacrifice; when they had the support of priests and other like-minded young men, conferences for spiritual formation, and so forth; they did much better in their struggle to abandon vice and embrace virtue, in their struggle to love Christ with all of their heart, mind and strength. Whereas back in the world, after a few weeks, they would often fall back into old habits.

When a young man enters the novitiate or seminary, when he is ordained But though they did not choose to live in a time calling for heroic witness, God chose them for that time, and God offered them all the graces necessary to be faithful to the Truth that comes from God, faithful until death.

a priest, if he lives faithfully according to what the Church asks of him, he experiences a transformation that is not just the result of a few weeks of a different style of life, in the course of a summer camp, but that is the result of years – of the rest of his life – of receiving the special helps offered by the constant training of a celibate priestly life well-lived.

But the devil is terribly afraid of what even one good priest can do. And so the devil is today trying desperately to obscure this truth, to proclaim – as loudly as he can, using newspapers, TV, the internet – that becoming a celibate, Catholic priest will make you weaker and more prone to sin than if you were to get married. Nothing could be further from the truth! But the devil’s lie might appear convincing because of the current clerical scandals. For several decades the true nature of priestly life has, in many seminaries, not been adequately taught. Many young men have come through a seminary without receiving the necessary training – you could say without going through the necessary “spiritual boot camp”, without being equipped with the necessary spiritual armour, with the much-needed habits and daily disciplines that priests have embraced for centuries; without the training in how to make sure their souls would receive regular spiritual nourishment throughout their priestly life. And so, many young men then found themselves, as priests, quite vulnerable to sin.

Of course, ever since Judas there have been bishops and priests who committed serious sins, and Judas had the best formation possible, the formation given by Our Lord Himself. So even with the best seminary formation in the world there will always be the possibility of priests choosing to sin. But the seminary formation of these past few decades has left priests vulnerable, without the spiritual armor necessary to protect them in the midst of the world. So it can be good to recall, even very briefly, the immense treasures and helps Our Lord offers His priests through the Church.

In an orthodox seminary formation a young man learns to embrace and cherish the precious treasure of priestly celibacy. As St Paul declares:

“The unmarried man is anxious about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the Lord; but the married man is anxious about worldly affairs, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided… I say this for your own benefit… to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”8

If you were engaged to a young woman and you told her: “Sophie, I’m so looking forward to marrying you in three months. I wanted to let you know though, that I’ve decided to also marry Elizabeth, that same day. But