James J. Gill, S.J., M.D.
Personal Accountability and the Priest Rich, poor, black, Chicanos, white, diocesan, national and universal Church: can all these competing allegiances be a sow¡ce of creative inspiration for the priest?
I see something happening in the way Catholic laymen and women are regarding us today as priests. They seem to be taking us less for granted than they did just a few years ago. Perhaps the number of widely publicized departures from our active ranks, coupled with a marked shortening of the line of candidates moving into our seminaries, has prompted many people to give some appreciative thought to our mere presence. During ¡the past few months I have heard more individuals, scattered aU over the country, make more complimentary remarks about priests in general than I had previously noted during the sixteen years that have passed since I was ordained. I have heard American priests called generous, and courageous, and unflagging, and alive. (That's not saying, of course, that everything I heard about us is flattering. We are still called by many "self preoccupied.") For years I had been listening to people speak about priests as if the supply were inexhaustible, as if lay Catholics are simply entitled to the lives and services of tens of thousands of celibate men who would be doing something morally reprehensible if they were to turn away 129