From the Editor's Desk

A priest and public servant

This issue contains a lot about Jesuit Fr. Robert Drinan, who died Jan 28 in Washington where he had spent many years as a politician and an academic. His was a big life, involved in difficult issues and historic moments.

Many have said that his passing marks “the end of an era.” I suppose that is something we are expected to say whenever someone as high-profile and influential as Drinan dies. But in a literal sense, I think the era Drinan represented -- a time of passionate concern for human rights, for truthfulness in government, for the common good, and when the church wasn’t afraid of debate -- had ended long before. His life encompassed a certain edginess -- not combative, but not afraid of the big questions, the big debates or of confronting a president who decided to secretly bomb Cambodia.

It is somewhat ironic, given circumstances today, that Drinan was forced to give up his seat in the House of Representatives because priests were not allowed to be involved in elective politics. Today, bishops threaten politicians with the Eucharist, a “theocon” priest plays adviser to a president (see review, Page 3a) and the loudest Catholics, who would have us believe their orthodoxy is papally certified, haven’t met a war they didn’t like nor a free market initiative they couldn’t coat with some justification from the Christian scriptures.

In his public role, Drinan was not an evangelist with all the right answers. He was a public servant who often asked the best -- and most -- questions.

He brought a mature and intelligent Catholicism to the public arena. His was a faith that was interested in everything, he engaged and compelled people to think. I will miss his counsel, his penetrating understanding of complex issues, the enlightening conversations about the issues of the day and his unflagging enthusiasm for and support of NCR.

If there is an argument for celibacy, it would be his tireless work ethic and the simplicity with which he lived, even when he was regularly walking the corridors of power. Because above all else, and this was evident on so many levels, including his columns in NCR, he was a priest.

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How you feel about that youngster on the cover I suppose depends on what generation you’re from and what experience you had in confession. I doubt there’s a Catholic who’s gone through the first confession experience who doesn’t have some vivid impressions to overlay that photograph.

The odd thing about confession, of course, is that in theory it’s an essential element in any healthy relationship or community where getting along at the deep level of religious conviction is going to involve forgiveness and reconciliation. In practice? That depends a lot on the priest, his ecclesiology and experience. Is he a spiritual adviser and counselor or a sin calculus? Can he really help with deep emotional problems, direct people in awful relationships, all those things suggestive of the kind of isolation and brokenness that sin is?

In order to do it the right way, of course, we’d need battalions of healthy, mature, trustworthy, experienced celibate males who possess the gift of being able to listen and advise. A tall order even without a priest shortage. And no matter how many priests there might be, it’s an increasingly unsatisfactory arrangement for many women.

So the lines have shrunk.

One of our youngsters had a surprise first confession. He had moved across the country and was thus out of sync with the religious education program he was entering at his new parish. He ended up unexpectedly going to confession to a priest who was recently ordained.

When Mom picked him up after class and realized what had happened, she expressed her concern that her kiddo didn’t know what he was doing. “That’s OK,” he answered, “how many of these do you think Father D has under his belt?”

That’s one way to do it -- not a lot of advance notice. Jump into the deep end of the pool and start swimming. Makes for a lot less anxiety. There’s also less hell and mortal sin and threat of eternal damnation thrown around than was the case in earlier eras. And that’s good.

-- Tom Roberts

National Catholic Reporter, February 9, 2007