A thought about the age of Catholic priests
As a little girl at St. Thomas More in Arlington, my perception of priests was that they were stuffy old men that I would never be able to relate to. I was a little girl, no older than 8, and they were OLD men.. maybe 40 or even older! Actually, I remember them being much older than that. If I recall correctly, one of them passed away shortly after I left there in the 4th grade. I never had much interest in religion, attending church or anything.
Growing up, i had more questions about my religion, read about it a little, but when questions still arose, I was hesitant to approach a priest about it. Why? Well, I wasn’t active in a church, so I didn’t know any priests, and when I did know priests, I never would’ve considered talking to them.
Fast forward to now, 20-something years later, and i’ve been regularly going to church for several months now. My daughter is enrolled in a Catholic school, and I have FINALLY figured it out-I think. It happened yesterday. I was scheduling some tweets for my daughter’s school’s twitter feed and I came across a tweet from the archdiocese of washington regarding transfers. I actually got a little excited at the prospect of the transfer of a younger priest to the campus where she’ll be attending school next year.
Why? Because I’ve found that when a priest is closer to my own age I feel like we might have something in common. I suppose it’s simply because of the closeness in age. I feel more comfortable approaching and talking to a priest my own age, rather than one the age of my father, or grandfather even. I’m guessing I’m intimidated by their age, or experience. I don’t know which.
I even felt comfortable contacting my own parish’s younger priest, simply because I felt his homilies were so much more memorable and inspirational than any I’d eber heard elsewhere. Had he been an older priest I don’t know that I would’ve done that.
I’m not suggesting that every catholic must feel the same way as I do, but its certainly possible I’m not the only o.e out there. I suspect the catholic church would do well to strive to have priests of varying ages at every parish, just so the parishioners can feel more connected to their clergy. I would think it was at least worth a try, considering the number of people that leave the church, because they feel like it doesn’t speak to them. Its just an idea though.
