Faith in Jesus Christ is not “religion” - it is far far more. For a start, it is not something anyone can control; for no one can control God. And that is Who Jesus Christ is. Not some glove-puppet one can manipulate. One could sooner control a hurricane. The God we adore is “great and terrible”, & no pussy-cat whose tail we can pull. God is terribly Good - He is is also indescribably dangerous.
I really enjoy being nice to people.
Which is admirable
Everyone has a hobby, my hobby is college, I have a bachelors in computer science, an associate in nursing, a certificate in accounting, and I am currently in graduate school to be a teacher, and still I don’t know what I want to do with my life. I thought about law school, however the more I have been thinking about it for some odd reason I am obssesed with the idea of being a priest.
I would love to be a missionary and help some of these poor people in Africa.
I am sure I wouldn’t be the first priest who questioned God’s existance; in reality there are many athiest priests.
“Safety in numbers” is useless before God, Whom nothing can escape. A sin is a sin, even when it is popular. We can deceive others, we can deceive ourselves - but God cannot be deceived. He to Whom the depths of our hearts are known, cannot be taken in like a mere man.
Those without faith, cannot pass it on to others; nor can they witness to it. I can’t tell you anything about the delights of physics, because I have no talent at at all for the sciences - only someone who knows & loves the subject is capable of appreciating it properly, because only that sort of person knows it from inside. That is the person who is qualified to talk about physics - but someone with no knowledge of it, no “feel” for it, no insight into it or understanding of it, is not the person to ask about it.
To have faith in Christ, is to be a learner about Christ. Mathetes, discipulus, means exactly that. The Christian faith is not mere “head-knowledge”, like a proposition in logic - it is a witness to a life-changing Reality. It is an education, friendship, philosophy, exploration, & very much more - but one thing it is not & cannot be, is an academic “subject”. Knowledge by itself never made a priest, and it never will. God’s grace, and that alone, can & does do that.
Neither is it social service - it includes that, but that is far from being the main thing about it. Helping people, is admirable, certainly - but it is not the main thing priests do, nor is it something they alone do. One does not need ordination to be helpful to people; all Christians, priests or not, are meant to be helpful. But - only priests can preside at Mass. And not only do they preside, by leading the worship; it is they who consecrate the Gifts which are offered to God in sacrifice. And it is priests who have the God-given grace & power to release from the guilt of sin. This is so great a thing, that to do so requires infinite power. An atheist priest would be safer in the path of an atomic bomb, than doing this. “God cannot be mocked”, as St.Paul points out - and to “go through the motions” of saying & doing the works & sayings of Christ in what is His Church & not ours, is mockery of God. It is* not* a good idea.
To be a priest, is not a private thing only - it is a public office in the Church, something done by the individual, certainly; but it does not stop with the individual; it goes beyond the individual. “What I think” is not enough, it’s not the whole story; one also to take into account the local church whom one serves as a priest: there is far more to the priesthood than “my personal spiritual way”. Besides, the priesthood is a very demanding life - to try “going it alone”, by living it without faith, is asking for trouble.
No number of degrees - useful as they in principle are - can replace the grace of faith in Christ. Without faith a priest would be living a sham. Every Mass he offered would be a falsehood & a deceit, because he would be acting “in persona Christi” while not having any faith in Christ. What have Catholics done to atheists, to deserve priests whose every word on religious matters is a fraud which bears no relation to their real beliefs
? Be an atheist by all means,
if that is where your conscience directs you to go - but don’t commit perjury (which is what you would be doing, day after day) by living a life which requires a faith which is not honestly believed. You would be lying to yourself - what is the good in that ?
For priests to become atheists - & as you say, it happens - is appalling; but at least they had faith when they became priests. It sounds as though you’re describing a course of action which sees no need for faith even at that stage. ##
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