The mentality of "you can never go wrong with a priest"

[HomeschoolDad]

I had an interesting encounter in the early 1980s. I had been baptized a few years before, as a teenager, and in my early years as a Catholic, I had to wade through the thicket of modernist dissent from Catholic teachings, including but not limited to Humanae vitae. I remained traditional and orthodox when this was not popular at all.

A priest in our fairly large parish was counseling students, and possibly others, that they could “follow their conscience” on moral matters, even if this was at odds with the teaching of the magisterium. Humanae vitae was the main issue, but it was not the only issue. I met a man, probably born in the period 1910-1920, who would have been in his 60s of thereabouts at the time. He was very active in our parish. We had a very enjoyable conversation about the Faith, and somewhere in the discussion, I told him of this priest’s dissent and what he was telling the students. I questioned what was going on in our parish.

He absolutely hit the ceiling! Not at the priest, at me. He was taken aback that I would question such a thing and proceeded to tell me something along these lines:

“You need to take the advice of a cradle Catholic. Remember this: you can never, ever go wrong with a priest. Anything the priest teaches you, you must regard as right. A priest can never tell you anything that will endanger your soul. If a priest told me that it would be a good thing for me to have an affair in my marriage, it would be all right for me to do it, because he is a priest. Again, you can never go wrong with a priest.”

I told him I could not accept this. He grew very angry and practically threw me out of his office. He has gone on to his reward now.

How typical was this of the mentality of people from that age group, during the crisis of dissent in the post-Vatican II years?

 

[po18guy]

This is why we have catechisms.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

This is why we have catechisms.

I understand that. But this man’s argument was “if you have the catechism (or an encyclical, or what have you) saying one thing, and the priest tells you another, you go with the priest”.

(Or, possibly, follow the catechism if you want to, but if you don’t want to, you can do what the priest says and it can’t be wrong for you.)

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I met a man, probably born in the period 1910-1920, who would have been in his 60s of thereabouts at the time.

1. I just Googled him.

At the time, he was the same age I am now. That’s scary.

Requiescat in pace.

 

[TheMortenBay]

“if you have the catechism (or an encyclical, or what have you) saying one thing, and the priest tells you another, you go with the priest”.

He was wrong. The authority of the Church and her ministers is no joke. If a priest asks something reasonable of you, you do it. But always within reason.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

He was wrong.

Of course he was wrong. But how prevalent was this mentality among those of his age cohort? That’s what I was wondering.

And are there any people who still think this way?

 

[TheMortenBay]

But how prevalent was this mentality among those of his age cohort?

It’s an interesting question. It’s interesting to note if part of the fall from tradition was due to a misplaced sense of obedience from the elder generation. That coupled with the lack of interest from a young generation…
Relativism is a dangerous path…

 

[Tis_Bearself]

The Catholic Church is huge and people born in 1910-1920 were all over the map in how they felt about priests. I think you talked to somebody who was a little crazy to be honest. I can’t think of anybody in my mom’s huge Catholic family that contained many people born in the teens and 20s, who would just blindly do whatever a priest said including having an affair or some other immoral thing. Especially if it was some modernist priest telling them to do so.

My mother wasn’t exactly Trudy Traditional and yet would come home from every other Sunday Mass and blow her stack for an hour over the priest’s homilies in the 70s. Nobody thought of priests as infallible. If a priest’s advice was respected it was because he had shown himself to be worthy of respect over the long term by giving good advice or being a stand-up guy, not simply because he showed up wearing a Roman collar.

I think you would do well to see encounters you have with people in the Church as just that, isolated encounters, and stop trying to make huge generalizations from them.

 

[rosejmj]

This may have been more common in the past. I’m not sure how it was pre Vatican ii

Kind of random, but it makes me think of hundreds of years ago in Europe such as the Medieval times. Most people were Catholic or Christian, but many people were not educated even being illiterate and I think catechesis was probably not strong if there was any at all for the common people. Many were probably told to follow authority figures including Church figures blindly.

I think today education and information is much more available and we are taught that we should learn to think for ourselves. No one is required in anyway to follow advice even if it comes from a priest especially if we disagree with it.

 

[Peeps]

The priest that the OP describes sounds like he has the same mentality as several of the big television star evangelists who preached up a storm and begged for lots and lots of money–and they got rich off of people who believed everything they were saying about the “great need here so that the Gospel of Christ can be preached” (in reality, so that the preacher could live a wealthy life!).

Many of these television star evangelists ended up caught in great sin and ended their careers in disgrace, doing great harm to local Christian churches who had a hard time with credibility after the various scandals.

To this day, the legacy of the television evangelist haunts many Protestant churches, and I think that most Protestant churches have seen a significant downsizing in their attendance. Many Protestant churches have actually closed in our city.

And now, we have the predator priest scandal and the huge decline in attendance or interest in Catholic parishes.

I pity these scandalous priests and pastors at their Final Judgment! There’s a chapter in the Old Testament (one of the Big Prophets, either Isaiah, Jeremiah, or Ezekiel) that warns the priests of the consequences of leading their people astray! I remember reading that and thinking of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker.

 

[Zaccheus]

f a priest told me that it would be a good thing for me to have an affair in my marriage, it would be all right for me to do it, because he is a priest. Again, you can never go wrong with a priest.”

The man who said this is wrong.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrongity wrong.

 

[Zaccheus]

Of course he was wrong. But how prevalent was this mentality among those of his age cohort?

I am within a few months of turning 71 years of age. I have never heard this idea from anyone remotely close to my own age group. I suspect both my parents would have been shocked if someone had said this to them.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

I never came across quite the level of insistence of your friend, that you have to obey the priest over the catechism.
But I have heard random stories of people being given the go-ahead by their priest for sterilization and stuff like that.

Although I do have a RL friend who insists that they won’t ever be a Catholic because supposedly some priest told their grandfather to divorce their grandmother because she wouldn’t have sex with him in the immediate post partum time.
I have my own doubts about this story…

 

[TK421]

It’s a mentality that has no backing from the Magisterium. “You can never go wrong with a priest” is called “protestantism”. Arius & company throughout the ages were all ordained ministers.

In ordinary everyday situations we should be able to follow the priest’s advise. At worst it might not be ideal advice or the right advise for you personally, but if he’s a holy man he won’t ever lead people astray into something objectively sinful.

In extraordinary circumstances, we need to choose what is right. We can’t excuse ourselves before God because a priest said so and so. “I’m just a layperson, I don’t know any better” is false humility.

 

[JMMJ]

I was sent to Catholic school. We had some very good religious teachers, and a few duds. Priests who were terrible teachers. If you questoned them, you were told (essentially) that you were to believe what they said because they were priests and it was disrespectful to do otherwise. Parents, nuns, other priests. All said the same thing. That was in the 60s and 70s. If the gentleman in OPs post was in school in the 20s and 30s I can only imagine it was much worse, then. Perhaps that is where he got the idea. Most of my contemporaries were self-motivated only further to seek the truth when they were mislead, but it was the era we lived in. In the 20s or 30s, that probably didn’t happen as much. He may have just been stuck and not grown past his youth when he was told to believe whatever a priest told him. Sad.

 

[spiderweb]

I think it may have depended upon the priest. My parents were born in the mid 1930’s, and if it was a good priest, they would absolutely obey. But they had no qualms saying they would never obey a priest in doing something they knew was wrong, which would include going against Church teaching.

It’s a mentality that has no backing from the Magisterium. “You can never go wrong with a priest” is called “protestantism”. Arius & company throughout the ages were all ordained ministers.

And for a fact, the Church certainly didn’t want anyone following Martin Luther, Zwingli, Menno Simons and other priests who left the Church. That was kind of the point of the Council of Trent.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

My parents were born in the mid 1930’s, and if it was a good priest, they would absolutely obey. But they had no qualms saying they would never obey a priest in doing something they knew was wrong, which would include going against Church teaching.

My experience also, and my parents were born in the 20s. My mother was the youngest in her family so she had many relatives born earlier. They didn’t go around kowtowing to the priest (or the nuns at the Catholic school) simply because he was the priest (or the nuns were the nuns) and they looked down a bit on people who did that.

 

[Glennon_P]

Unquestioned obedience to a priest who is clearly teaching error is wrong, whether he’s telling you to ignore Humane Vitae or telling you the Chair of St. Peter has been vacant since 1958.

Wrong is wrong.

 

[PatK63]

I never heard that. We all have to listen to the Holy Spirit. I had a priest say once, “don’t follow me; I will lead you astray. Folly Jesus.
Of course the HS can speak to us through the church and other people.
Now, I believe we should carefully consider what a priest tells in in the confessional. The priest sits in the person of Christ! Also, the church has been given the power to forgive sins or not forgive them.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

Although I do have a RL friend who insists that they won’t ever be a Catholic because supposedly some priest told their grandfather to divorce their grandmother because she wouldn’t have sex with him in the immediate post partum time.
I have my own doubts about this story…

What is “RL”?

It’s interesting to note if part of the fall from tradition was due to a misplaced sense of obedience from the elder generation.

That had a LOT to do with it.

The priest that the OP describes sounds like he has the same mentality as several of the big television star evangelists who preached up a storm and begged for lots and lots of money–and they got rich off of people who believed everything they were saying about the “great need here so that the Gospel of Christ can be preached” (in reality, so that the preacher could live a wealthy life!).

I’m not quite sure I follow what you are saying. The man I spoke with was a layman, married with three children. He was an educated man, may have even had a PhD in one of the hard sciences. So he was far from stupid.

The priest in question was a “rock star” — young, handsome, charming, articulate, charismatic, athletic — and everyone just loved him, especially the young people.

As far as the scandal he was eventually caught up in (which did not involve counseling against following the magisterium) — well, when it “hit the fan”, it hit the fan. Thankfully, at the very least it involved a young woman and not a young man — the lesser of two very great evils. He was dismissed and the process of laicization was begun, whether he was eventually laicized or not, I don’t know. It made the local TV news in a major American city — the contemporary equivalent of being put in stocks in the town square.

I would only hope that those whom he counseled to go against the magisterium “in good conscience” would have at least considered that they got bad advice from him.