Several years ago I was at a dinner in Florida and a bunch of us were discussing Church history in the 20th century, especially the state of the priesthood.  It was a light-hearted discussion about the topic, "What happened to all the good priests in the 20th century?"  After typical answers for awhile, an older Polish gentleman chimed in, "Maybe they all died in the World Wars."  The levity departed from the room at the profundity of his answer.  Everyone got silent because he seemed to have said something unexpected, but accurate.  Even the man who said it seemed surprised at the potential accuracy that had just come out of [...]

This is going to be my nerdiest blog-post to-date, but it gets to the priesthood and the current Church crisis. Despite the abysmal acting, I have to admit that I really like the Star Wars prequels (released 1999-2005.)  In the third of those three, Revenge of the Sith, Chancellor Palpatine orders "Clone Protocol 66" or "Order 66" (see above picture) and Wookieepedia describes it: "Order 66, also known as Clone Protocol 66, was a top-secret order identifying all Jedi as traitors to the Galactic Republic and, therefore, subject to summary execution by the Grand Army of the Republic. The order was programmed into the Grand Army clone troopers through behavioral modification [...]

There's a lot of talk of bishops being the "spiritual fathers" to their priests.  I like that idea a lot, but let's see if it's true. In 1997 in Connecticut, there was a priestly scandal in Bridgeport that was brought to light several years before the "summer of shame" in the nearly-neighboring Archdiocese of Boston.   The Hartfort Courant ran the story of an accused priest titled The Priest as Independent Contractor and I'll include the first 135 words here: More should be expected from a man of the cloth than Bridgeport Roman Catholic Bishop Edward M. Egan delivered earlier this month at a federal trial in New Haven.  Bishop [...]

p/c Catholic News Agency of Fr. Sixto Eduardo Varela Santamaría of Costa Rica Catholic News Agency reports: ACI Prensa, the Spanish sister news agency of CNA, confirmed that the Diocese of Alajuela, in the Northern region of Costa Rica, ordered Fr. Sixto Eduardo Varela Santamaría to be suspended from all ministries for six months, and will be sent to a psychological treatment clinic for celebrating in Latin the Mass of the Missal of Pope Paul VI, also known as the Ordinary Form or "Novus Ordo."  In a statement issued on behalf of the Bishop of Alajuela, Bartolomé Buigues Oller, Fr. Luis Hernández Solís, director of communications, explained that Fr. Varela Santamaría [...]

I recently read this from Harvard Business: "Highly intelligent, confident, and successful, alpha males represent about 70% of all senior executives. As the label implies, they’re the people who aren’t happy unless they’re the top dogs—the ones calling the shots. Although there are plenty of successful female leaders with equally strong personalities, we’ve found top women rarely if ever match the complete alpha profile. Alphas reach the top ranks in large organizations because they are natural leaders—comfortable with responsibility in a way nonalphas can never be. Most people feel stress when they have to make important decisions; alphas get stressed when tough decisions don’t rest in their capable hands. For them, [...]