On the Exemplary Quality of the Pre-Conciliar Priesthood
James Hitchcock and Fr. Paul Mankowski
Fr. Mankowski: Paradoxically, one of the major factors in the corruption of clerical life at the end of the 20th century was its strength at the beginning of it. Here I quote from James Hitchcock:
A gloomy fact about clerical life is that, with the possible exception of the very early centuries, there was no time in the Church’s history when such life was idyllic. The Middle Ages had their share of misbehaving priests, and the ordinary parish clergy were uneducated and part of a peasant culture which was in some ways still pagan. The Counter-Reformation made strenuous efforts to improve the state of the clergy, not least through the establishment of that institution which ought to have been obvious but for some reason had not been — the seminary. Even despite these efforts, clerical scandals and various kinds of clerical incompetence long continued, amidst occasional saintly priests and many others of solid piety and zeal. In the United States the period cl900-l960 can be considered a golden age of the priesthood, not merely in modern times but throughout all the Catholic centuries. (This golden age was not confined to America but existed in other countries as well.) While priests of that era certainly had their faults, by all measurable standards there was less ignorance, less immorality, less neglect of duty, and less disobedience than at almost any time in the history of the Church. More positively, priests of that era were generally pious and zealous, and those who were not at least had to pretend to be.1
Not only was the reality of priestly character in good shape, but the reputation of Catholic clergymen was likewise high.2
- James F. Hitchcock, “Thirty Years of Blight,” Catholic Dossier, July/August 1998.
- “What Went Wrong“, Fr. Paul Mankowski, July 15, 2003, address to the Confraternity of Catholic Clergy