Fr. Z's Blog

Under another post, concerning St. John Eudes’ remarks about bad priests being an affliction from God for the wickedness of the people – God gives them the priests they deserve – a sometime commentator here, whom I’ve permitted to have access to the combox for quite a while, took exception in unacceptable terms.

[]… This doesn’t hold up to logical scrutiny. An All-loving, all-wise, all-knowing, all-good deity doesn’t inflict punishment by territory, out that makes him (small h, because of the incident error here) arbitrary and cruel. Why did some of your parishes get wonderful, decent, devoted pastors while the adjacent others got sexual predators and monsters? I can’t conclude that your God was that angry with a few blocks of real estate. Step back and consider whether the saint you mention works to your confirmation bias instead of your intellect.

First, note the “your parishes” and “your God”.   The reason for this is that the commentator is an apostate who abandoned the Catholic Faith for the heresy of Unitarianism.  NB: Being baptized, he is still a subject of the Catholic Church and no other.

Unitarianism arose in the Reformation period (16th–17th cc.), though it has roots in anti-Trinitarian heresies such as Arianism. Unitarians affirm belief in God but deny the Trinity of Persons, seeing God as a single person (usually identified as the Father) and rejecting the divinity of Jesus Christ and the personhood of the Holy Spirit.

Hence, he is an apostate and a heretic.

Next, he resorts to an insulting ad hominem at the end.

I respond.

For the sake of being complete, here is the quote from St. John Eudes’ The Priest: His Dignity and Obligations (HERE) to which the apostate objects:

The most evident mark of God’s anger and the most terrible castigation He can inflict upon the world are manifested when He permits His people to fall into the hands of clerics who are priests more in name than in deed, priests who practice the cruelty of ravening wolves rather than the charity and affection of devoted shepherds. Instead of nourishing those committed to their care, they rend and devour them brutally. Instead of leading their people to God, they drag Christian souls into hell in their train. Instead of being the salt of the earth and the light of the world, they are its innocuous poison and its murky darkness. St. Gregory the Great says that priests and pastors will stand condemned before God as the murderers of any souls lost through neglect or silence….

When God permits such things, it is a very positive proof that He is thoroughly angry with His people, and is visiting His most dreadful anger upon them. That is why He cries unceasingly to Christians, “Return, 0 ye revolting children . . . and I will give you pastors according to my own heart” (Jer. 3, 14-15). Thus, irregularities in the lives of priests constitute a scourge visited upon the people in consequence of sin.

What the commentator lacks is perspective and context.

Firstly, the setting is 17th c. France.  Next, the language is French in the style of the day.  Third, this is not a theological treatise, but an exhortation.  It is pastoral, not scientific.

St. John Eudes was not theorizing in the abstract. He lived in 17th c. France, a time when clerical laxity was notorious. Parish priests often lived scandalous lives, catechesis was weak, and seminaries, newly mandated by the Council of Trent, were still being established. Eudes observed the ruin caused by unworthy clergy. He devoted his life to remedying it, founding seminaries, preaching missions, and forming priests. His words were not simply denunciation but a diagnosis and medicine: the sins of the faithful had brought about the scourge of negligent priests, and only repentance could bring renewal.

Hence, the words of St. John Eudes are in the style of a prophet, as anyone familiar with the Old Testament might recognize.

As an aside, God sent slaying angels among the people when they were wicked.  He permitted famines and plagues to afflict the body.  But human beings are both body and soul.

The presence of unworthy priests is, for St. John Eudes, a sign of divine chastisement. When God gives His people shepherds who devour rather than nourish, He is punishing them by permitting leaders who reflect their own sins.

This is grounded in Sacred Scripture. The prophet Jeremiah speaks in the Lord’s name:

¹⁵ “‘And I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding.  (Jer 3:14–15).

Repentance brings shepherds according to God’s heart; infidelity leaves the people to wolves.

In the Old Testament, the sins of the nation often resulted in corrupt leadership.

Hosea warns,

And it shall be like people, like priest;
    I will punish them for their ways,
    and requite them for their deeds. (Hos 4:9).

Isaiah laments of Israel’s leaders:

¹⁰ His watchmen are blind,
    they are all without knowledge;
they are all dumb dogs,
    they cannot bark;
dreaming, lying down,
    loving to slumber.
¹¹ The dogs have a mighty appetite;
    they never have enough.
The shepherds also have no understanding;
    they have all turned to their own way,
    each to his own gain, one and all. (Is 56:10–11).

The unfaithfulness of God’s people and the negligence of their shepherds are linked in a mysterious reciprocity.

The Fathers of the Church expand on this.

St. Gregory the Great, in his Regula Pastoralis (2.4), insists that silence in a pastor is culpable in the face of error or evil.

The ruler should be discreet in keeping silence, profitable in speech; lest he either utter what ought to be suppressed or suppress what he ought to utter. For, as incautious speaking leads into error, so indiscreet silence leaves in error those who might have been instructed. For often improvident rulers, fearing to lose human favour, shrink timidly from speaking freely the things that are right… according to the voice of the Truth (John 10:12)… they fly when the wolf comes if they hide themselves under silence… For, for a shepherd to have feared to say what is right, what else is it but to have turned his back in keeping silence?

St. John Chrysostom, in his Commentary on Acts of the Apostles (Homily 3) writes:

“The soul of a bishop is for all the world like a vessel in a storm: lashed from every side, by friends, by foes, by one’s own people, by strangers . . . I do not think there are many among bishops that will be saved, but many more that perish.”

For Chrysostom, the weight of pastoral responsibility is so great that without a life of holiness, a priest will almost certainly be lost, dragging others with him.

Chrysostom nowhere wrote that the floor of Hell is paved with the skulls of bishops.  Knock that off.  However, the essence of his message is that, according to Chrysostom, few will be saved and there is a linkage between the flock and the shepherd.

These stark judgments are prophetic warnings: the corruption of priests has eternal consequences, not only for themselves but for the flock entrusted to them.

St. Thomas Aquinas explains in the Summa Theologiae (I-II, q. 87, a. 7) that God’s punishments for sin can be twofold: medicinal, intended to bring sinners back to the right path, or vindictive, as just retribution.

The sending of bad pastors can be understood in both senses. On the one hand, they serve as a bitter medicine, showing the faithful the gravity of their sins and urging them to repentance. On the other hand, they are also a punishment justly deserved, inasmuch as those who spurn God’s law deserve to be ruled by the wicked.

Aquinas, in his commentary on Isaiah, notes how God sometimes punishes a sinful people by giving them rulers after their own heart, allowing them to taste the fruit of their rebellion.  St. Thomas states in Expositio super Isaiam ad litteram, 3.1 (97):

And because violent dominion is not only the fault of man, but also is the punishment of God judging the sins of the people, as it says in Job 34:30: ‘who makes a man that is a hypocrite to reign for the sins of the people,’ therefore the first part is divided into two parts: for in the first, it is predicted as far as it is a punishment inflicted by God; in the second, it is denounced as far as it is a fault committed by man, where it says, ‘O my people’ (Isa 3:12).

He immediately applies this to Isaiah 3:4:

“Et dabo pueros principes eorum, et effeminati dominabuntur eis … And I will give children to be their princes, and the effeminate shall rule over them.” (Is 3:4 – Vulgate – DR)

In Hebrew that “effeminate” is related to caprice “(as a fit coming on), i.e. vexation; concretely a tyrant: babe, delusion”.   So, “caprice shall rule over them”  In the Greek LXX we have empaíkt?s: “a derider, i.e. (by implication) a false teacher: mocker, scoffer.”   Jerome realized this into effeminati.

The behavior of the “effeminate” is capricious, immature, tyrannical.

The chastisement of corrupt clergy is not God’s last word. It is His warning cry. If His people turn back to Him, He will raise up saints to guide them.  This dynamic has played out through history. In times of decadence, God has raised up reformers such as St. Gregory the Great in the 6th century, St. Francis of Assisi and St. Dominic in the 13th, St Charles Borromeo in the 16th, St. John Vianney in the 19th.

Chastisement precedes renewal, and holiness among the faithful produces holy shepherds.

This is not a numbers game, or something as shallow as real estate.

However, speaking of real estate, Numbers 16 turns the sock inside out with an example of God’s punishment against legitimate leaders.  The earth opens and swallows up Korah, Dathan, and Abiram with 250 followers and their families because they rebelled against Moses and Aaron.  Like feminists who demand ordination, they had claimed they were being unfairly excluded from ruling.   After that, seeing the literal “land grab” (the land doing the grabbing) those who were not of the tribe of Aaron who had dared to burn incense at the tent of meeting were consumed by fire from God.  Then God sent a plague for the rest.

Moses interceded and atoned for the rest of the backsliders and stopped the ensuing plague that God had sent as frosting on the cake of rebellion.  In the plague: 14700 died.

God takes wickedness seriously.

Moses bargained with God for the people over the calf incident and the Korah event. Abraham negotiated with God to spare Sodom and Gomorrah. Hannah interceded with God. Hezekiah obtained longer days so he could put things in order.

The Blessed Virgin herself interceded with the Lord at Cana.  Though that seems to have arose from miscalculation rather than wickedness.

God permits situations in which He desires, for our own good and His ultimate glory, that we have earnest and urgent recourse to Him.

The Devil reportedly told St. John Vianney, “If there were three such priests as you, my kingdom would be ruined”. This statement, often recounted in discussions about the saint, highlights the immense impact of a holy priest on the spiritual battle against evil. It underscores the power of a priest dedicated to God’s work, particularly in the ministry of confession and penance, which was St. John Vianney’s particular strength. The devil’s statement about the “three such priests” is a testament to the transformative power of a holy priest, who actively dismantles the devil’s influence and bring souls closer to God.

The story serves as a reminder of the importance of priests and their role in the spiritual lives of the faithful.

Things get so bad that, finally, there is a turning of the heart to God so strong that there is a kind of ripple effect of grace that overpowers the cancels and replace the waves of the wicked.

We may be experiencing this in our own day.

For St. John Eudes, corrupt priests are instruments of divine justice, urging the people to turn back to God. At the same time, they stand as a fearful reminder of the weight of the priesthood: pastors will be judged as murderers of the souls lost through their silence or vice. The remedy for corrupt priests is not only reform in structures or institutions, but above all holiness among the faithful, prayer for vocations, and fidelity to Christ. In this way, the medicinal scourge of unworthy priests can be transformed into a grace that purifies the Church and prepares the way for renewal.

The mystery of the priesthood is inseparable from the mystery of God’s providence. When His people sin, He may permit them to be chastised by negligent shepherds. When they return, He will not fail to send shepherds after His own heart.

My intellect informs me to stick with the saints and holy writers, including Sacred Writ, and not the criticism of an apostate, for whom I sincerely desire repentance and a return to the Faith.