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Recruiting Poster: Why I’m a Laurentian
By long tradition, we Laurentians have been defined in terms of our difference from the Jesuits. Some historians say we’re not as bad, some say we’re worse, and some say the only difference between us is that they have
a better instinct for public relations. Both were founded at roughly the same
time to combat the Reformation, and when that battle was lost (or at least over), both redefined themselves as elitist educators. And where do little Jesuits and Laurentians come from? Jesuit recruits come from Jesuit schools, and Laurentian recruits come from Laurentian schools.
I came to the Laurentians from St. Jerome’s University, the intellectual hearth of the order in the United States. This may explain why I became a Laurentian, but of course it doesn’t explain why I became a priest. All I can say on that point right now is that the reasons I gave when I was in my early twenties no longer seem very persuasive to me.
The important thing to note here is that I was considered a real comer when I was an undergraduate. I was expected to be another jewel in the crown—but by the time postdoctoral studies rolled around, I’d been spotted as a rhinestone—plenty of flash but pure paste. I was a big disappointment to everybody, most of all to me, of course. My superiors were as nice about it as they could be. I was never going to be invited to join the faculty at St. Jerome’s or any other of the order’s universities, but they did offer to find a
place for me at one of their prep schools. Or if I didn’t care to be humiliated
quite that much, I could be loaned out to the diocese for work in the parochial trenches. I chose the latter, which is how I ended up at St. Ed’s.
I say I’m not a very good priest. I suppose this is a bit like a cart horse saying it’s not a very good horse, because it expected to be raced but couldn’t make the grade. The blunt truth is that you don’t have to be a very good priest to make the grade at the parish level. This observation is not as
cynical as it sounds—the priest is only a mediator of grace, not a source of grace, after all. Sure, you’ve got to be even-tempered and patient and tolerant of human shortcomings (which says a lot), but nobody expects to you be a St. Paul or a St. Francis, and a sacrament that comes to you from the hands of an utter swine is every bit as efficacious as one that comes to you from the hands of a paragon. The way things are going nowadays, you’ll be considered a
bloody treasure if you don’t turn out to be a child molester or a public drunk.