On Being a Catholic Priest

Dear Friends and Family,

Lately I think about cards we receive from family and friends during the holidays that tell us how everyone is doing — e.g. Jimmy graduated from college. Katlyn is excited to have her braces off. We adopted a Labrador Retriever and we’ve named him…Francis.

The cards tell me the sender wishes to be in touch and to stay in good relationship. I hope this letter conveys these same hopes of mine.

To begin…

I got my braces off in the summer 2007. It was great!

On a more recent note, however, a great deal happened in my world these past five-some-odd years. To those of you who supported me in so many ways along my path to the Catholic priesthood, or to those with whom I’ve served in ministry, it may seem that I fell off the map.

In January of 2019, I wrote a letter in my parish bulletin telling the people of Good Shepherd Parish that I would be “taking a step back” from priestly ministry. I wrote something to the effect of, “I’ve often preached about being honest — with ourselves and before God.” Then I said that I would have to practice what I preached and so go on an indeterminate sabbatical.

My heart was broken as it was hard to envision ever returning to priestly ministry.

Becoming a priest takes a long time. It occupied most of my young adult life. During all these years I believed the Catholic institution connected me to the things of God. But I also faced episodes along the way that troubled me and caused me to question my faith and my understanding of the Catholic priesthood.

After my ordination to the priesthood I fell into a depression that weighed me to the earth as I attempted to carry on in my ministry.

At my apartment in the rectory, my houseplants kept dying. I’ve always taken good care of my houseplants.

I drank way too much.

I lost interest in the things I once loved.

Without trying to make universal claims about the nature of depression, I look back on my case as nature’s way of saying, “Something is wrong and it’s time to get curious about it.” The bishops of San Diego connected me to excellent therapists and professional support. With the help of a village of sorts, I waded through the possible causes of my inner collapse.

When I was 16, I broke my leg skiing. Before loading me onto the ambulance, the ski patrollers needed to remove my overly snug ski boot, a process that required a lot of tugging until the boot pulled away from my foot. I bit down onto a wood tongue compressor until releasing a flurry of swear words, then fainting on the infirmary bed.

I know that that process hurt a great deal.

The thing about pain is that we usually don’t remember the pain itself. We only remember that the pain happened.

I can say the same thing about the pain of depression, now looking back, I don’t remember the phycological pain that persisted throughout the course of my ministry. I only remember that it was.

I learned a lot through the two-some-odd-year span of navigating depression.

In my first meeting with a counselor psychologist, he taught me a principle called the “Five Freedoms”. It’s this idea that human consciousness is fundamentally free, and that freedom is a fundamental good, and with the allowance of cognitive freedom, we re-discover the things that bring us inspiration and vibrancy.

He said we are free to (1) perceive (2) feel (3) think (4) desire (5) dream. In my desire to stay safely within the lines of what I viewed as theological orthodoxy, I shut down the divine flame of my free consciousness.

However I found that my mood improved in allowing the wild thing that consciousness is to take flight.

In such a flight I admitted an inner truth that I had shoved away: My beliefs and values no longer align with those of the Catholic priesthood.

It was a frightening thing to admit. It meant something major would have to change in my life if I wished to live in a state of integrity.

I have a friend who is much better in taking care of house plants than I’ve been. He said that sometimes a plant needs to be re-potted.

I heard the voice of my inner being tell me that I was dying in my pot and I would need to be re-potted, and it would be painful and scary, and it would be right.

Getting re-potted looked like facing the embarrassment of stepping away from my life-long commitment to serve the Catholic Church as a priest. It also looked like getting a job. But what job? What is a man trained in theology to do in the professional working world?

When the pandemic hit around this time last year, I sat on the couch in my parents’s living room, unemployed, and feeling lost in life, I switched the television channel to HGTV. As I watched people build and remodel homes, I thought, “I don’t know how to do anything.”

“I don’t know how to do anything practical, that is. I’ve spent my whole adult life in prayer and theology texts. If somebody asked me to change a tire, I’d likely let them down.”

“That’s what I’ll do. I’ll do that. I’ll build stuff and fix things.”

Through a friend of a friend I found a job with a contractor in Los Angeles and apprenticed with his carpenter, a man who rarely spoke to me except yelling at me when I made a mistake. I learned a lot from him.

Later I worked for a commercial construction company where I helped restore Catholic schools and churches. Call it providence. Call it a coincidence. I didn’t aim to work on projects for the Catholic Church, but I ended up back in the halls of the Church. I even helped build the new minor seminary for the Diocese of Los Angeles.

Even thought I learned new skills and undertook positive work, I felt as lost as ever. I often felt that my life consisted of a long chain of wrong turns, and I believed I could no longer trust my inner compass.

What was the point of so many years of priestly training, only to now work an entry-level construction job at age 35? Construction was good and noble work, but it wasn’t the work that made sense for me given my interests and background.

But working construction — hammering nails and patching drywall in solitude — allowed me to think and to pray.

I realized that I always felt happiest and most alive when free to explore life questions in academic environments. I decided that I would seek a path to becoming a professor.

In January I submitted my applications to the nation’s major institutes of higher learning and have since received automated rejection letters: Harvard, no. Yale, we’re sorry, no. Georgetown, nope.

A total of seven letters saying something to the effect of, “We receive more qualified applicants than we can accept.”

I’m grateful, however, to have received one yes. Moving forward, I’ll be earning a PhD under a fellowship at the University of Southern California. Since receiving the acceptance letter, I have a renewed sense in God’s mysterious providence. I sense that God has placed this dying houseplant of a soul snug into vast and nutrient rich ground. I believe I’ve been re-potted.

I’ll admit I don’t understand my past and how it fits into the future. I have a complex relationship to Catholicism. Sometimes I feel angry by the disappointments I faced along the way — or heavy with shame for defaulting on my life long commitment — or afraid as I rely more on my conscience and less on the teachings of autority. But mostly I feel gratitude for the wisdom and spirituality that the Church instilled in me over all these years. Ultimately I live with questions that give way to mystery.

As a young Catholic full of zeal, I felt I could hammer down definitive answers to deep questions. These days I like to let things be.

I write this letter and post it to social media because I still care about the relationships formed over all these years and I want to continue to cultivate the best of relationships in my life. I’m addicted to social media and this seems like a good way to break away for a while. I’d love to chat through email if you’d like to reach out.

Warmest Regards,

Nathan