Catholic priests: old and retiring, persecuted or murdered

Some Western countries, erstwhile Catholic countries, are witnessing “empty altars and empty pews.” Priestly vocation is on the red.

One Canossian priest, stationed in Alfonso, Cavite (Luzon, Philippines), once told me that he was complaining for having one body and more than 10 chapels, in addition to the main parish church, which is in permanent need of ordained ministers for Sunday services. When he visited Tagum (Mindanao), he said he soon realized that, in this diocese, one parish has more than 35 chapels, plus the main church.

Twenty percent of Ireland’s more than 2,000 clergy have died in just three years (2019-2022). Some parishes have closed, and fewer Masses are now held in the surviving ones. A lot of Irish priests, 70 to 84 years old, are retired.

Worse than retiring is being persecuted or murdered. The Nicaraguan government just expelled 19 Catholic clergymen to the Vatican a few days ago, which included Bishop Rolando Alvarez, a prominent critic of President Daniel Ortega, and Bishop Isidoro Mora. Before that, they were detained.

In 2022, Pope Francis mourned for his priests. Four priests were murdered in seven days—days that became the deadliest for Catholic priests in recent years. FILE PHOTO

In 2022, Pope Francis mourned for his priests. Four priests were murdered in seven days—days that became the deadliest for Catholic priests in recent years. The Holy Father, himself a Jesuit, expressed sadness over the killings of two of his Jesuit “brothers” in the mountains of the northern state of Chihuahua. “So many murders in Mexico. I am close, in affection and prayer, to the Catholic community affected by this tragedy,” the pontiff said in his weekly audience at the Vatican.

That same year, Nigeria lost two priests; one was murdered in Kaduna State, the same region where two churches were attacked a week earlier, and the other was murdered after being kidnapped from the Diocese of Auchi in the southern region of Nigeria. The shocking news is that, in 2022, more than 100 priests and women religious were kidnapped, arrested, or killed in Nigeria, China, the Democratic Republic of Congo and other places where the murderers wanted to eliminate the Catholic presence in their countries.

Years ago, the Philippines, a predominantly Catholic nation, was deeply saddened and terribly disturbed when three Filipino priests were assassinated in broad daylight within a span of six months. In agony, Archbishop Socrates Villegas of Lingayen-Dagupan, former head of the national bishops’ conference, said, “They are killing us the shepherds. They are killing our faith. They are cursing our Church. They are killing God again, as they did at Calvary. Killing is the solution… Killing is encouraged. Killing is their job. Killers are rewarded.”

You may not believe this but the priest’s murder is Old Nick’s sharpened preoccupation. Every clerical murder is diabolical, and the brutal method has been pre-tested in Hell. I remember Pope Francis warning the Catholic world in 2016 that Hell’s sharpened preoccupation is to tear down the Roman Catholic Church. When the Devil argues in French: Verre est fait pour briser, “It’s the fate of the glass to break,” he’s dead sure that it’s the fate of the Church to disappear.

Years ago, three Filipino priests were assassinated in broad daylight within a span of six months. In agony, Archbishop Socrates Villegas said, “They are killing us the shepherds.” Photo from Lingayen-Dagupan Archdiocese website

So convinced that the Catholic Church is the vessel of God’s love and the channel of true revelation, the Lord of Lies from the Inferno leads the pack of the most unfriendly forces and vilest critics that have attacked the Church since her birth on the First Pentecost Sunday.

Satan’s main target is the clergy, and he operates so strategically with one focused Key Performance Indicator (KPI): To put the wonderful band of ordained brothers into oblivion. Why? Because, according to John Paul II, the Holy Priesthood is “the nerve center of the Church’s whole life and mission.” The Polish saint himself was a target of assassination when he was shot and wounded by Mehmet Ali Ağca in 1981.

Père Jean-Marie Vianney is the patron saint of all parish priests. Believing that the priest is indeed situated in the very heart of the Church, he once verbalized: “Without the Sacrament of Holy Orders, we would not have the Lord. Who put him there in that tabernacle? The priest. Who welcomed your soul at the beginning of your life? The priest. Who feeds your soul and gives it strength for its journey? The priest.”

What the Evil One wanted all along was to see to it that, out of the 400,000 clergy worldwide, only the bald shepherds of the flock in walking canes and wheelchairs (meaning, the old and worn-out bishops and priests) are left in space and time to continue the evangelizing mission of the Church.

Rearing its ugly tail, Satan salivates to see our bishops, priests and all coadjutors of the Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church who are reaching out to the flock of some 1.3 billion Catholics decimated and all gone. His methods are clear-cut: Divide them, destroy priestly vocation, hit them hard in their human weakness and assassinate them.

“The killing of any person is reprehensible, but more reprehensible is the killing of any priest simply because his life and priesthood are gifts of God,” as Bishop Francis M. De Leon of Antipolo in the Philippines has wisely put it.

The voice of Archbishop Socrates Villegas was full of trust in the Lord, “We are not afraid… They want to bury us priests. But they forget that we priests are seeds. When you bury us, we will grow and flourish. You cannot stop the Gospel from growing. You cannot stop God from being God. You cannot muzzle the voice of Truth.”

As our Lord Jesus has said, “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24).

Jose Mario Bautista Maximiano is the author of ‘Pope Francis, the Catholic Bishop, and the Priest’ (Claretians, 2014).