This story originally appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer on March 31, 2001.
To be a priest-that was my childhood dream. Unfortunately, it would remain just that, one of the many things left unfulfilled among the goals I have set in my lifetime.
Today, all of 28 years, I still entertain the idea of one day becoming a prince of the church, albeit with little fascination and some reservations. I still debate with my mother what would have happened had I become a priest. Would I become pope one day? Would I ask the flock to rally and oust rogue leaders in the manner of Jaime Cardinal Sin? But all these questions will never be answered now.
My fascination about priests and the priesthood dates as far back as when I was not even old enough to receive Holy Communion. Brought to the church every Sunday by my mother, I observed intently as the priest said Mass. I was awed by the purity of the man in white as he raised the chalice and said, “This is my blood, the blood of a new and everlasting covenant. Do this in memory of me.” And who wouldn’t marvel at the power of the priest to gather so many people to hear Mass? This, plus the admiration and respect a priest enjoyed during those times set me to thinking that one day I would also become a priest.
Alas, I would never set foot in a seminary, except during the times when I went to visit my brother who was then a seminarian. I tried to convince my parents to let me enter the seminary. But my mother told me that sending me there to study was beyond our family’s means. She assured me, however, that if after I finished my secondary education I still had that fire in me, then she would do everything to get me into the seminary.
So I started secondary school without much fervor and interest. My best friend was in the seminary, and four others in our batch were also studying there. I envied all of them.
It didn’t take long before my fascination for the priesthood started to wane. In second year, I stopped going to church and became an agnostic.
It was also during my high school days that I started to ridicule priests and regarded them with little respect. Gone were the days when I kissed the hands of the priest when I met him on the street.
It was also during those times that alternative churches started sprouting in our province. So-called born-again Christians surfaced and their congregations grew. Satanism also started to become popular, but the good still won over evil.
When I was halfway through college, one of my brothers (actually the one next to me) entered the seminary. That made me feel bad since I recalled that I was denied the same opportunity. Still I was one with the rest the family in hoping that one day we would have a brother who would be a priest or even a bishop.
I continued to pursue my college degree. And even as I envied my brother, I told myself I would support him when the time comes for him to take his vows. We even had some kind of a compact that no one among us would get married until the time my younger brother would be ordained a priest.
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see the day. Six years into his formation, he came home one day never to return again to the seminary.
That episode prompted me to tell my mother in jest that had she only allowed me to enter the seminary, she would have had a priest for a son by now.
But even if there are times when I feel my fascination for priesthood returning, my desire to be priest is not as strong as it was before. In fact, I am starting to suspect that I have come to regard the priestly life as an escape from the harsh realities of life and my own weaknesses.
Sometimes, when I feel so alone and disturbed, I have this sudden longing to become a priest. When I feel helpless about my job and feel that I am not being productive in my work, I feel the urge to enter the priesthood.
When I don’t get the woman I want, the more I am convinced that I must have a vocation. At one point in my life, I even thought I was a priest reincarnated.
But this thing about priesthood, I now consider with a lot of reservations. I am enjoying life, I cannot live on bread alone even if it has butter. I doubt if I can keep the vow of celibacy, and this is probably the main reason I no longer feel the need to rush to the seminary. Sometimes when friends mock me about my ambition, I tell them that yes, I am going to be a priest, get myself elected as pope and then allow priests to get married.
Of course, I am aware that there are those priests who openly engage in some dangerous liaisons with women. But I still believe that when you make a vow celibacy, then you shouldn’t break it. To me, that is the biggest sin a priest can commit. Jesus Christ resisted all the temptations, how can his disciples do otherwise?
My doubts about pursuing priesthood grow even stronger when I see how much the priorities of the church has changed. I cannot imagine myself wearing a cassock and leading the faithful in an attempt to bring down a regime. I cannot imagine myself running around the country to criticize the government while many lost souls in the church need counsel and consolation to brighten up their lives. What some men of the cloth have done are heroic, I admit, but I also believe that the church should not meddle too much in the affairs of the state. What if the state does what the church has done to it, will the church not invoke the principle of separation of church and state?
My upbringing, the way I have behaved and my attitude toward the vocation make me worthy of becoming an heir to John Paul’s throne, or so I think. But right now there is no compelling reason for me to hurry into a formation house.
Maybe it is God’s will that I did not become a priest. Maybe He felt that I would contribute nothing to the hierarchy or that I could not be an effective messenger for spreading His words. But it is more likely that He believes that I would be better off in the outside world, carving my own niche in society. But I am becoming impatient with my progress, and the desire to enter the priesthood is getting stronger.
