ST. MEINRAD, Ind. — In years past, the annual Presbyteral Assembly has usually focused on topics that would help priests of the Archdiocese of Louisville in their ministries.

This year, though, the priests spent much of the gathering learning about each other.

The idea, said Father J. Ronald Knott, a former director of the Vocation Office and current director of the Institute for Priests and Presbyterates at St. Meinrad School of Theology, is to promote a sense of unity and teamwork.

“We all realize that we can’t work much harder than we’re working now,” he said June 6 following one of the assembly’s sessions. “So we have to learn how to work in the smartest way possible, and the smartest way to work is as a team.”

What the June 5-8 meeting attempted to promote, he said, “is a sense of the common purpose of the presbyterate.”

“One of the problems that a priest sometimes faces is a sense of loneliness,” he explained. “We’ve all found that working alone is too hard. But our efforts here are not about helping us feel good. It’s about service to our people, and we need to pull together to do that effectively.”

The people of the archdiocese also need to know, Father Knott said, that their priests are “trying to pull ourselves together not just for our good but for their good, too.”

“They are the people we are here to serve, and it’s in their interest that we must learn to work together for the common good, the common purpose of the presbyterate,” he said.

Toward that end, part of the June 6 sessions were devoted to allowing the 120 or so priests in attendance hear from one another. Prior to the gathering, priests in the archdiocese were asked to respond to three questions:

• If I had the choice, I would/would not do it all over again, because...
• My greatest joys/greatest frustrations are...
• If you could change three practical things in church life now that would effectively enhance your ministry, what would they be?

During a morning session, the assembly heard from two priests — one representing the more experienced part of the presbyterate, those priests ordained for more than 15 years, and a priest representing those ordained for 15 years or less.

Both acknowledged there can sometimes be tensions between younger priests and their more experienced counterparts, and the two-part session dealt with that.

“There is a tension between some recently ordained and the rest of the presbyterate,” said Father Nick Rice, who spoke as a representative of the more experienced priests of the archdiocese. “We would like that tension to be healed.”

The recently ordained “can’t be painted with a broad brush, and I’ll match (the Louisville presbyterate group) with any around the country,” he said to applause from those gathered before him. “We need to stand in each other’s shoes; that’s one of the great challenges of today. And none of us can be so haughty as to deliberately cause division within the presbyterate.”

Father Rice, who is pastor at Our Lady of Lourdes Church, said that locally and nationally priests serving the church and its people fall generally into two groups — those who came of age with the reforms of the Second Vatican Council, and “those who inherited a church that many felt went to far” in its reforms.

“Many people look to our younger clergy to rescue the church,” he said. “There’s a need for regular communication, talking and sharing. We have to come to know each other as persons. We are the Roman Catholic Church, and there is a natural tension in those two words, Roman and Catholic.”

Some want the church to return to its more “Roman” roots, he said. Others want it to be more “catholic,” more open to dialogue and collaboration.

“The questionnaire revealed some wonderful news,” Father Rice noted. “In our presbyterate we have wonderfully dedicated priests, men of faith who care deeply about their ministry and about what the church will look like in 2050. In response to the question about ‘doing it all over again,’ 99.8 percent said they would.”

They also said, as did priests in several national surveys, that they “find their work personally enriching, incredibly challenging and sometimes confusing and confounding,” Father Rice noted.

“Their work always gives proof that God took us seriously when we lay on the floor of the Cathedral of the Assumption and gave our all,” he said in reference to the ordination service. “We often like to think that when we gave ourselves on the day of our ordination, we gave ourselves at our best. But we also gave ourselves at our worst. We gave our good parts and our bad.”

There is a natural tendency to be resistant to change, Father Rice said, to “hold onto what we know, though we know the old wineskin won’t hold all the new wine being given to us.”

And there is a natural tension “between those who rush to embrace the new and those reluctant to part with the past,” he added. “So what are the deep groans, the deep concerns of our presbyterate? The (priest) shortage, of course, and the lack of vocations. After Vatican II, we thought we’d have a new generation in the priesthood, and instead, we’re facing a shortage of priests and some newly ordained men who seem to be suspicious of Vatican II.”

Creating dialogue between the young and old, the experienced and the less experienced, “is one of the great challenges of today,” he said.

That view was echoed by Father Jeffrey Nicolas, pastor of St. Lawrence Church, who presented the view of the younger presbyterate — the “minority report” as he called it.

“One hundred percent of those responding said ‘yes, I would do it all over again,’” Father Nicolas said. But the kicker to that number, he noted, is that only eight of the archdiocese’s 31 priests with less than 15 years of experience responded to the questionnaire. (Fifty-six priests with more than 15 years of experience responded.)

“I’m left wondering what the other 75 percent (of younger priests) are thinking,” he said. “Would I do it again? I know the answer I’m supposed to give; I’ve seen all the national surveys, and I know we priests are supposed to be a happy lot.

“But if I knew 20 years ago when I entered St. Meinrad what I know now, would I do it again? If I knew about sexual abuse, if I knew that some cradle Catholics would be barred from Communion while converts were welcomed because of divorce, would I do it? Honestly, I don’t know, but maybe it doesn’t matter. I’m here now. Maybe I’m like Peter, who when Jesus was abandoned by the crowds and asked the 12 if they would leave him, too, said, ‘Where would I go?’ ”

Father Nicolas said he recognizes that he is a priest “when it is a scandal to be one.”

“We are infamous more than famous,” he noted. “We face false accusations from without and witch hunts from within. Forget help, forget replacements, take two, three or more parishes.”

As a new priest, he recalled, he was asked to give a bit of a pep talk during one of the “Dinner with the Archbishop” evenings held to promote vocations.

“I said Peter was chosen because he knew his sins, his shortcomings,” Father Nicolas said. “Peter came to know compassion, and compassion is the most important trait you can have as a leader. Compassion is what sent Jesus to us.”

So, would he do it again? “Perhaps not,” he said. “But perhaps that’s not the best question. The best question is, ‘Would I do it today?’ And the answer is yes. Tomorrow? Yes, with God’s help.”