9. I PLAYED BUT YOU WOULDN'T DANCE: Learning to Become Joyful Beyond our Loneliness

Recent studies on priests, at least in America, show two seemingly contradicting truths. The first is that priests in their first five years after ordination appear to be “as happy and fulfilled as other American men their age.” This finding is corroborated by no less than Dolan, who, in his foreword to the book by Rosetti says the same, but goes right into the other side of this seemingly paradoxical reality. Dolan says that while “over 90 per cent report high satisfaction with their call and ministry, the public perception is that priests are not joyful, and that the priesthood is in a life-threatening crisis, and that many priest, while internally happy, come off as crabs and malcontents.”

I am not sure a similar study on priests in the Philippines would reveal exactly the same results. Given our proverbial natural propensity to be joyful and optimistic as a people, given the cultural positive attitudes by and large of our people to priests and religious, in general, I am not too sure that we are looked upon and perceived in general as sour and dour – at least as a general rule.

However, it wouldn’t be out of place in a forum such as this, to be speaking about joy. After all, we’ve heard it so often in the past, “a sad saint is a bad saint.” Consequently, if we look at our life and role and ministry as a way to sanctify ourselves and others, nothing stands in the way of this work of sanctification more than being crabby, being sore, being perpetually malcontent, like as if we have an axe to grind against the world, against everyone and everything.

The bad news is that in any given population, in any basket of apples picked at random, you have good apples and bad apples. We do a spontaneous, natural act of selection everyday at table. Although we say it’s the same banana, not all bananas are alike. We naturally pick the better one in the bunch, and the bad ones, generally remain in the bunch, till they become too ripe to eat and which will then be made into banana bread or given an extreme makeover and turned into pudding. You know that well enough.

Given our long training in the context of the seminary, serious pathology would most likely be screened out. There is a natural selection process that takes place in the wisdom of the seminary system introduced by Trent a long time ago. Rosetti, for one, claims that we have few cases of schizophrenia, psychosis, or seriously bipolar. Although it can, and, does arise, particularly from the ranks of those who more or less belong to my generation, priests are no more prone to such pathologies as the general population. As Rosetti says, priests are sick not because they are priests, but because they are human.

But I agree with Rosetti that we do need to talk a little about what we oftentimes pass off as garden-variety “sadness.” Whilst major depression is not part of the list of typical presenting problems of priests, a more subtle, low level, chronic, and milder specie called dysthymia is. This mild depression is something that few priests (and lay people) would even recognize, let alone, accept. But a trained observer just has the nose and the eye for it. Dysthymic people cannot remember the last time they were really happy. They shuffle around with a defeated look, downcast gaze (and some of them mistakenly define this as “profumo sanctitatis”). They shun the noise, the garrulity, and the legitimate joys afforded by everyday life, in the name of detachment and usually hie off to their rooms, or offices, and brood (which they call reflection).

On the opposite side of the spectrum are hypomanic individuals who seem unable to sit down for any length of time alone. They need something to perk them up all the time. They need to be at the center of the action. They need to be there where life happens. They have the chronic niceness syndrome, always available to help damsels in distress and anyone in real or imagined distress, for that matter. They are always huffing and puffing for the next sick call, the next talk, the next Mass, and the next “happening.” Take them away from that type of frenetic activity and they become sullen, withdrawn, or restless, and anxious. Whilst it is by no means pathological in the clinical sense, hypomanics may go through such a frenetic lifestyle, and can claim they do it because of their “apostolic zeal,” and “thirst for the kingdom,” but all they really do is meet an undefined need to be active, to be doing something, to be up and about, and to be saving the whole world. Cardinal Laghi’s famous quip comes in handy: “The Church already happens to have a savior.”

In my modest experience in leadership, and in my equally modest training over the recent past, and as a perpetual student of human behavior, particularly over the past 24 years of my priesthood, of which number more than half was spent in the context of formation, I cannot agree more with a recognized expert in the field all over the world – Rosetti – when he writes that the more common presenting problems of priests and religious are the following: narcissism, passive-aggression, and dependent personality problems.

I know I am treading on dangerous territory. I am walking on a mine-studded field that some of our dioceses and religious congregations in the Philippines are in. It is my educated opinion that of the three, narcissism seems to be the more prevalent in the Philippine setting. I have no hard data to present. My venturing into this field, along with the modest training I had in it, was really born more out of personal interest than on talent. But I see signs of it everywhere. The handwritings are on the wall, and all of us will be well advised to give a look, more at ourselves and less at others, and see just how much this moral and psychological evil has inflicted, and continues to inflict wounds on our communities, on our own personhood, and on the Church as a whole.

I start with the most difficult. Sadly, there is no known cure for them. These are the dashing debonairs of our society. They are talented and gifted. And they don’t just know it. They flaunt it. They make sure you know just what they are capable of, no matter if they are simply imagined. They are the narcissists in our midst. If we go by the rule of thirds that I quoted earlier on, then we should have reason to be worried, to be very worried. At least 33 per cent of clergy, not excluding us, may be in there. Narcissists are focused solely on themselves. They are the ultimate standard to anything. They are charismatic. They appear charming and kind. They know what they want. They know what to do. But you should never cross them. Once you do, you incur their wrath forever. Narcissists see the wrong thing in everybody else except in themselves. They cannot handle criticism. When crossed, their repressed anger is let loose like a dam. They burst like an over-inflated balloon and fly off the handle. They walk out of meetings in a huff, making sure that everybody gets indicted and figuratively sent to hell. They have no qualms about cursing others behaving like they are not capable of making mistakes too. They can even curse the Holy Father, the Superior General, and, if you’re just a local superior in a small community where he belongs, woe to you. You are just peanuts to this bulldozer who has no problems riding rough shod on anyone who stands in his way. All hell will break loose if you don’t do according to his plans. The narcissist’s tendencies, given enough time, is laid out in an intricate web of control, known to psychologists as “projective identification of control.” With enough time, and when (horror of all horrors), the non psychologically intuitive superior puts him in power, the narcissist will lay down a firm, and intractable mechanism of control, and everybody will have to toe the line, and literally kowtow to his every whim and wish, which usually is reinforced with a gruff, a grunt, and a growl. Weiser writes: “Narcissistic clergy operate on the force of personality, and they tolerate no real peers. They may court superiors in order to see themselves as peers of superiors, but they are not interested in genuine exchange. Narcissists are fickle in friendship, judge others in terms of usefulness, and reject people with bitter criticism, a criticism they always spare themselves. Idealization and devaluation is the technical term for their process of boom-and-bust courtship of others.”

The next in line makes a perfect fit for the narcissistic leader. The dependent personality is one whom the narcissist would simply love to have around. Such personalities form perfect part of the narcissist’s “groupie” or clique, individuals that are easily manipulated. Weiser describes them thus: “Depressed/dependent persons have no confidence in their own emotional strength or intellectual abilities. They feel powerless over events and relationships and are often willing to sacrifice anything, including their wants, needs, or themselves, for a sense of belonging equated with safety, security, and love.” Needless to say, such dependents would always love to belong to a small group because that group gives them a sense of security which they are looking for. If you are a small community and you have a clique like that, and you are the superior, you are in for a great deal of resistance. There is not much you can do unless of course you go down to their level and pander to their need for security and belongingness, in which case you would then be guilty of manipulation. Dependent personalities have difficulty asserting their own opinion. They don’t want to say their opinion because they fear being rejected or disliked. In the meantime, their resentment grows, especially if they already feel rejected or alone. Poorly differentiated since childhood, they always look for someone else to prop themselves up, someone else who could meet their nurturance and affiliation needs, someone else who could fill up what is lacking in their personality structure. These dependents are the perfect individuals to be looking for elderly matrons who can mother them, protect them, especially when, in their healthy imagination, they are not cared for in their communities. The bad side of it is, they tell sob stories to people around. The community is put in a bad light, and the hapless, unwary superior is condemned unjustly for being such an uncaring, unfeeling, and insensitive superior who does not act fatherly at all to his subjects (read: himself in particular).

The third most common malady is that of the passive-aggressive. They don’t fight openly against anyone. They just don’t do as agreed. They are not openly aggressive, but it doesn’t mean they are as meek and gentle like lambs. No… they hit you when they think it is most timely, where they think it would hurt you most. They appear to be obedient, nodding their heads in approval of what leaders tell them, but they show a pervasive pattern of passive resistance (low-key rebellion) and negativism. These individuals always feel cheated, unappreciated, and misunderstood. They are always complaining to others. The tragedy grows when they find dependent lay people, who also have very strong needs for succorrance, who literally come to their rescue supplying for what they think their poor priest or brother friend is unjustly deprived of. This includes food, gadgets, and if they are well-to-do, even cars at the poor priest’s disposal. Some even go to the ridiculous point of providing a room where they “are always at home and welcome at any time of day – or night.”

In such a setting, where “original sin” takes the upper hand in our selves, in our communities, in our congregations, religious houses, and dioceses, it becomes very hard for all to live in serenity and joy. It becomes a real challenge. Joy in the community is never to be achieved through short-cuts. Joy is never to be achieved by short-lived tactics like watching movies, and eating out, and finding time for some artificially contrived opportunity to do some backslapping camaraderie that masks an underlying river or resentment and dissatisfaction that is more intrapersonal than interpersonal. Joy, says, Kahlil Gibran, is but sorrow unmasked. Joy is something we ought to work for, sweat for, and sometimes, even cry for. Superiors are the first in the line of battle to assure that joy becomes real, genuine, and not based on flimsy props like food, parties, and gifts. Sometimes, the only way is to suffer through temporary anger misdirected at them by really helping the individuals to learn how to cope with their own issues. Sending them for processing and therapy may be painful, but mere paternalistic benevolence never resolved any big problem in the Church in history. Compassion alone will not clinch it. We also need clarity. And clarity means you have shoulders broad enough to suffer undeserved pain. I have climbed 13 Philippine mountains. I have even been held hostage in our highest peak down south for three days, together with seven others, half of whom were foreigners. You know what is the loneliest spot on earth when there is no one else to share it with? The mountain peak …

What is the use of being atop Mt. Everest if no one ever knew, if no one ever cared? What is the point in trekking alone to Mt. Pulog and then being overcome by the sheer awe and fascination of being higher than the clouds and there is no one else to hear your shouts of glee and triumph?

That is what superiors sometimes are … lonely on top. It is, indeed, lonely at the top. But you never know until it hits you in a moment of clarity that being lonely does have its joys. Joy is but sorrow unmasked. Here is a proof of a story recounted by Rosetti:

He was a seminarian during WW II. Thrown into a concentration camp, he survived. He came to America, was ordained a priest, and sent to a remote mission. He spent yeas building a church, building a community, praying and saying Mass every day. People never came. They ignored him. Years after, he resigned. The Bishop trekked all the way with him to inform people the parish would be closed. The people didn’t like the idea. When asked why despite the fact that they never attended anything, they answered: “You cannot take away the priest. If you take him away, you take away our only light.”

He was stunned. He stayed. And after that, the community began taking part.

No further commentary is needed. Joy is but sorrow unmasked. We priests and religious are supposed to be bearers of joy, gospel joy. And last thing I heard is, this joy can only happen if we take up his cross, and follow him. You better believe it.

The Gospel allusion in the title of this reflection illustrates the fact that also Jesus expressed some frustration. Referring to a game children played – some kind of “follow the leader,” Jesus complained, as children would: “I played but you wouldn’t dance.” We are called to learn how to grow beyond our loneliness, beyond our hopelessness. And this also applies to joy.