Review of
Why Priests? A Failed Tradition
By Garry Wills
New
York: Viking Press, 2013.
302 pages.
It was no surprise to see
Garry
Wills’ op-ed on the upcoming papal conclave published in
The New York
Times, Wills has been a longtime critic of
the Church and her leaders—so when he titled his opinion piece, “New Pope? I’ve
Given Up Hope,” it was nothing new.
The author of the virulently anti-Catholic book,
Papal Sin, Wills—a former Jesuit seminarian—gave up hope for
the Church many years ago. Now, in
his new book,
Why Priests? A Failed Tradition, we find that in addition to giving up hope, Wills
has now given up his faith.
Denying the Real Presence in the Eucharist, the sacrificial
interpretation of the Mass, and the salvific mission of Christ,
Why Priests? argues for a “re-envisioning” of the Church which
removes the distinction between the ordained and the laity. Rather than lobbying for female
priests, or gay priests, Wills chooses instead to do away entirely with
apostolic succession and the God-given power of the priest to consecrate the
Eucharist.
Indeed, Wills’ hatred for priests and the priesthood is
palpable on nearly every page of his angry polemic. But it is difficult to understand the source of this hatred
because his examples of “clerical privilege” are so silly. For example, on page 31 we begin to get
an idea of his early anger toward priests when he describes his days as a young
golf caddie who had to give priests “special treatment” on the golf course:
“Men already prepared to tee off let him go ahead of them. It was presumed he
had to get back to his spiritual tasks.”
Wills also recalled that priests often abused parking rules: “once when
a priest drove me to the airport to pick up a friend, he stopped in a
no-parking area just outside the entry…he told me he had a clerical sticker on
his car.” (p 31)
So why did Wills enter the seminary and stay for five years
if he had such hostility for the priesthood? It’s not clear. But he continued
his animosity as an adult, recalling an old priest friend of his who “invited
himself to our house every Saturday to watch his favorite TV shows. He asked
that our kids be kept quiet and he ate the special meal my wife
provided—without ever thanking her. He obviously assumed it was just his
right.”
The hatred escalates throughout the book and culminates in a
chapter titled, “Killer Priests” where Wills pronounces that “priests killed
Jesus. That is what they do. They
kill the prophets.” (p 80)
Appearing to see himself as one of the prophets/martyrs, Wills devotes
his entire book to ridiculing the practices of the Church—including what he
calls priestly imperialism and human sacrifice. It is a difficult book to read only because it is
always a tragedy to see a man lose his faith so publicly, especially a man who
should know better and know more.
As one
reviewer on Amazon.com states, “Once Wills was an interesting and
provocative writer. Now he is simply a muckraker pretending to be an academic
of deep erudition. Buy this book if you wish to see an example of an attempt to
destroy the central dogmas of the Catholic Church.” Exactly right. It is one
thing to rightly critique clericalism or acts of arrogance; it is quite another
to rage against an institution without dealing fairly with the historical and
theological evidence, and without acknowledging the great goods rendered by
individual priests and the priesthood in general.