Today marks the first day of the Year for Priests which Pope Benedict has proclaimed "to deepen the commitment of all priests to interior renewal for the sake of a more forceful and incisive witness to the Gospel in today’s world" As a blogger who does a lot of complaining, it is often suggested that I do not have a lot of respect for priests. After all, I often complain about priests and accuse some of them of doing things they shouldn't. If I had respect for the priesthood, surely I would never criticise a priest? No matter how they behaved I would be silent and respectful.

I think it is a big mistake to think that hushed silence is a sign of respect. Quietly pretending that somebody did something right when they did it wrong is the sort of behaviour due to tyrannical kings, not priests. It is degrading to the priesthood itself that people feel the need to behave in this way, as if a priest is the Wizard of Oz and nothing more than a fraud hiding behind a facade. In other words, we do not disrespect priests when we say that a particular priest did something wrong, but we do disrespect priests when we say that the priesthood depends on every individual priest never making a mistake and on our covering their mistakes and pretending they don't exist.

To say otherwise is as ludicrous as saying that respect for the divine Kingship of Christ depends on pretending that Henry VIII was a nice guy because otherwise, you obviously don't respect kings. The priest is not of great importance because he never makes mistakes, the priest is of great importance because he is a priest! He is of great importance by virtue of his ordination, not by virtue of his virtue.

It seems to me that when we knowingly hide the negative aspects of a priests behaviour we essentially deny his priesthood because what we are doing is saying that his priesthood is merely a product of his actions. We are saying that we do not respect a priest because he is a priest but because he is a good man. Worse than that though, is that we base even this falsehood on a lie. We do not respect him because he is a good man, we pretend he is a good man so that we can respect him. What sort of respect is that? Think how that looks to the world at large: We value priests because they are good only they aren't always good so we pretend they are...

We value priests because they are priests!

The only possible way to do that, is to freely and openly acknowledge that some priests are very good, some priests are very bad and most priests are somewhere in between. In his letter proclaiming the Year for Priests, Pope Benedict writes...

There are also, sad to say, situations which can never be sufficiently deplored where the Church herself suffers as a consequence of infidelity on the part of some of her ministers. Then it is the world which finds grounds for scandal and rejection. What is most helpful to the Church in such cases is not only a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers, but also a joyful and renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors, religious afire with love for God and for souls, and insightful, patient spiritual guides.

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Did you get that? Pope Benedict says that what is "most helpful to the Church" is "a frank and complete acknowledgment of the weaknesses of her ministers" and the "renewed realization of the greatness of God’s gift, embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors". In other words, when Fr Fun gets up to his usual tricks, what is "most helpful to the Church" is a frank and complete acknowledgement of what he is doing wrong and the renewed realization of how wonderful things are when Fr Faithful does them right.

So should Catholics criticise priests? It looks like the answer is that we should frankly and completely acknowledge their weaknesses with renewed realization of the greatness of God's gift embodied in the splendid example of generous pastors.

I think that might be Latin for "Yes".