Ordained for being likeable, rejected for being disliked

The priesthood reduced to a clerical casting, where it is not God who decides, but the personal taste of the rector in charge.

In the Catholic Church, the priesthood is not a job, not one option among many, not a career move, nor a prize to be won. It is a sacrament. It is a mystery of election, gift, and responsibility. But what happens when this sacramental reality is reduced to a selection based on personal sympathies, ideological leanings or – worse still – visceral antipathies?

The ministerial priesthood is a configuration to Christ as Head and Servant. It is the fruit of an ecclesial discernment, not an automatic process. And this is where the issue arises, one that shakes the very foundations of the Church’s credibility: who is truly discerning? And on what basis?

A Vocational Journey Uphill

The young man who feels called to the priesthood embarks on a long, demanding, delicate path. He studies theology, lives in community, undergoes psychological, spiritual, and intellectual evaluations. All of this – at least on paper – should serve to understand whether that vocation is authentic, whether it has matured, whether it is conformed to the Gospel.

But in reality, the selection of future priests is often poisoned by human logic: like or dislike, adherence to a certain ideological line, personal "chemistry" with the current formator. It is not uncommon for a seminarian to be dismissed not for serious faults or lack of vocation, but because “he doesn’t click with the rector” or “has a different spiritual style”.

This is a delicate and dramatic matter that Pope Benedict XVI had the courage to address in his last book, published posthumously. He wrote bitterly: “It may be worth mentioning that in quite a few seminaries, students caught reading my books were considered unfit for the priesthood.”

A testimony that sheds light on a reality too often hidden, for fear of undermining trust in the priestly ministry or in the Church’s formation structures. And yet, as so often happens, the target is missed: speaking about it is not what destroys trust – it is the existence and toleration of these dynamics. Silence does not protect the sacred, it exposes it to suspicion and hypocrisy.

If we truly want a more credible Church, we must not cover the problem, but confront it at its roots. Only then can transparency, justice and authenticity be restored to a vocational path that, by its nature, should be free from all bias and guided solely by God’s will.

We must distinguish between selection and discernment, and avoid turning formation into a cloning system of the formator.

The Formator as God’s Filter?

Here lies the crux of the matter: many formators behave as though they own the vocation, rather than serve the mystery of a call that does not belong to them. From this distorted mindset arise grotesque situations. There are rectors who admit only candidates “with sandals and guitars”, or – on the opposite end – seek out “problematic” youths convinced they can save them with their magical intervention.

Vocational selection is often driven by subjective, if not outright ideological, criteria: some evaluate seminarians according to their theological agenda, others based on liturgical preferences, others still through pseudo-psychological lenses absorbed from 1960s magazines. Certain bishops grant permission for ordination only if the candidate doesn’t cause problems, meaning he doesn’t ask questions or challenge anything.