From time to time the suggestion
is made that clergy should not only encourage members of their congregations to
seek a spiritual director but offer themselves in that role. As
someone said: ‘There is no magic, no expertise, just sister and brother
sinners on the Way.' However, there is a long tradition that clergy
should not act as director to parishioners: as Madeleine de
Saint-Joseph wrote to ‘A Cleric’:
‘First,
then, I tell you this, sir, about the direction of souls. It is very
dangerous to meddle in it. One must be constrained and called to it
by God …’ 1
Whilst it’s true that clergy need
to help parishioners deepen their relationship with God, there are dangers and
pitfalls in directing them. It’s one thing to be asked to
preach and another to be a preacher – most benefit from proper training, and a
few are simply not gifted in that way. Just so with Spiritual
Direction. To offer that ministry requires a certain calling and the
humility to seek some formation – it doesn’t come as part of the grace of
ordination, any more than does the ability to be an effective preacher or
teacher. It’s also clear that some should not be offering this
ministry, and several bishops are rightly concerned when they learn of
directors who are not supervised in what they do.
This ministry needs approaching
with great sensitivity, for one is involved in dealing with another’s soul: the
place where we stand is holy ground. Whoever is prepared to offer
this ministry needs to realise the primary importance of their
own conversatio morum though
their ongoing, deepening relationship with God. Whoever offers
direction must come to terms with the:
• temptation to want
to ‘rescue’ people or to focus into ‘problem solving’;
• urge to be too
directive;
• need for a broad
understanding of the Christian spiritual tradition;
• need to trust in the
‘slow work of God’ in a directee’s life;
• importance of
insights from other therapeutic disciplines, especially in the areas
of transference, counter-transference and projection and the dangers of
rejecting these insights;
• legal issues
surrounding the ministry (aspects of confidentiality, safeguarding etc…);
• importance of
knowing how to listen contemplatively, and the danger of not properly
listening;
• temptation to ‘go it
alone’ and think we don’t need help (supervision).
The dynamic between priest and
parishioner can be complex – unlike the boundaried relationship between
confessor and penitent, this relationship can confuse matters. Spiritual
Direction requires both to feel they are free to bring to the relationship what
needs addressing, and there needs to be a certain distance between director and
directee. But the proximity between priest and parishioner in weekly
services etc. leave both vulnerable to becoming inappropriately close in a
variety of ways, and this can be a problem where, consciously or not, levels of
attraction begin to emerge.
For all these reasons, not
least the many psycho-spiritual dynamics involved, it’s held that clergy
ought not to direct members of their congregations.
__________________________________
1 William M. Thomson,
ed, Berulle and the French School,
The Classics of Western Spirituality, Paulist Press, 1989, p.208
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