Reporting for Duty

06-11-2023Pastor's LetterFr. John Bonavitacola

Dear Friends,

This time of year is when clerical assignments are given out. The main driver behind the new assignments is the addition of the newly ordained to the starting line-up. For us, here in the Diocese of Phoenix, two new priests were ordained. Though we are grateful for them, the addition of two doesn’t make up for the number of retirements and deaths and especially in our case, the amount of growth in our area. So, pray for vocations and encourage vocations to the priesthood.

I serve on the Priests’ Personnel Board (and you’ll be glad to know I resisted any urge to reassign myself!) and this year we had an unusually large number of reassignments. And it wasn’t because the new Bishop want to move priests around. It is sort of like a domino effect, and it never works out to be a one-to-one ratio. So, Fr. A goes to Parish B and Fr. B goes to Parish A, doesn’t pan out for a variety of reasons.

Sometimes with changes in clergy in parishes, parishes can get a little off balance. So, in light of that I saw this floating around the Internet and thought it was a good reminder to consider well our expectations:

“The results of a computerized survey indicate the perfect priest preaches exactly fifteen minutes. He condemns sins but never upsets anyone. He works from 8:00 AM until midnight and is also a janitor. He makes $50 a week, wears good clothes, buys good books, drives a good car, and gives about $50 weekly to the poor. He is 28 years old and has preached 30 years. He has a burning desire to work with teenagers and spends all of his time with senior citizens. The perfect priest smiles all the time with a straight face because he has a sense of humor that keeps him seriously dedicated to his work. He makes 15 calls daily on parish families, shut-ins and the hospitalized, and is always in his office when needed.

If your priest does not measure up, simply send this letter to six other churches that are tired of their priest, too. Then bundle up your priest and send him to the church on the top of the list. In one week, you will receive 1,643 priests and one of them will be perfect. Have faith in this procedure. One parish broke the chain and got its old priest back in less than three weeks.”

Anyway, pray for our newly ordained as they take up their first assignment and our not so newly ordained as they take on a new assignment.

Love, Fr. John B.