Your Excellency,
I’m writing only because you asked. I have so far successfully avoided the role of elder statesman, and I suffer from a mild allergy to the genre of “Letters to a Young [Whatever].” They seem an excuse for making stout pronouncements, and that’s something I was trained not to do. In my youth, theologians and Scripture scholars offered commentary and proposed hypotheses. We left the business of pronouncements to the bishops.
With your request, you’ve declared a kind of Saturnalia—the Roman holiday on which masters and slaves, husbands and wives, would reverse roles. In antiquity, the results were often comical. So I’ll accept your invitation. If I entertain you, my time won’t be wasted. If I don’t, then at least you’ll have learned never to do this again.
It’s been thirty-eight years since I began to get used to having a bishop. I like it. In my former, evangelical world, I had nothing like a bishop. The pastor held the fairly undivided attention of his little flock. But he might be idiosyncratic and far different, in significant ways, from other pastors nearby. A bishop, by contrast, transcends differences. He is father to all his pastors. He is father to all their flocks.
A bishop is a focal point for Catholics in a given region. He may not be universally liked. (Who is?) But he provides a point of reference for everyone. He can get their attention and, to some degree, set an agenda for their concerns. What he talks about, they’ll talk about, even when they disagree with him.
So make the most of that fact. At any given time, you should have a single compact spiritual message, which you want them to remember. Make it your theme for a month or so. You can even tune it to the seasons of the liturgical year. Distill your message into a catchphrase and use it at every event, from homilies to ribbon cuttings. Don’t worry about sounding repetitive. Only you and maybe your master of ceremonies will notice that you’re saying the same thing over and over. In the meantime, you’ll be delivering an important message to your whole family.
Think about it. A man can lie down on a bed of nails because when there are a thousand points, none gets through. But a single point will penetrate. Find the single point God wants you to make during this month or this year.
That’s very practical, I know, and maybe you were looking for something more spiritual. But God wants you to excel at the most boring, routine tasks. There are so many of those in the life of a bishop, so you should find a way to do them well and even love them. If you don’t know how, try this: Every time you pick up a spreadsheet (and in your life they will be legion), offer your reading of it as reparation for the sins of Scott Hahn. We’ll all be better for it.
I do hope you’ll excel in your routines and become the best administrator in the American hierarchy. I know you’re worried that you’ll become a drone, a bureaucrat. But that’s always a danger, no matter where we work. I’ve found—thanks to the advice of friends—that there are simple remedies. Here’s one.
Make a list of the things you find most amazing about the Catholic faith: the Real Presence, biblical inspiration, creation ex nihilo, the special gifts of the Virgin Mary. Look at the list every day at noon, when you say the Angelus—or whatever time of day you feel most threatened by the rising waters of the River Drudge.
And don’t just look at the list. After you read each item, say, “Thank you.” This whole process will take only a minute, and if you do it, I guarantee you’ll be a happy man—a man focused more on marvels than on problems.
Always remember that God did all these things, from creation to inspiration, to delight you. He had you in mind. So don’t frustrate his purpose.
If you keep that sense of delight—by adopting this habit of gratitude—you’ll surely pass it along to your people, making them happier, more grateful, more open to wonder.
Please, never lose sight of the supernatural. Our Church is both heavenly and earthly. There is one Church (Eph. 4:5), not two and not three. The Church Triumphant, Church Suffering, and Church Militant join in a single liturgy of praise. In that liturgy we recognize that we are in the presence of “all the angels and saints.” And so we are (see Heb. 12:1, Rev. 6:10). Everything will be okay in the end.
Yes, the Church is in crisis, and the pessimists are right when they say our crisis is unique. It’s unique just like every other crisis in the last two millennia. Philip Hughes titled his classic history of the ecumenical councils The Church in Crisis. I love that title. The book begins with a dire and impossible situation in the fourth century and ends with another in the nineteenth. In between there are still others—many others. So be assured that God’s got this. The Church will survive even your petty failures. Keep a sense of history, and you’ll keep your sense of humor.
Because you’re right to believe you’re in mortal danger, and you’re right to fear that you’ll become a boring wonk. Somehow both are true. Don’t overthink that paradox. Just get your job done, but get your prayer done, too, and challenge yourself to think about the surpassing strangeness of the Catholic faith.
We’re the people of vestments and smells and bells. These things are gratuitous, beautiful items that certainly slow us down, cost us money, and make us less efficient. But they communicate, in a sensible, sensory way, something that’s invisible, heavenly, and spiritual. That’s what God wants from the Church and its ministers. Theologians have been telling us for generations that the Church is a sacrament. It’s an outward sign of an inward reality: the kingdom.
In the Greek of the New Testament, the sacraments are “mysteries,” and you bishops are designated as their stewards (see 1 Cor. 4:1). A good steward, my dear friend, will not keep the mysteries in mothballs. I know you, and I know your native shyness. I also know your humility. You may be tempted to put “pageantry” aside because you feel it draws attention to you rather than to Jesus. That’s a silly thought, and I urge you to reject it forcefully. This is not about you. In fact, the vestments and smoke will obscure you and allow Jesus to shine. You can hide beneath the beauty that tradition has raised as his throne.
It’s not a bad thing that people will learn from this to look toward you to find Jesus. The rites of your successive ordinations have made clear that you are now alter Christus, you act in persona Christi, as vicarius Christi. Ignatius of Antioch, in a.d. 107, did not hesitate to use this sort of language as he traveled in chains to be martyred for Jesus. You should learn from him. Get over yourself and accept what God has given you.
Your people are looking to you for a word. To them, you are the one who will “preach Christ” (1 Cor. 1:23). Because of the grace you’ve received, you are not preaching you. So speak with clarity and consistency—and with the authority you’ve been given.
The devil will want you to cast aside your authority and all the air of mystery that comes with your office. Don’t. These come from God, and they have been signs of the true Church in every generation since the days of the apostles (and indeed since the days of the patriarchs and prophets). Authority and mystery are unpopular today. They’re unmodern. So what? To the degree that we diminish them, we fail.
Please don’t think I’m advocating a Church of irrational spectacle. No Christian body has championed reason more consistently than the Catholic Church. The Church Father Tertullian is often claimed to have said “I believe because it is absurd,” which has been used at times to equate the Christian stance toward reason with fideism. But this could not be further from the truth. In all of his works, Tertullian scrupulously obeyed the rules of logic and law as he defended and explicated the Christian mysteries. I think he wanted us to think outside the empiricist box that would trap us in categories imposed by our attorneys, accountants, and consultants.
I hope you’ll value the advice of all such professionals—but not more than the counsel of your confessor and your spiritual director. Pope St. John Paul II confessed his sins at least once a week. I urge you to do the same. It will keep you grounded, more than anything else you do. As bishop, you’ll tell people often to “frequent the sacraments.” Well, there are only two sacraments we can “frequent.” The others we can do either once or rarely. If you set your own sacramental bar high, your people will strive to match it. If you set it low, they probably won’t interrupt their Netflix binge to make it to church before the posted confession hours are over.
In the home that is the Church, you’re the father. So you set the standards. You set the tone. If you keep both high, you can let your guard down occasionally, and it will be endearing. If you keep both low, your household will be chaos itself, a canvas by Hieronymus Bosch.
As in any family, the children are always watching. They’ll notice if you take a second drink. They’ll notice the way you notice that pretty woman. In matters of chastity and sobriety, keep your standards very high. Let any attempt at gossip against you be unbelievable and futile.
What Dom Chautard said of parish priests a century ago is all the more true for bishops. “If the priest is a saint, the people will be fervent; if the priest is fervent, the people will be pious; if the priest is pious, the people will at least be decent; if the priest is only decent, the people will be godless.” This is how the universal laws of fatherhood apply to the life God has chosen for you.
Keep your fatherhood in mind especially when you deal with clergy or others who give you trouble. When you discipline them, make sure they know you don’t consider them your enemies. Help them to understand why you do what you do. Fathers have to impose discipline regularly. You’re not exempt.
I worry that I’ve surpassed my quota of pronouncements, and I should wrap this up. My bottom line is this: You and I have accepted our offices, and we’ve accepted them for life. We’ve received no assurance of success by any worldly standards. If we read history, we’ll see that the saints often failed by worldly standards.
We’ve received no command to succeed. We’re commanded to be faithful.
I promise to pray for you. You have it in writing now, and you can hold me accountable. I beg your prayers for me. Remember me, please, with every spreadsheet that vexes or bores you.
Yours respectfully in Christ,
Scott Hahn
