On Being a Protestant
On Sunday, I had a visit with a man that I got to know during my time with the Dominicans. He was enormously supportive of me during that time; in fact, he was the most supportive member of the Dominicans, all told. I will always be very grateful to him for his kindness and support in my early 20s. He was a couple of years ahead of me in formation, but he entered the Order older (after a complex and convoluted process), so he is a good 15 or so years older than I am. He is, at his heart, a good man who cares deeply for the people around him. He is also someone who takes great joy in being a priest, and he truly puts his whole self into that role. And yet, every time I see him, I come away very sad, and this time was no exception. While he loves being a priest, he has not found the support among his fellow Dominicans that he hoped for, a fact that he admitted to me on Sunday. This is to some degree a function of the fact that (as he also acknowledged in our conversation) he is no