How To Get Priests We Need

13 August 2025  Matthew 18:15-20

“Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 18:18

Catholics have been pointing to texts like this for centuries to show that Jesus had a hierarchical system in mind for the Church from the start, with bishops and priests at the top. A pretty strong case can be made that that is true.

But how do we get the bishops and priests that we need?

St. Paul lays out the qualifications for bishops – they must be above reproach, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, and well-trained in sound doctrine in order to deal with deceivers and fast-talkers (see I Timothy 3:1-7, Titus 1:5-9).

Great. So, how do we get men like that?

It is pretty clear that bishops don’t get skills like this from other bishops, and priests don’t get them from other priests. It starts long before that. Bishops and priests start to learn those skills when they are children, and they get them from parents, and committed lay Catholics who care enough to teach them.

So, if we want competent leadership, then we need competent homes, schools, and parishes. Clearly Jesus had that in mind, too. In dealing with stubborn sinners, He says that it is sometimes necessary for bishops and priests to take along one or two others to help establish the facts of a case. Certainly, those people have to be temperate, sensible, respectable and well-trained also. In dealing with really stubborn sinners who won’t listen to just one or two people, Jesus says to take the case to the whole parish. That presumes that there is a critical mass of temperate, sensible, respectable and well-trained people there, too. We get the people we need to deal with stubborn sin from homes and parishes, and apart from that we are powerless in the face of stubborn sin.

A capable hierarchy isn’t built from the top down, but from the bottom up. We get the bishops and priests we need from faithful homes, schools, and parishes.

The patron saint for all who want such homes, schools, and parishes is certainly St. Monica. Her son, Augustine, was the most dangerous kind of stubborn sinner – he was very smart, very wild, and a highly-skilled fast talker. He was an expert in rhetoric and regularly talked circles around his mother, but she pursued him constantly with her prayers, with her tears, with her testimony and knowledge. He snuck away from North Africa to Rome, and she followed him there. He went to Milan, and she followed him there, too. And it was in Milan that Augustine finally yielded to the Holy Spirit, mediated through St. Monica, and a text that Monica had no doubt quoted often to him: “Let us conduct ourselves becomingly, as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires” (Romans 13:13-14).

We got St. Augustine because of his mother.

A capable hierarchy isn’t built from the top down, but from the bottom up. We get the bishops and priests we need – and not a few saints – from faithful homes, schools, and parishes. From faithful parents, grandparents, catechists, coaches, lectors and teachers who follow us around with their testimony, example and knowledge, who put Bibles in our hands, take us to Mass, and pray without ceasing. There is no hierarchy that is above reproach, temperate, sensible, respectable, hospitable, and well-trained in sound doctrine in order to deal with deceivers and fast-talkers, without that.

St. Monica, pray for us.