We expect too much from our bishops and priests and, so, are easily (and often) disappointed. 

Listen to these words from the second reading for today’s Mass:

It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens. He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever. (Hebrews 7: 23-28)

We expect our bishops and priests to be “holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and higher than the heavens” like Jesus. And they are not. They are sinners like us who have answered the call to follow Jesus in a particular way—as men subject to weakness who humbly represent 
the one and only “high priest” who has been made perfect forever. 

Only by the grace of God can they hope to live their vocation with integrity. Only by accepting and handing-over their weaknesses can they succeed in being Christ for others. 

We call it “clericalism” when bishops and priests exalt themselves as a privileged class. But it is also clericalism when we expect them to be super-human, “high priests” whom we place on pedestals only to be scandalized by their human sinfulness. 

Both forms of clericalism should be recognized as poisonous; both must be rooted out and destroyed if we wish to renew our Church.

Bishops, priests and all who exercise leadership in the Church must be held to the highest standards of morality and accountability. But the minute we expect them (us) to be perfect, we set ourselves up to be bitterly disappointed and angry. 

May the God of justice and mercy give us all the serenity,  courage and wisdom to accept our human weaknesses even as we work together to change and grow as faithful disciples of the one and only High Priest, Jesus Christ.