Of “Healing Priests” and Other Strange Intrusions

What is absent in enthusiasm is a humility before the example of the saints, who never prayed with external display or manic delirium but always with a calm and chastened manner.

Published in Crisis Magazine on February 15, 2024

But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to the Father which is in secret: and thy father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly. (Matthew 6:6)

Addressing this subject is a task fraught with danger. For the doctrinal vacuum created in the past sixty years of “spirit of the Council” convulsions has left not a few Catholics stranded in a kind of no-man’s-land. Unanchored by the hallowed Tradition and traditions of the Church’s millennial treasures, they find themselves scrounging for scraps off the tables of secularism and therapeutic kitsch. With liturgical offerings that often impersonate third-rate vaudeville, their souls starve.

With good intentions, they find refuge in a kind of hysterical prayer—put another way, a sort of soothing emotional swoon. Since this refuge is born of genuine spiritual longing, it is hard to hold it to strict theological/ascetical standards. But be held to them they must. Otherwise, added to the doctrinal bedlam there will be spiritual decadence, a salve which soothes but does not sanctify. Some may argue that it is a halfway house to authentic prayer, or better than nothing. But this sentimentality is addictive and can render the soul permanently impaired. Raised on a diet of pretzels and beer, the taste of caviar is unendurable.

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