The Need For A Center
Finding Our Center in a Divided Church
By Fr. Mark Toups
I love being a priest. And I love priests.
The longer I live this life, the more grateful I become for the men with whom I share this extraordinary vocation. I have spent much of my priesthood accompanying other priests, listening to their stories, celebrating their victories, and sometimes sitting with them in the midst of tremendous pain. I've seen their generosity, their courage, their fidelity, and their desire to give their lives completely to God.
And I've also seen how difficult it can be to be a priest today.
We live in a world that seems increasingly polarized. Everything appears to be divided. Left or right. Conservative or liberal. Traditional or progressive. People are categorized, opinions are scrutinized, and labels are assigned almost before conversations begin.
And while we might expect this from the world around us, what concerns me is how deeply this polarization has entered the life of the Church.
And, perhaps even more painfully, how it has entered the fraternity of priests.
I sometimes wonder whether we priests have become so accustomed to identifying ourselves and one another by our differences that we've forgotten what we have in common.
Or, more importantly, Whom we have in common.
The Labels We Carry
Think about how easily we categorize priests today. He's traditional. He's progressive. He's conservative. He's liberal. He's a diocesan man. He's a company man. He's too rigid. He's too accommodating. He's too focused on the liturgy. He's not focused enough on the liturgy.
The list seems endless.
And the tragedy is that sometimes these labels become more than descriptions. They become definitions. We begin to see one another through the lens of a category rather than through the eyes of a brother. We make assumptions about a man's heart because of the way he celebrates Mass, the people he associates with, the books he reads, or the opinions he expresses.
And somewhere along the way, we risk losing something precious: our fraternity.
I don't think most priests want this. In fact, I think many of us are exhausted by it. We entered the priesthood because we fell in love with Jesus Christ. We wanted to give Him our lives. We wanted to serve His people. We wanted to become holy.
But somewhere in the noise of ecclesial debates, cultural divisions, and the constant pressure to identify with one group or another, we can lose sight of the very One who called us.
And that brings me to a question I've been carrying in my heart. Where is our center?
The Stationary Point
Some time ago, I was reflecting on the word center. Its history leads us back through Latin to the Greek word kéntron, which originally referred to a sharp point.
Think about an old-fashioned geometric compass, the kind we used in school to draw circles.
One leg has a pencil. The other has a sharp point. To draw a circle, you place that sharp point firmly on the paper. It remains stationary while the pencil moves around it.
Everything depends on that stationary point. If the point moves, the circle becomes distorted. If the point slips, the entire drawing loses its shape.
The pencil can move precisely because the center does not.
I've thought about that image often, especially when I consider the priesthood today.
There is so much movement around us. The culture changes. Expectations change. Leadership changes. Assignments change. Opinions change. Even the way people perceive us can change overnight.
And if we're not careful, we can spend our entire priesthood trying to adjust ourselves to everything that's moving.
But what if the most important question isn't how we respond to everything that's changing?
What if the more important question is whether we're still anchored to the One who doesn't change?
Every priest needs a stationary point.
And that point cannot be an ideology, a theological preference, an ecclesial movement, or even a particular vision of what the Church ought to become.
That point must be a Person. Jesus Christ.
Whose Are You?
Over the years, I've become increasingly convinced that one of the most important questions a priest can ask himself is not simply, "Who am I?"
It's something deeper.
"Whose am I?"
Because I believe we will never fully understand who we are until we remember Whose we are.
Before I am a pastor, I belong to Jesus.
Before I am a spiritual director, I belong to Jesus.
Before I am an author, a preacher, an administrator, or whatever else my priesthood asks of me, I belong to Jesus.
Before anyone calls me conservative or liberal, traditional or progressive, successful or unsuccessful, I belong to Jesus.
Brother, before you were ordained, before you were assigned, before you accomplished anything in ministry, Jesus knew you.
He loved you. He called you. And He invited you to belong to Him.
Remember the words of Jesus at the Last Supper: "It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you" (John 15:16).
That is where our identity begins. Not with what we do for Him. But with what He has done for us. Not with how others perceive us. But with how He sees us. And not with the labels that the world or the Church might place upon us. But with the love of the One who first called us by name.
When the Center Moves
I wonder how much of our frustration, anxiety, and even anger as priests comes from allowing something other than Jesus to become our center.
If my identity rests primarily in my assignment, what happens when the assignment changes?
If my identity rests in being appreciated, what happens when someone criticizes me?
If my identity rests in belonging to a particular group within the Church, what happens when that group is challenged?
And if my identity rests in being right, what happens when Jesus invites me to surrender something I have been holding tightly?
These are not easy questions. I ask them of myself, too. Because I know how easy it is to allow ministry, expectations, responsibilities, and even good things to occupy the place that belongs to Jesus alone.
But when Christ is truly our center, something beautiful begins to happen.
We become freer.
Freer to listen without feeling threatened.
Freer to disagree without becoming divided.
Freer to acknowledge our limitations without losing our sense of worth.
Freer to love a brother priest whose perspective is different from our own.
We no longer need every conversation to become a contest or every disagreement to become a judgment about someone's fidelity.
Our security comes from somewhere deeper.
Or, rather, from Someone deeper.
Returning to the Center
I don't believe the answer to the polarization within the priesthood is simply finding a comfortable position somewhere between two extremes. Jesus is not the midpoint between competing ideologies. He is the center around which everything else must be ordered.
And that distinction matters. Because remaining centered in Christ doesn't mean avoiding difficult conversations, compromising truth, or pretending that genuine disagreements don't exist.
It means allowing our relationship with Him to shape how we enter those conversations. It means remembering that the priest across from me is not first an opponent, a category, or a problem to be solved.
He is my brother.
A man who, like me, heard the Lord call his name.
A man who, like me, carries wounds, hopes, fears, and a desire to be faithful.
A man who, like me, needs Jesus.
Perhaps what we need most right now is not another argument about what kind of priests we ought to be.
Perhaps we need to spend more time remembering Whose priests we already are.
Brother, Stay Close to Him
I want to finish with something simple. Brother, stay close to Jesus. Not simply close to the things of Jesus. Not merely close to the work of Jesus. Not just close to the Church's conversations about Jesus.
Stay close to Him.
Let Him love you.
Let Him remind you why you said yes.
Let Him speak to the places in your heart that have become tired, defensive, disappointed, or afraid.
And when the noise becomes overwhelming, when the labels become exhausting, and when the divisions within the Church begin to weigh heavily upon your heart, return to that stationary point.
Return to the One who called you. Because the world will continue to change. The Church will continue to face challenges. People will continue to have opinions about what kind of priest you should be.
But Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).
And His love for you has not changed.
Brother, before you worry about who you are, remember Whose you are.
Everything else begins there.
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