Same Call, Different Men: The Evolution of the Priesthood since Vatican II by Mary L. Gautier, Paul M. Perl, and Stephen J. Fichter (review)

Nearly forty years after Andrew Greeley and his team at the University of Chicago did the initial study of U.S. priests, this book offers the latest data from the 2009 study commissioned by the National Federation of Priests' Councils and conducted by Georgetown's Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA). The trend data offers insight into the evolving attitudes and self-perceptions of priests that continue to shape the post-Vatican II United States church.

Laid out in reader-friendly format, Same Call Different Men: The Evolution of the Priesthood Since Vatican II introduces a plethora of data offered in a narrative that picks up on the themes of the satisfactions with and challenges to priestly ministry. Additionally, the authors delve into further topics related to the collaborative and multicultural nature of ministry and then attempt the daunting task of articulating a set of perspectives on the sexual abuse crisis that has unfolded in the U.S. church since 2001. A final thematic chapter asks the question "Who is encouraging the next generation of priests?" The text closes with four commentaries: one from a bishop and three from experienced seminary personnel.

The scope of the work is extensive. The authors try to respect the questions and data of previous research completed in 1970, 1985, 1993 and 2001 respectively. While addressing some of the dramatic and unexpected changes in the U.S. church, a chief focus is the tension between the views of different generations of priests. On the one hand, the "progressivism" of the older "baby boomer" clergy has been influenced by the changes in the church in the wake of the second Vatican Council. On the other hand, the "traditionalist" perspective is represented by the "millennials" who were born during the twenty-five year reign of John Paul II.

The verbatim testimonials from a wide variety of priests throughout the book is a major strength of this work. These offer insight into the complexity of the varied perspectives that currently characterize priestly identity born of conflicting ecclesiologies. However, the research questions are designed around a particular agenda that focuses on collaboration in ministry, multiculturalism, and varied attitudes toward authority. The difficulty is that these particular phenomena have gone through as much transformation in the last forty years as priestly identity itself. Consequently the results of the survey do not capture some of the ironic and complex realities found in today's ecclesial mix. For example the progressive priest in the "Vatican II" ordination cohort, who may "share" his ministerial responsibilities as his personal right without reference to a wider ecclesial community will not show up in this data as "clerical" in his collaborative practice. Correspondingly, the millennial priest, whose "traditionalist" stance has him violating some of the most time-honored codes within canon law, will not be seen in this study as dismissive of authority. There are many nuances to the priestly reality of the United States church that are hard to capture in any study.

I read this book as a priest whose perspective comes from being at the very beginning of the "millennial" generation but also as someone with insight into the "boomer" experience of Catholic life. I still sit in wonder as I serve each weekend at a parish where I work with a recently ordained married priest, a deacon, and a parish team comprised of several lay people and a religious sister. They are all eminently qualified and successful as ecclesial ministers. But if you had told me twenty years ago that this would be the shape of parish leadership, I might have studied different things along that way to ordination. As I read Same Call, Different Men, I could not but help to think of how hard it is to shape priestly formation around current...