A priest, a lawsuit and a toddler

Just yesterday, Patrick and I were telling Noah he would be two soon, and he could have a party. We asked him, "Who would you like to invite?"

Without hesitation, his answer was "TooToo!"

This is his adorable 22 month old way of saying "Father Toochukwu" who is our pastor. (Incidentally, Father's name means "Praise God" in Ibi, his native Nigerian language. If you have ever met this extraordinarily joyful man, you'd know how appropriate this is!)

I love that at less than two years old, our son already has a real love for priests in his life. Of course, it helps that he has met such wonderful priests already. The Companions of the Cross, our friend Father Hattie, and now Father Toochukwu -- all prayerful, joyful and earnestly love and appreciate children.

I want to continue to foster this appreciation for priests in him. I think it will only help him to appreciate the work they do -- most especially, performing the sacraments -- and help him to love the Church too. With a warm, welcoming pastor like ours he literally points out the window towards the church and cries "Maah! {Mass!} TooToo!" in a request for us to take him to Mass. No joke.

Now before you go thinking we're raising a mystic, I assure you he doesn't sit still at Mass, makes lots of noise while he's there, and has from time to time needed to leave the church because he was so upset or causing such a scene. He loves it perhaps primarily because he loves to see our priest.

Recently over dinner while we were discussing the ongoing lawsuit against Lifesitenews (in which Patrick, by the way, is named), I exclaimed, "I'm so shocked that this is all coming from a PRIEST!" Noah piped up and said, "Peep! Peep! TooToo!" ("Priest! Priest! Fr. Toochukwu!")

I stopped suddenly. In my anger in this lawsuit, I realized I could be planting seeds in my young child's mind against an actual priest. Sure, Fr. Gravel has done some bizarrely scandalous things, but he is in fact still a priest.

It reminds me of a story Catherine Doherty tells. A man wandered into Madonna House (or maybe it was Friendship House?) filthy, drunk and wearing his own vomit. She brought him to a bed, offered him clean clothes and something to eat to ease his stomach. I think he told her, while still in his drunken stupor, that he was a priest and a very bad man.

The next morning when she went to check on him, she saw that he was awake. She knelt down beside his bed and asked him for his blessing. He was ashamed and said, "Don't you know what I've done? Don't you know who I am?"

She responded, "You are a priest, and you act in the person of Christ. I wish to receive your blessing." In her ardent love for his priesthood, yet humble recognition of his sins, he was overcome. He wept like a child. Thus began his change of heart.

Do I want Noah to have some exalted image of priests where he expects them to be saints? No, definitely not. I hope that he will see them in day-to-day life and realize that they are genuinely real people. But I also want him to know that priests bear an indelible mark from their ordination, making them uniquely Christ's.

I must, then, speak respectfully about priests in Noah's company. I must remind myself that even those priests who do unfortunate things, even scandalous things, are still priests.