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{"id":7802,"date":"2013-01-28T12:19:10","date_gmt":"2013-01-28T17:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/?p=7802"},"modified":"2013-01-28T14:14:53","modified_gmt":"2013-01-28T19:14:53","slug":"watch-out-for-father-wonderful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/standingonmyhead\/2013\/01\/watch-out-for-father-wonderful.html","title":{"rendered":"Watch Out for Father Wonderful"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Mark Shea has a good post here<\/a> spring boarding on the now invisible Father Corapi.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve written before about the temptation to turn priests into superheroes. By all means love your priest, support your priest, but don\u2019t turn him into a plaster saint or you\u2019ll be disappointed. Furthermore, you won\u2019t be doing him any favors. Live with him and love him as a man and a friend. Respect him and honor his priesthood, but don\u2019t idolize him. If you idolize him you\u2019ll feed his ego and he\u2019ll soon start believing the myth.<\/p>\n

What happens is this: everybody needs to be loved. Priests too. Very often because of celibacy (and other complex reasons) they feel lonely and unloved. They love they get from the parish becomes important. If they\u2019re not careful they\u2019ll eliminate their critics and surround themselves with groupies. The people collude in this process because they want a priest like that. They long for the perfect priest to give them the love they need and to be the role model and ideal they are longing for.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all like a sick, immature love affair in which the girl \u201cfalls in love\u201d with a guy who will love her and the guy \u201cfalls in love\u201d with the girls who will look after him. It\u2019s a kind of sick contract in which both parties scratch each other\u2019s back.<\/p>\n

The way of true friendship is a way of unconditional love and acceptance. Taking people for exactly who they are and taking ourselves for exactly who we are. No whitewash. No phoney-ness. No false piety. No hero worship.<\/p>\n

Love needs true grit, not starry eyed wishful thinking.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"