Originally published at National Catholic Register
A small act of gratitude can have a big impact. The ‘Thank a Priest’ campaign invites Catholics to support and encourage their priests.
They’re not the Catholic priests that you’re likely to hear about these days. They’re not the newsmakers. They’re not involved in campaigns to push the Church in one direction or another, and they’re not trafficking in hot takes on social media platforms.
You won’t always know their names — unless you happen to belong to their parish or run into them at a school or charity or any of the thousands of Catholic venues where Catholic priests serve their God and their flocks.
But isn’t it time to thank these everyday priests?
The International Institute for Culture in Philadelphia thinks so and has just launched a “Thank a Priest” campaign. It’s high time. The priesthood in America is in crisis. Our aggressively secular culture and clerical sexual abuse scandals continue to take a toll on the priesthood. The Church’s reforms — addressing scandals that largely occurred decades ago but came to light only in recent years — have made Catholic institutions among the world’s safest for children. But the scandals have also intensified pop culture’s ridiculing
