Priests Liv­ing in Sin: Do They Medi­ate God’s Grace?

Since the time of Augustine (4th–5th cen­tury AD), the Cath­ol­ic Church’s answer to this ques­tion has been that the sac­ra­ments admin­istered by an ordained Cath­ol­ic priest (abso­lu­tion, the Euchar­ist, bap­tism, etc.) effect­ively con­fer God’s grace to the believ­er regard­less of the sever­ity of the sins com­mit­ted by the priest (ex opere oper­ato)^[1]. Accord­ing to the Cat­ech­ism, “From the moment that a sac­ra­ment is cel­eb­rated in accord­ance with the inten­tion of the Church, the power of Christ and his Spir­it acts in and through it, inde­pend­ently of the per­son­al holi­ness of the min­is­ter.”^[2]

The sub­ject is com­plex, as it is related to many oth­er fun­da­ment­al Cath­ol­ic teach­ings (sac­ra­ments, priest­hood, etc.) that we will not dis­cuss in this art­icle. In the fol­low­ing, we would like to focus spe­cific­ally on the ques­tion posed in the title and exam­ine it in the light of bib­lic­al passages.

1 Is a Sin­ful Life an Obstacle?

Chapter 9 of the Gos­pel of John tells the story of the heal­ing of a man born blind. The man who regained his sight came into sharp con­flict with the Jew­ish reli­gious lead­ers, who wanted to prove that no mir­acle had taken place. Here is an excerpt from that conflict:

So for the second time they called the man who had been blind and said to him, “Give glory to God. We know that this man is a sin­ner.” He answered, “Wheth­er he is a sin­ner I do not know. One thing I do know, that though I was blind, now I see.” They said to him, “What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?” He answered them, “I have told you already, and you would not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become his dis­ciples?” And they reviled him, say­ing, “You are his dis­ciple, but we are dis­ciples of Moses. We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where he comes from.” The man answered, “Why, this is an amaz­ing thing! You do not know where he comes from, and yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sin­ners, but if any­one is a wor­ship­per of God and does his will, God listens to him. Nev­er since the world began has it been heard that any­one opened the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do noth­ing.” They answered him, “You were born in utter sin, and would you teach us?” And they cast him out. (John 9:24–34)

The theo­lo­gic­ally untrained, healed blind man knew with his sin­cere heart and simple com­mon sense that God only uses those who fear him and do his will to medi­ate his grace. He assumed that this was obvi­ous to all oth­er sin­cere people. The Jew­ish lead­ers, who were well versed in the scrip­tures and skilled in twist­ing their mean­ing, could not, or more accur­ately, did not want to arrive at this simple con­clu­sion. Yet this is stated in sev­er­al places in the Old Test­a­ment scrip­tures, which they often refer to:

If one turns away his ear from hear­ing the law, even his pray­er is an abom­in­a­tion. (Pro­verbs 28:9)

The LORD is far from the wicked, but he hears the pray­er of the right­eous. (Pro­verbs 15:29)

If I had cher­ished iniquity in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. (Psalm 66:18)

“When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this tramp­ling of my courts? Bring no more vain offer­ings; incense is an abom­in­a­tion to me. New moon and Sab­bath and the call­ing of con­voc­a­tions — I can­not endure iniquity and sol­emn assembly. Your new moons and your appoin­ted feasts my soul hates; they have become a bur­den to me; I am weary of bear­ing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many pray­ers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. (Isai­ah 1:12–15)

“And now, O priests, this com­mand is for you. If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give hon­our to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your bless­ings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. (Mala­chi 2:1–2)

The last pas­sage from the Book of Mala­chi refers to Old Test­a­ment (Levit­ic­al) priests, not Cath­ol­ic priests, yet it shows that God does not want to give bless­ings through people who live in sin, who blas­pheme and desec­rate his name with their evil lives.

2 Can the Blind Lead the Blind?

If someone con­sciously lives in sin, they are unable to lead oth­ers to God:

Then the dis­ciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Phar­isees were offen­ded when they heard this say­ing?” He answered, “Every plant that my heav­enly Fath­er has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit.” (Mat­thew 15:12–14)

Jesus did not think that people liv­ing in sin (the spir­itu­ally blind) had no influ­ence on those whom they wanted to “help” (e.g. as a spir­itu­al fath­er or spir­itu­al counselor).

The apostles them­selves exper­i­enced that although Jesus gave them author­ity to heal and cast out demons (Mat­thew 10:1), God could not use them in a situ­ation when a des­per­ate fath­er asked them to cast out an evil spir­it from his son (Mat­thew 17:19–20). This is not to say that the apostles were liv­ing in ser­i­ous sin, but this case shows that the effect­ive­ness of God’s grace indeed depends much on the per­son­al faith and life of those he wants to use to con­vey his grace.

In writ­ing about church over­seers and dea­cons, the Apostle Paul con­siders integ­rity to be par­tic­u­larly important:

Dea­cons like­wise must be dig­ni­fied, not double-tongued, not addicted to much wine, not greedy for dis­hon­est gain. They must hold the mys­tery of the faith with a clear con­science. And let them also be tested first; then let them serve as dea­cons if they prove them­selves blame­less. (1 Timothy 3:8–10)

This sec­tion addresses what sort of life someone must have had before becom­ing a Chris­ti­an to bear the high­er respons­ib­il­ity (since God expects all Chris­ti­ans to give up drunk­en­ness and greed). It is clearly vis­ible that God cares what sort of life those lead, who want to take respons­ib­il­ity for the faith of oth­ers.^[3]

3 Sin Acts as Leaven

Finally, anoth­er quo­ta­tion from one of Paul’s letters:

… Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. … But now I am writ­ing to you not to asso­ci­ate with any­one who bears the name of broth­er if he is guilty of sexu­al immor­al­ity or greed, or is an idolat­er, reviler, drunk­ard, or swind­ler — not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging out­siders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those out­side. “Purge the evil per­son from among you.” (1 Cor­inthi­ans 5:6–7, 11–13)

Here Paul is not writ­ing about wheth­er a per­son liv­ing in sin can be a lead­er of a con­greg­a­tion, but rather about wheth­er someone who lives in ser­i­ous sin can belong to God’s church at all. If the church allows this, sin will cor­rupt the entire com­munity like leaven. How much more ser­i­ous is the situ­ation when the lead­ers of the “church” also live in sin, yet the cred­ib­il­ity of their “min­istry” is pro­tec­ted by dogma^[4], and those who ques­tion it are excommunicated!

God does not dis­trib­ute grace as if through vend­ing machines that dis­pense the reques­ted product at the push of a but­ton. He wants a sin­cere rela­tion­ship with us, through which he can per­son­ally con­vey his grace.^[5]