This past year, several hundred thousand Catholic families in the United States lost their fathers. Indeed, my own children suffered the loss of their father this June.

No, I did not pen this article from beyond the grave — I am speaking of the transfer of our parish pastor. 

Every year, with not a little trepidation, I read the “Clergy Assignments” notice to see if my spiritual father will, once again, be departing to some other parish to care for new spiritual children.

We moved to our parish in 2010. We have had three pastors.

And why? Because, in the United States, pastors are appointed by their bishops for a six-year term, although this term can be renewed for another six years. Perhaps for many of us, this is neither surprising nor shocking. This is the norm, after all, and many of us simply take for granted that the Church has proclaimed that pastors are meant to serve in short terms. 

Perhaps though, if we dig a bit deeper, we can uncover the rationale behind these ecclesiastical term limits. After all, the Church rarely, if ever, proclaims a law — even those relating strictly to its juridical and administrative practices — without also explaining to the faithful its rationale and motivations behind the law.

Canon law does, in fact, speak to these issues. Canon 522 states, “A pastor must possess stability and therefore is to be appointed for an indefinite period of time” (emphasis mine). If you don’t normally pick up the Code of Canon Law as a little light reading, this sentence may surprise you. An indefinite amount of time is completely opposed to our experience. 

What is going on here? 

The answer comes from the second sentence of Canon 522: “The diocesan bishop can appoint him only for a specific period if the conference of bishops has permitted this by a decree.” And there’s the rub.

The current Code of Canon Law was promulgated in January 1983 and took effect in November of that year. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops passed their “complementary legislation” two weeks before the new code would even take effect. Evidently, the bishops’ conference believed having the possibility of fixed limits for pastors was of the utmost importance. 

To be clear, in the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which was superseded by the 1983 code, the idea of appointing pastors for a definite period of time is not present at all. Indeed, the idea that a pastor should remain in a parish — barring a serious reason to the contrary — was simply the accepted norm throughout Church history. In fact, the current Code of Canon Law still upholds this as the Church’s normative approach. Canon 1748 states, “If the good of souls or the necessity or advantage of the Church demands that a pastor be transferred from a parish which he is governing usefully to another parish or another office, the bishop is to propose the transfer to him in writing and persuade him to consent to it out of love of God and souls.”

Then Canon 1749 states, “If the pastor does not intend to submit to the counsel and persuasions of the bishop, he is to explain the reasons in writing.” 

The proceeding canons explain that after this, the bishop can accept the pastor’s reasons or again “repeat the paternal exhortations to the pastor.” 

We might ask why there is so much ceremony around what is, seemingly, extremely commonplace in our experience. In a word the answer is: souls. We read as much in Canon 1748. These protocols are in place for “the good of souls” and the “love of God and souls.”

To drive this point home, the final canon on the transfer of pastors states, “In cases of transfer … the salvation of souls, which must always be the supreme law in the Church, is to be kept before one’s eyes.” This maxim, that “the salvation of souls is the supreme law in the Church” is almost certainly the most well-known, and often quoted canon. If we gloss over the fact that this is explicitly stated in a canon about the transfer of pastors, we do so at our own peril. 

This story is normal in our country: The priest who baptized you isn’t the priest who gave you your First Holy Communion, who isn’t the priest who prepared you for Confirmation, who isn’t the priest at your wedding. 

Imagine how different the pre-Cana sessions would be with a priest who has known us his entire life — a true father. Instead, the sad truth is that a couple may ultimately have more interactions with their caterer than they have had with their pastor. Sadder yet, we may treat our pastor in the same kind of transactional way. That is, we can treat our pastor merely as a sacrament dispensary rather than our spiritual father. “After all,” we say, “in a couple of years, he’ll be gone, and someone new will move in.” 

This is, though, a somewhat predictable response to the constant rotation of our pastors. We are told that we are a “parish family.” However, the father of a family isn’t simply a position to be filled. The specific reasons why the U.S. bishops established term limits are, frankly, somewhat opaque. One common suggestion is that it shields against a so-called “cult of personality.” 

I don’t doubt that effect. After all, it is difficult to become attached to a “father” who you know will soon leave you. Therefore, we do not see them as true spiritual fathers to us. 

And so, there will be a going-away cake for your father after Mass one Sunday. If all goes according to plan, so the logic goes, neither we nor the pastor will feel any great loss at this, because we have created a firewall to shield us from the possible “cult of personality.” Some may see this as a feature; I see it as a bug. The truth is this: If the loss of someone whom we call “father” does not move us to sadness, then it seems that they are not much of a father in any real sense of that term. 

The Curé of Ars tells us that “a good shepherd, a pastor after God’s heart, is the greatest treasure which the good Lord can grant to a parish, and one of the most precious gifts of divine mercy.” This is an incredible claim. However, it makes sense when we remember that “the salvation of souls is the supreme law of the Church.” Because, as Pope Paul VI reminds us in Christus Dominus, “pastors in their own name … are entrusted with the care of souls.” One of the most precious gifts of divine mercy, then, is a pastor who loves those souls entrusted to him.

Love, as we know, requires that the beloved be known. Hence, Paul VI notes, “In fulfilling their office as shepherd, pastors should take pains to know their own flock.” This perhaps is the most fundamental reason why the Church teaches that stability of the pastor is so necessary: so that he can better know, and therefore love those souls entrusted to his care, and thereby ultimately help fulfill the Church’s supreme law — salvation of souls. 

If we haven’t yet understood the Church’s repeated instructions in this matter, Paul VI makes the matter quite plain. “Now the parish exists,” he tells us, “solely for the good of souls. … Pastors should enjoy in their respective parishes that stability of office which the good of souls demands” (emphasis mine).

Much has changed in the 40 years since the bishops adopted the six-year term for pastors. No doubt the bishops conference believed there were good reasons to adopt the measure at the time. There may well have been. However, it seems that after 40 years, the time is ripe for the USCCB to deeply reexamine those reasons and ask if this is truly serving the Church’s supreme law. 

I urge them to look to St. Jean-Marie Vianney as their patron in this matter. He is, after all, the patron saint of parish priests. Pope Benedict XVI said of him that he was “a true example of a pastor at the service of Christ's flock.” Vianney is better known as the “Curé of Ars.” Perhaps this is fitting — that the patron saint of parish priests is known by the name of his parish. 

He would remain at Ars for 41 years. He prayed, “My God, grant me the conversion of my parish. I am willing to suffer all my life. … I am prepared to endure the sharpest pains even for a hundred years. Only let my people be converted.”

The Church’s patron saint and model par excellence of pastors was the pastor of Ars — and only Ars. 

He was never transferred. Instead, Ars was converted. 

His prayer was answered. 

St. Jean-Marie Vianney, pray for us.