From the days of the early Church, Catholicism has always emphasized stability as a means of holiness, particularly for monastics and the clergy. In the first chapter of the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict, the holy father of Western monasticism warns of the danger of physical instability. He warns of a certain type of monk, those who are constantly uprooting and moving, “who spend their entire lives drifting from region to region…Always on the move, they never settle down.”

Later in the Rule, St. Benedict emphasizes the necessity of “stability in the community.” This stability is so important to Benedictine spirituality that the monks take a vow of stability, a vow to live their vocation in one particular monastery for the rest of their lives. Extraordinary situations are possible, such as being sent to found a new monastery or being consecrated a bishop. But the ordinary course of holiness includes living out one’s vocation in a stable external environment, so that the excitements and distractions of moving around are eliminated.

The tradition of the Church has long been in favor of this stability for its clergy. The 1917 Code of Canon Law made it clear that stability of pastors was the norm: while a pastor could be moved or removed by the bishop according to “the norm of law,” the default was that a pastor had the responsibility for the care of souls within his parish. The pastor is the father of a parish; they should not simply be removed or rotated without serious reason.

The tradition of the Church has long been in favor of this stability for its clergy.Tweet This

Even the current 1983 Code of Canon Law assumes that pastoral stability will be the norm: “A pastor must possess stability and therefore is to be appointed for an indefinite period of time. The diocesan bishop can appoint him only for a specific period if the conference of bishops has permitted this by a decree.”

The same should be applied to bishops. Traditionally, it was understood that a bishop was elected from within his diocese. Even the pope, the Bishop of Rome, was generally a priest of the diocese of Rome. The purpose of this is clear: a bishop is the shepherd of his flock, the head of the clergy within his diocese. He is less an administrator than a father; if the diocese is his own flock, it makes sense that he is one of them and remains among them.

Why have we moved away from a model of default stability for clergy, away from the assumption that pastors should generally remain with the same flock for life? The question should be taken seriously because instability among the clergy is detrimental to everyone involved: to the people of a parish or diocese, to the spiritual health of the clergy themselves, and to the leaders who use clergy rotation to avoid dealing with serious problems head on.

It is not news to anyone that fatherlessness breaks a home, harms the children, and ultimately makes a stable society impossible. Millions of Americans, including the current vice president of the United States, have felt the negative effects of having unstable father figures who come and go in one’s life. Catholics know that marriage is between one man and one woman for life, that the father is the head of the household, and that his stable presence, representing the fatherhood of God, brings peace and unity to the family.

Nobody in the Church posits seriously that, in order for a man to be a better-formed father, he should start a family, be there for a few years, then move on to another wife and different children so that he can get the experience necessary to be a balanced, well-rounded father. This would be destructive to both the marriage bond and to the members of the family.

Of course, the relationship between bishop and diocese or pastor and parish is not the same as that of a husband to his wife and family. A priest is married to the Church, not a specific parish or diocese. But the analogy remains instructive. Just as a family grows in love over years and decades, learning mutual love in the midst of challenging situations and conflicting personalities, so, too, should parishes within the Church.

Parishioners might struggle with the quirks of their priest, but he is their spiritual father. They learn from him, receive the love of God from him, and grow in holiness with him. When a pastor is transferred as a matter of course every few years, the parish feels more like an organization that has received a new executive director than a Church family with a father. The parishioners suffer from this lack of stability.

The priests, too, feel the pain. I have talked to several priests about this while preparing this article. Celibacy is a cross. If priests suffer a particular danger in their vocation—especially in an environment where there are fewer priests and therefore smaller rectories—it is loneliness. Priests crave human relationships just like every other healthy person. When they know that they will be transferred to a new parish every 3-6 years, it is very hard to develop deep relationships.

Priests crave human relationships just like every other healthy person. When they know that they will be transferred to a new parish every 3-6 years, it is very hard to develop deep relationships.Tweet This

How can priests grow close to the men and the families in their parishes, or even their brother priests with whom they live, when they know they will be uprooted and have to start over? This sets up the already lonely vocation of the celibate priest to have an unnatural lack of human friendship.

If the downsides of clerical instability are serious and quite clear, what is the upside that justifies routinely moving priests around every few years? I have sought deeper answers, but the most likely is that a policy of pastoral term limits and regular rotation is a way for superiors to avoid the hard discernment and decision-making involved with problematic priests and communities. The examples are obvious enough: a pastor may be teaching heresy; he may be financially running the parish into the ground; he may instigate and take sides in intra-parish rivalries and personality clashes, exacerbating problems rather than healing wounds.

In such cases, the bishop or religious superior has a duty to use fraternal correction—and, if necessary, the legal process to remove that pastor—and address the root problems. But that is hard work. It means regularly visiting priests and parishes and understanding their problems and needs. It also means being the “bad guy,” being willing to address conflicts and make the hard decisions of correction, discipline, and removal.

If priestly stability remained the norm, such interventions would be absolutely necessary. But if there is a system where priests are moved every few years as a matter of course? That changes the equation. It becomes much easier to overlook a problematic situation in a parish because the pastor’s term limit is coming up and the problem will go away when he is moved. Never mind the fact that this doesn’t solve the problem (because without correction, the problematic priest will take his problems to his next assignment) and that using this system to treat the hard cases has the horrible effect of unnecessarily rotating countless priests out of healthy, life-giving assignments.

Men are made for stability. They are meant to form families, to grow in holiness through life in one family, with the same people, until death. Obviously, pastoral needs are real. When a pastor dies or becomes ill and needs a replacement, someone must move to fill the void. Cardinals are needed in certain offices in Rome, so some bishops must leave their home dioceses to answer the call.

But these should be exceptions. Instability among the clergy should not be the norm and should certainly not be an intentional policy. The regular uprooting of priests and bishops is bad for the clergy, bad for their flocks, and bad for the superiors who need to make hard decisions rather than regularly rotate their priests.

And if all that isn’t reason enough to return to clerical stability, there is an obvious positive effect on the life of the Church. A couple of years ago, I had lunch with a bishop. He was born and raised and ordained in the diocese in which he eventually became bishop. He told me quite clearly that he had no desire to be “promoted” to a bigger diocese and never expected such a move. Therefore, he was free to be a good, bold, holy bishop, doing whatever he thought best for his priests and his diocese.

Imagine a Church where this becomes the norm. A bishop of a small diocese can stop thinking about a “promotion” to a prestigious archdiocese where he can one day become cardinal archbishop. A pastor no longer has any thought of being “promoted” to a bigger or nicer parish. In a climate of clerical stability, perhaps we would have shepherds more willing to boldly defend their flocks, to fight heresy, to take a holy and difficult stand.

If bishops and priests were treated like rooted, stable shepherds of one particular flock, rather than middle management who may be promoted for good behavior, perhaps we would see a serious shift in saintly, courageous behavior. Stability would offer the opportunity for an increase in courageous clergy ready to do what is right and just, deprived of the incentive to lay low in the hopes of building the résumé the higher-ups are looking for when promotion time comes around.