There is a deep, tangible malaise running through the soul of many priests. A heavy, silent, yet pervasive atmosphere. It is also felt among the laity, yes, but it manifests itself more intensely within the clergy, for it is the priests who bear its consequences most directly. Beneath the veneer of ecclesiastical politeness, one can sense dissatisfaction, frustration, and at times, true despair.
As we denounced in our recent article on the right to a defense—by publishing the document from the Association of United States Catholic Priests—today, in many dioceses, daily life is ruled by arbitrariness. Rules have become optional, practice is dominated by whim. Everyone acts as they please, driven by personal preferences, fears, and conveniences. The issue is not only juridical, but anthropological: there is no criterion.
Meritocracy Abolished
The crisis does not stem only from superiors incapable of recognizing and valuing their priests’ charisms. The subtler and more tragic drama is the promotion of friends, acquaintances, and inner-circle loyalists—individuals placed in sensitive roles without anyone knowing—or daring to say—what their actual qualifications are. It is the reign of co-optation, not vocation. And so, while merit is ignored, what is rewarded is friendship, servile loyalty, or the ability to flatter those in power.
This breeds a discontent that spreads like an oil slick. Even when a priest changes diocese—perhaps because he faced difficulties, accusations, or slander in his home diocese—it is right that he be given the chance to start over. But to start over, precisely. Not to be catapulted onto a pedestal. Yet what happens is that such priests are immediately appointed as spiritual directors, clergy retreat preachers, episcopal secretaries, vicars general. In a word: they’re handed the ship’s helm without ever having learned to sail in calm waters. The presbyterate looks on with suspicion—sometimes with anger. And not without reason.
Disintegrated Presbyterates
Each diocese has its own ecclesial humus, a delicate internal balance. The presbyterate should be a living community, capable of self-sustaining and self-governing, without importing leadership from elsewhere at the first rustling of leaves. But when capable priests are ignored, diminished, or left to rot in some forgotten parish, the structure implodes. This also applies to seminaries: if a bishop cannot ensure that his seminary generates enough vocations to sustain the diocese, something is clearly not working.
Welcoming seminarians or priests from other contexts can sometimes be necessary—but must always be done with discernment and care. One must seriously assess whether these individuals are truly suited to this particular Churchand presbyterate. And such evaluations must be spiritual and human—not dictated by longstanding friendships, recommendations, or pressure from those in power.
The bishop, as father and shepherd, should be the guarantor of their integration—not the one who clumsily undermines it. When he appoints a priest from outside to a top role, without graduality, without consultation, without transparency, he undermines cohesion. Priests feel it, see it, and react. Sometimes by shutting down, other times with jealousy or retaliation.
The Evil of Social Media and “Toxic Connections”
Meanwhile, across the ecclesial landscape, the virtue of friendship has given way to the poison of connivance. Much is said about priestly fraternity, but relationships increasingly form around shared gossip. Today, people are not friends because they grow together—they are friends because they bad-mouth the same person.
This is the realm of toxic relationships, as described in the psychology of dysfunctional dynamics. Sociologist Zygmunt Bauman would have called them “liquid connections,” but we are beyond that: these are unhealthy connections, fueled by envy and narcissistic venting. Emotional and relational maturity is lacking. Adults in faith are missing. The healthy priest—the one who lives his ministry in silence and uprightness, and who relates healthily with his confreres and engaged laity—is often crushed. He doesn’t shout, elbow his way forward, or engage in toxic group chats. He has no time for unhealthy alliances. And so, he is forgotten, while the sanctuary is invaded by purple cassocks, professional sycophants, and MCs more concerned with lace than with the Gospel.
Ecclesiastical Narcissism and Clerical Mythomania
We see celebrations with few albs but many red cassocks. Bishops unable to discern between true vocation and sublimated frustration. Priests who, lacking genuine authority, retreat into symbols—as Alfred Adler taught: when the ego is fragile, one compensates with spectacle.
Those lacking true authority invent authoritarianism. Thus, they fabricate unwritten norms, imaginary privileges, fabricated titles. Take the case of Francesca Immacolata Chaouqui, who in a deranged video declared herself a “pontifical commissioner.” A mythomaniac with evident psychiatric issues, previously convicted and banned from the Vatican, and yet still invited into circles of power where she shows up with equally disturbed priests—some from dioceses in chaos, such as Cosenza—who continue to fuel her delusions.
Not content, she surrounds herself with sycophantic and fanatical journalists, continuing to peddle influence and contacts. Pope Leo XIV doesn’t even want to hear her name, but the media-ecclesial system she infiltrated still gives her a platform. Take note: when someone constantly boasts of their power, it’s usually because they have none.
The Abusers Speak of Abuse
At the root of the crisis lies the absence of meritocracy. For years, it has been noted that there are no objective criteria for ordination, appointment, or assignment. Everything is fluid, opaque, manipulable. And in this swamp, abuse of authority thrives. The real tragedy in the Church is that too often, those who speak of certain issues are the very ones most guilty of them: the abuser lectures on abuse; the faker of credentials poses as an expert on psychological manipulation. But what is manipulation, if not first of all the manipulation of reality?
A recent example: a document on spiritual abuse promoted with the blessing of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, authored by individuals who seem to embody the very abuse they claim to denounce. One of the most prominent is Anna Deodato, who for years has traveled across Italy lecturing priests with an air of authority, explaining what manipulation is. But one who manipulates the truth about her academic credentials—declaring herself a psychologist and psychotherapist without having earned any such degree—is truly in no position to offer lessons on this subject.
Another familiar name is Enrico Parolari, appointed by the bishops of Lombardy as the go-to psychologist for priestswho, at a certain point, are deemed a “problem to be solved.” The method used is the now-familiar one of Amedeo Cencini: an ambiguous, opaque approach that does not heal, but isolates, labels, annihilates, and manipulates. The results speak for themselves: within a few months, two priests under Parolari’s care saw their lives collapse. One committed suicide. The other was again accused of child abuse.
Those who speak of spiritual abuse in today’s Church should first ask themselves what power dynamics, collusion, and hypocrisy allow such names to circulate with impunity, without verification or transparency. We do not need more documents. We need truth. And, above all, justice.
Let us not forget Luciano Manicardi, the man who led the Bose community when a falsified statute was submitted to the Piedmont Region to obtain public funding. A man who contributed to the destruction of his own community, acting as grand accuser against its very founder—the man who, ironically, had promoted him in the first place. It’s a recurring pattern: those entrusted with authority often use it to betray.
Sadly, the examples abound. There are even those who pose as abuse victims to help draft Church documents, only to turn around and write in trash rags where they accuse everyone of being abusers. But the real problem lies not in others—but in their own obsession with revenge. These are often familiar faces—women who for years have pushed for ordination, whose only “merit” is copy-pasting others’ work and falsely claiming authorship. This is not a fight for justice. It is narcissism disguised as activism, and it has nothing to do with truth.
This Is the Climate Today in the Church. A priest with no merit is promoted for being likable, while another—perhaps slandered by those who fear him—is forced to change dioceses. And even when he starts over, he finds himself overtaken by well-connected figures, robed in embroidery and soaked in ambition. It is the triumph of clientelism. The decay is evident: liturgies broadcast on YouTube where there are more MCs than concelebrants, more honors than crosses. And some priests, denied a parish due to damage they’ve already caused in seminaries, spend their days rewatching the bishop’s Masses just to find a detail to gossip about. Psychologist Aaron Beck spoke of cognitive distortions: filtering reality solely through one’s own bias. In the Church, that filter has a name: jealousy and frustration dressed up as zeal.
The End of Communion
The presbyterate is breaking apart. Fraternity is hollowed out. Ministry is used as a stage, and the People of Godlook on, bewildered, at a drama that is not liturgical—but moral. The truth is: the lack of justice breeds resentment, the lack of rules breeds arrogance and fuels amoral familism. The end result is the deterioration of fraternity, the disillusionment of many good priests who choose to remain silent, to isolate themselves—or even to leave. Some are scandalized when someone dares to write these things. But the truth, when it burns, only bothers those with something to hide. And those who complain today should first look in the mirror and ask: have I built communion—or merely cultivated complicity?
d.L.S. e d.A.T.
Silere non possum