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The Joy of Priesthood

Reviewed by James Percival.

This book is very Roman Catholic and quite American. If you can see through this heavy cultural coating, it has some treasure underneath. Fr Rossetti is a priest of the Diocese of Syracuse, New York, and president of the St Luke Institute, a residential treatment program for clergy and religious men and women. His book is especially for his brother priests, and was clearly written in the wake of the recent child abuse scandals in the American Roman Catholic church. It is well set out and easy to read, though the chapters dot about across subjects such as difficulty, ultimate concern, prayer, self-will, living and loving, maleness, communion, spirituality, ‘when things go wrong’, and renewal, leading in a not very straight line to conclude with ‘A priesthood of joy.’

The treasure in this book is in its mature and experienced insight into the strains and pitfalls of ministry, and the witness that still comes through it. This reviewer is a 3rd year Church of England curate, and as such there are significant chunks of life in ministry so far that I have found difficult to cope with, yet in the midst of the struggles I am often renewed by a sense of the joy of my priestly vocation. Fr Rossetti, having illustrated it fully, draws attention to the topsy-turvy, deeply Christian truth of depending on God most when we are most in need: “Despite your frail humanity, or perhaps because of it, the light of Christ shines more brightly.” His book is also a vibrant testimony and insight into the Roman Catholic way.