Letter 12

From: Desiderius of Cahors, bishop To: Caesarius, Bishop of Clermont Date: ~635 AD Context: Desiderius of Cahors, letter 12 to Caesarius of Clermont; on pastoral care and the obligations of bishops toward their clergy. To my most holy brother Caesarius, The question of how bishops care for their own clergy — how they pastor the pastors, as it were — is one I have been thinking about a great deal. The standard model is essentially administrative: the bishop oversees the clergy, disciplines those who err, confirms those who perform well, and otherwise leaves them to do their work. This model is not wrong but it is insufficient. A priest who is struggling spiritually, who has lost his sense of why he entered the ministry, who is going through the motions without any real interior engagement — none of this shows up in an administrative review. What I try to do, though I do not always succeed, is to have substantive conversations with my clergy about their actual experience of the ministry. Not just "are the records in order" but "how is the prayer life? What are you reading? What is the most difficult thing you are dealing with right now?" These conversations take time that is often hard to find. But they produce a different kind of relationship — and a different kind of accountability — than administrative oversight alone. I am not certain this is the best approach or that I am executing it well. I offer it as one possibility. Desiderius