Abstract
The doctoral research of Martin McAlinden, Irish Catholic priest and Director of Pastoral Theology at St Patrick’s College Maynooth, forms the focus of this slim book of essays on the topic of acedia. McAlinden’s unfinished study, prepared for publication after his untimely death by his supervisor, Professor Wayne Morris, is complemented by seven ‘conversation pieces’. These, largely contributed by fellow doctoral students at the University of Chester, riff creatively on the central findings of that research. The collection culminates in yet another tribute, the homily preached by Professor Elaine Graham at the graduation ceremony which marked the conferral of a posthumous honorary degree in recognition of McAlinden’s work on ecumenism, adult theological education and practical theology.
McAlinden brought the latter discipline’s tools to bear upon his examination of the stresses associated with Catholic priestly ministry in Ireland, an examination which uses acedia as the primary hermeneutical tool. Skilfully explicating the wisdom of the eremitic tradition in a few pages, he offers a workable contemporary definition of the elusive term: ‘a loss of taste or lack of care for the spiritual life leading eventually to questioning both the meaning of the spiritual life and priesthood’. This condition manifested itself—both personally and in those whom he interviewed - in carelessness about the disciplines that nurture the spiritual life, presenting as a variety of psychosomatic symptoms: lack of self-care, emotional exhaustion, depersonalization and a diminished sense of accomplishment.
The pastor in McAlinden, loving others to the end, was not content merely to offer diagnosis. Personal remedial strategies for enabling spiritual resilience are offered, based on the ancient wisdoms of stabilitas loci, a sustaining devotional life and reflexive living. Moreover McAlinden challenges the Catholic Church to think systemically about the problem: to develop new theologies of priesthood and laity, interrogating its rules about celibacy and accommodation in so doing.
While the research was conducted in an Irish Catholic context, its findings speak to other traditions as the interlocutors’ essays make abundantly clear. Claire Dawson’s study from a Church of England perspective echoes McAlinden’s findings particularly sympathetically, showing all too clearly that the spiritual malaise suffered by clergy, owing to the pressures imposed by a hierarchy steeped in managerialism, is not confined to one denomination. Indeed the second half of the book demonstrates that acedia is a systemic vice, not simply a personal sin. A pandemic of the ‘noon-day demon’ will surely occur if the climate of ecclesiastical expectation continues to heat up in the way it is currently doing, equating ministerial effectiveness ever more closely with busyness, ‘outputs’ and numerical growth.
It is for that reason that this book should be read by all involved in the formation of Christian ministers. The volume is all-too slight; McAlinden’s death prevented the deeper consideration this topic deserves. But thanks to the labours of his supervisor-cum-editor, McAlinden’s dream of offering a prescient wake-up call to the Church has been fulfilled; it would be slothful not to attend to that summons.