The essential duty of a priest is to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers (and) cast out demons. But in Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Graham Greenes The Power and the Glory, we find priests, who are a travesty of the noble profession. Both are transgressors of the religious code that have taken an oath to abide by. Hawthornes Dimmsdale is a much-respected clergyman, but he is also an adulterer, who refuses to admit his lapse right to his end. Greenes whisky priest also deviates from the righteous path, but he admits his lapse, declares his love for his illegitimate daughter and prays to God to save her and punish him only. The paper makes a comparative study of the moral lapses of these two priests, who are similar and yet different in the degree of the realization of the seriousness of their fall.
When
a person chooses his profession to be a priest, and
if he really intends to be a successful priest, he should
strictly abide by his sacred duties. The essential duty
of every Christian priest is to prepare the flock to
reach Christ at the end. When Christ selected his disciples,
he gave them certain rules to follow while sending them
out to preach. He said: "Preach as you go; saying,
`the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise
the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons. You received
without pay, give without pay. Take neither gold nor
silver, nor two tunics, nor sandals, nor a stair; for
the laborer deserves his food'" (St. Mathew 10:
7-10). Here Christ intends that the service by his disciples
should be true without any expectation of return. Later,
after the death and resurrection of Christ these 12
disciples appointed another seven men for the work of
Christ. And the 12 summoned the body of the disciples
and said, "It is not right that we should give
up preaching the word of God to serve tables. Therefore
brethren, pick out from among you seven men of good
repute, full of the spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint
to this duty" (The Acts of Apostles 6: 2-4). Slowly
the religion spread all over the world (ln the process,
Christianity is divided into two major congregations-Catholics
and non-Catholics or Protestants) and the number of
priests increased. One of the essential vows that every
Catholic priest has to abide by is the vow of celibacy.
St. Paul, in his first letter to Corinthians, states
"To the unmarried and the widows, I say that it
is well for them to remain single as I do" (The
First Letter of Paul to Corinthians 7:8). He then explains
why he has asked them to be single. He justifies his
statement by saying: "the unmarried man is anxious
about the affairs of the Lord, how to please the lord:
but married man is anxious about worldly affairs. How
to please his wife, and his interests are divided..."
(The First Letter of Paul to Corinthians 7: 32-34).
With his divided loyalty, a married man may be unable
to discharge his sacred duties fully. |
