Do people treat you differently because you're a priest?
If they don't know it, no. Initially when you meet them, they're great. Having friends of mine, I'll go and they're having celebrations. They don't really tell people I'm a priest until the conversation starts, “And what do you do?” Otherwise, it's just a normal conversation. They actually double take, but I think it's depending on your personality. People treat you differently initially because they think you have to treat a priest in a very different way. But once you start talking with the person and listening to the person, the conversation rapport develops. They begin to get easy with themselves, and they begin to say, “Oh, you're different maybe to the old priests that I've known”. So initially there is always a difference, yeah. If they know you're a priest they treat you differently, but once you start talking to them they treat you like another person they've met or someone else that they are listening to. Within the Catholic tradition there will be great regard for the priests and the priesthood because in a sense the priest represents Christ and, therefore, when the priest is celebrating Mass, when the priest is doing what is part of his role in the sacraments, there is a great reverence given to the priest because for the people, for the ordinary person he does represent Christ. Therefore, I shouldn't treat it lightly, the fact that I'm a priest. At the same time, I'm a human being, and I just want to be in a relationship that's human with others rather than be elevated or devalued or whatever it is. So, it just depends on the person's reaction and their experience.
