“Being a worker priest alongside other people is a state of mind, an attitude, a way of relating to people and I think that has stayed with me in all I’ve done. It’s been at the heart of it”.
My father Canon Tony Williamson spoke these words in an interview recorded just over five years ago. He did many interviews during his life, and this was his last; he died a couple of weeks later, on February 12 2019.
I have reflected on these words as I’ve listened to and written down those of other worker priests. Since Tony’s death I’ve interviewed people in several countries who have been ordained and have chosen to work ‘alongside other people’. They often do manual work, or low paid, or insecure work, or all three. I’ve spoken, among others, with shop, canteen and café staff, a hairdresser, an ambulance worker, parcel handlers in logistics centres and a dairy farmer who milks 50 cows a day.
I also thought of these words as I researched and wrote about the history of the worker priest movement, and in some cases the sacrifices priests have made for their beliefs.
Below, I’ve collected some of these words (you can click through on each entry to read more). Doing so has helped me grasp that being a worker priest today, as in the past, is indeed not just about what work you do but about how you do it. It is about the approach you take, the way you relate to people.
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“The kitchen is a world of its own - every place of work probably has its own rules. I like to work in the kitchen even if the tone is not exactly socially acceptable: I prefer someone to say to me ‘you f**king w**nker, work faster’, to tell me the truth, rather than wrap up the message in cotton wool”
Vuk prepares meals in a hospital canteen, takes out the rubbish, delivers food to the wards (Germany)
“I alternate between shifts from 6am to 2pm and 2pm to 10pm. I work every second Saturday, it’s hard work. This was getting too much for me, physically so I asked to reduce my hours. Recently I was given a permanent contract which I didn’t expect but am pleased about”.
Maria Jans-Wenstrup packages consumer goods at a parcel delivery centre (Germany)
“The course was the idea of Mervyn Stockwood, bishop of Southwark. The Church, he argued should get alongside those in society who (have) no inclination to go near the Church”. It was no coincidence that it was he who founded the course: he divided opinion like few others with his often flamboyant gestures and ideas and readiness to break with church traditions”.
Feature on the Southwark Ordination Course, founded in the early 1960s, the first such course aiming to train worker priests (UK)
“I often put the colour on (a customer’s hair), then have to wait 20 minutes. In this time I might write next Sunday’s intercessions or work on a sermon…I have hundreds times deeper conversations with scissors in my hand than in church”.
Anthea Mitchell is a full-time hairdresser with her own salon (UK)
“Being a priest is not primarily about sacraments and preaching; it’s about how you deal with people. When people are low you can say something funny. Or I would offer ‘would you mind if I pray for you?’ People who didn’t believe in God appreciated it when I thought of them”.
Mark van Beeumen working in a Tesco’s supermarket, filling shelves and on the check-out (UK)
“I stumbled over legs, and voices in the dark asked all kinds of questions. ‘Who are you? What are you doing here? Where have you come from?’ The cell was occupied by seven or eight Russians and Poles and three little French lads of eighteen or twenty. I sat on the ground like the rest and when in the darkness I explained that I didn’t know the reason for my arrest but ‘perhaps it was my activity as a Catholic’ I felt them all suddenly stop short”.
Feature including this extract from the diary of Henri Perrin, describing how he entered his prison cell in Leipzig in 1943 after being captured by the Gestapo. He was one of a group of French worker priests who worked secretly among French forced labourers in factories Nazi Germany. Several died in concentration camps. Perrin survived.
“Cleaning two or three houses a day is hard work. I realise I’m getting old. I worry I won’t be able to do this until retirement age…One (client who attended a service taken by Anne-Marieke) said: ‘Our cleaner is also a preacher!’. I’m missing the space in church to talk about faith in daily life”.
Anne-Marieke Koot cleans homes for a living (Netherlands)
“People came to me as (I was working as) a priest often at three key times: baptism, marriage and funerals. These were important moments but I felt the need to really share the daily lives of people I live among. It’s of course about trying to live like Jesus of Nazareth”.
Lionel Vandenbriele works for a private ambulance company transporting patients to hospital (France)