In 1954, Rome outlawed the “worker priests,” those Jesuits and others who, rather than sit in parishes, worked in the factories, accompanying the workers. Vatican officials evidently felt that such casting of their lot with the people and those on the margins threatened the notion of the “pedestal priest.” In the Hebrew Bible, the word for “holiness” literally means “set apart, other.” “Clerical” (cleros) means the “separated ones.” So does “Pharisee.”
