It wasn’t a program. It wasn’t a document. It wasn’t a strategy.
It was an act of liturgy—unwritten, unplanned, and unforgettable.
It was an apology.
On the final day of a 2021 clergy convocation in Portland, Oregon, Archbishop Alexander Sample stood before his brother priests, not as a corporate executive or an untouchable spiritual superior, but as a man. No notes. No pretense. No veil.
And he apologized.
In the silence that followed, something ancient stirred. A floodgate opened. Priests, many burdened for years by wounds, resentment, and isolation—some even directed toward the bishop himself—began to weep. To confess. To forgive. One by one, they stood and spoke with a candor not often seen in clerical culture. The air, said witnesses, was heavy with holiness.
This was not therapeutic catharsis. It was Pentecost.
The moment had been prepared by months of interior healing in the archbishop’s own life. Through spiritual work guided by Fr. John Riccardo and Dr. Bob Schuchts, Archbishop Sample had been confronted by the pain he carried from his own childhood: a distant alcoholic father, rejection by peers, the shame and confusion of unworthiness. For years, these unhealed wounds subtly distorted how he led. A desire to be seen, to be validated, to avoid rejection and criticism colored his fatherhood toward his priests and people.
But as grace pierced his story, a new kind of leadership emerged: emotionally honest, deeply pastoral, vulnerable but secure. In other words: Christ-like.
And that’s when the Church came alive.
Beyond Performative Religion: Why Emotional Intelligence Matters
Jesus did not come to found a religion of mere rule-followers or ritual-performers. He came to draw us into divine intimacy. And yet, for many Catholics, religion has become precisely that: a performance. We show up. We check the boxes. We kneel, stand, respond on cue. But inside? Numb. Guarded. Often terrified to be known.
The tragedy isn’t just emotional. It’s spiritual.
In Matthew 7:21, Jesus offers a searing warning: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven . . .” The ones turned away had performed miracles and mighty works. And yet, Christ responds: “I never knew you” (Greek: ginosko). Not “you never did enough.” Not “you got the ritual wrong.” But: We weren’t intimate.
Ginosko implies deep, relational knowing—the kind that transforms both lover and beloved. It is the same word Mary uses in Luke 1:34: “I do not know man.”
This kind of knowing is foreign to many Catholics. We have inherited a stoic version of holiness—dutiful but distant, reverent but rigid, observed but not interiorly integrated. Our churches are full of faithful people who haven’t yet been emotionally discipled.
And it is quietly killing us.
Emotional Quotient and the Catholic Soul
Emotional Intelligence (EQ), defined as the ability to recognize, understand, and regulate one’s emotions and those of others, is not a secular add-on. It is deeply human. And therefore, deeply spiritual.
In a world increasingly dominated by algorithmic responses and digitized interactions, EQ is emerging as one of the most vital predictors of success—not just professionally, but relationally and spiritually. Studies by Harvard, Yale, and the Center for Creative Leadership have shown that individuals with high EQ tend to experience greater well-being, stronger marriages, deeper friendships, and more effective leadership. In fact, one Harvard Business Review article concluded that EQ accounts for nearly 90% of what sets high performers apart from their peers.
St. Thomas Aquinas taught that the passions (emotions) are meant to be governed, not suppressed, by reason and elevated by grace. The Catechism affirms: “The emotions are morally good when they contribute to a good action, evil in the opposite case . . . They are not to be ignored, but taken up into the virtues” (CCC 1768).
To be holy is not to be emotionally detached. It is to be emotionally ordered by love. John Paul II’s Love and Responsibility insists that mature love requires full emotional engagement, rightly ordered. Pope Benedict XVI went further in his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy, positing that Christianity is not primarily a doctrine, but a relationship. Ritual matters. Doctrine matters. But they are vessels. The content is love.
This is not sentimentality. It is incarnational discipleship.
From Ritual to Relationship: Metanoia as Emotional Integration
Metanoia, often translated as “repentance,” literally means “a change of mind.” But in the biblical context, it implies much more: a change of mindset, heart, identity, orientation. It is a total reformation.
Romans 12:1-2 commands us: “Offer your bodies as a living sacrifice . . . be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” This is not about behavior management. It is about becoming new.
Too often, we approach the sacraments without emotional honesty—leaving our wounds at the door instead of placing them on the altar. We want healing, but we conceal what hurts. We want transformation, but resist the exposure it requires.
Like the dry bones of Ezekiel 37, we rattle through the motions but lack breath. Each sacrament becomes a sinew pulled tight over lifeless bone, preparing for resurrection. We need prophets to call down the Spirit again—starting with ourselves.
From the Bishop to the Home: Reclaiming the Heart of Fatherhood
What Archbishop Sample demonstrated is not only for clergy. It is for every mother and father, teacher and coach, friend and mentor. Authority that does not include vulnerability breeds resentment. But authority rooted in healed relationship brings life.
Imagine:
- Catholic parents who can apologize to their children and model grace.
- Parish leaders who know how to name their interior life and walk with others.
- Spouses who move beyond performance into authentic communion.
Emotional availability—appropriate to one’s role and relationship—is the glue that holds communities and families together. It’s what makes discipline feel like love, not punishment. It’s what gives conversation the power to heal, not just inform.
And we desperately need to rediscover it.
Too often, Catholics mistake emotional maturity for emotional indulgence, or confuse strength with stoicism. The result is a culture of emotionally unformed believers—fathers who bark orders but never ask questions, mothers who carry wounds in silence, spouses who coexist rather than commune.
But Christ didn’t model emotional repression. He wept. He grew angry. He rejoiced. He drew near. The saints, too, lived with integrated emotional lives—St. Francis trembling in awe, St. Thérèse aching with longing, St. Ignatius discerning spirits in the depths of desire.
Resisting appropriate emotional expression doesn’t protect relationships. It starves them.
Parents, begin this reformation of heart by simply:
- Asking your spouse, “What has brought you joy recently?” or “What’s been weighing on you?”
- With your children, inviting reflection: “How did you feel loved today?” or “Was there a moment you felt alone or frustrated?”
- Sharing your own story in age-appropriate ways—not to burden, but to bless. Let them see faith integrated with real life.
The point is not endless self-disclosure. It is presence. Attunement. And love.
Tools like LiveITToday.us exist to help foster this way of life. Daily reflection on Scripture—done together—can awaken hearts, build bonds, and cultivate emotional intelligence anchored in divine grace. This isn’t therapeutic moralism. It’s Eucharistic transformation.
Without this emotional attunement, we drift toward dangerous extremes: on one side, a therapeutic God who is shaped by our feelings; on the other, an impersonal orthodoxy that sounds like it was generated by AI—precise, correct, but bloodless.
We are called to live the humanity of Christ: truthful, tender, incarnate.
A Call to the Church: Let the Bones Live
We don’t need another program. We need Pentecost. We need Ezekiel’s vision made flesh: “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord . . . I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.’”
This is not emotionalism. It is the prophetic reformation of the Catholic soul. A Church of dry rituals will not convert the world. But a Church of emotionally integrated, relationally healed, sacramentally empowered disciples? That Church can raise the dead.
Let the fig leaves fall. Let the vulnerability begin. Let the sacraments become encounters again.
The world is not waiting for a more polished religion. It is waiting for fathers. It is waiting for witnesses. It is waiting for you.
Let the bones live. Let them breathe. Let them rise.
Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash
