The Cameroonian Priest and the Trinitarian Temptation: Fame, Wealth, Women

Every temptation that humans face falls into three categories: the flesh (lust and gluttony), the mind (pride and envy), and the idolatrous love of things (greed). The intensity of these temptations varies throughout life. In youth, one is most often tempted against purity, inclined to the sins of the flesh. In middle age, the temptations of pride and self-sufficiency become predominant. In old age, the temptation to avarice is strongest. The priest is not immune to these temptations. On the contrary, he faces them with greater intensity because of who he is and whom he represents. The motive for tempting and bringing him down is clear: “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.” (Zechariah 13:7) The priest’s temptations mirror those that Christ faced at the start of His public ministry. Christ was tempted: To become an economic messiah (“Turn this stone into bread”)-the lure of material security. To be a spectacular, wonder-working messiah (“Throw yourself down”)-the seduction of fame and admiration. To rule over all the kingdoms of the world (“All shall be yours if you worship me”)-the thirst for power and control.

One must first understand what drives his call to ministry to grasp how easily a priest can succumb to these temptations. Every authentic priest asks himself three fundamental questions: How can I draw people closer to God? What is the best way to achieve this goal? What can prevent me from achieving it? The answers to these questions always revolve around three major virtues: Detachment, a heart free from attachment to material possessions. Humility is a constant awareness that the priesthood is not about him but about Christ. Availability is a life dedicated to serving all, without preference or partiality. However, precisely because these virtues make a priest victorious over souls, the evil one works tirelessly to corrupt them by drawing them toward their opposing vices: Greed (attachment to wealth) replacing detachment. Pride (craving for admiration and fame) replacing humility. Lust (seeking personal gratification instead of self-giving love) replacing availability. Thus, the priest’s battle is constant, and his fall has far-reaching consequences. If he fails in detachment, he clings to wealth and status. If he abandons humility, he seeks to be admired rather than to serve. If he neglects availability, he becomes self-indulgent instead of self-sacrificing.

It is important to understand the nature of the temptation to avarice that a priest may face. However, first, we must know what the Church requires of the secular priest. The code of canon law requires that secular clerics cultivate a simple lifestyle and avoid any semblance of vanity (c.282). Presbyterorum ordinis no.17 calls for voluntary poverty that would enable secular priests to become more conformed to Christ and more ready to devote themselves to ministry, avoiding what might antagonize the poor and putting aside any appearance of vanity. Thus, the obligation secular priests have is simplicity of life. This is because the Church wants her priests to be spiritual fathers and not spiritual bachelors. Should a diocesan priest have a well-functioning and reliable car for ministry? Yes. Should a diocesan priest be driving around in a luxury car? Probably not. According to Canon 281, remuneration, therefore, is the support given to a cleric who dedicates himself to ministry. This remuneration should be able to provide for the cleric’s needs and allow him to maintain an honest living so that he enjoys the freedom to give himself fully to ministry without the distractions which come with a lack of remuneration. His remuneration should allow him to live with dignity and pay for his needs and the services of others. When a priest is adequately provided for, his ministry becomes more fruitful. The temptation to avarice and greed arises when he wants more than is required for ministry and when he craves the additional comforts of life, which only money can buy or when he takes on too much financial responsibility upon himself without any sure means of support. The greatest danger with avarice in the priest is that it can easily turn into an idol, where gold becomes the new god. In such a situation, the priest is incapable of inspiring the people to the lofty heights of heaven because he has their hearts, eyes, and minds fixated on the hard gold of the earth, which, like Midas’ gold, eventually hardens the heart of all whom he comes across. In his Liber Gomorrhianus, St Peter Damian warns the clergy of the dangers of prioritizing earthly possessions over spiritual responsibilities: “No one can fight properly and boldly for the faith if he clings to a fear of being stripped of earthly possessions.”

One of the reasons why the secular clergy makes a promise to live a simple life at ordination is that it frees his heart to love what his true possession is: the souls of the faithful. A priest cannot wholeheartedly care for the souls entrusted to him while simultaneously devoting himself to the pursuit of wealth. When a priest forgets that his greatest treasure is Christ and His people, the temptation toward a life of wealth becomes acute. The root of this forgetfulness is separation from Christ. The moment a priest loses sight of the One who said, “You cannot serve both God and mammon” (Matthew 6:24), his heart begins a restless search for meaning and attachment in material things. The priest has one role, to point people to heaven. But he cannot do this effectively if his own gaze is fixated on the earth. In his spiritual classic, The Pastoral Care of Souls, St Gregory the Great warns pastors, “The one who preaches about heavenly matters should have left behind the lowly world and should be standing at the summit of things, thereby enabling him to draw others to the heights he has already climbed. . . . He should desire no earthly prosperity and fear no earthly adversity. The heart of the priest should be filled with the hope of high things, and his sense of nobility of spirit and royal power within him should repress even the suggestions of vice. St Peter speaks of this nobility of spirit when he says, you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood (1 Pet 2:9).”

No longer seeing Christ as the centre of his ministry, he reduces the priesthood to a career, replacing the comfort of Christ with the comfort of wealth. Nevertheless, a priest, like Christ, is ordained to die, to die serving his people, to die offering his life as a sacrifice for others. However, when he succumbs to the seduction of mammon, he has everything to live for: his wealth, his comfort, his status, and nothing to die for. He begins to see life as the rich fool in the Gospel (Luke 12:16-21), stockpiling treasures for himself while forgetting the eternal value of his priestly mission. Mammon transforms a priest into a child of the world; he becomes a man who has everything to hold onto yet nothing to offer. St Gregory once more warns: “Those who preside in the Church are like the head and eyes of their people. If the feet are to take a straight and clear course, it is necessary that the eyes are not darkened by dust and that the head is not bowed down to the ground. How can a guide of souls help others to lift their eyes to heavenly things if their own eyes are fixed on earthly affairs?” Instead of calling the world to a higher vocation, he sinks into the same worldly idolatry he was ordained to combat. Rather than leading souls to Christ, he is led by the same greed that enslaves the world. G.K. Chesterton once warned about what happens when the Church grows too worldly: “If the world grows too worldly, it can be rebuked by the Church; but if the Church grows too worldly, it cannot be adequately rebuked for worldliness by the world. Therefore, it is a paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint that contradicts it most.” The antidote to this temptation is a radical return to simplicity, a rediscovery of the priestly call to live detached from material possessions. The priest must embody the very contradiction to the creeping idolatry of wealth. Only by renouncing the lure of riches and embracing the poverty of Christ can he remain a sign of contradiction in the world, a man who has nothing to live for, except that which he is willing to die for.

One of the greatest temptations facing priests in our country is the temptation to fame. We come from a deeply adulating culture, where public praise and honor are ingrained in the social fabric. In the Grassfields of Cameroon, the tradition of royal praise singing remains deeply rooted. These court musicians are tasked with celebrating the greatness, wisdom, and power of the Fon, praising his genealogy and the achievements of his predecessors. This culture of excessive adulation extends beyond the royal courts into everyday life, and the priest is not immune. At its core, the temptation to fame is a temptation to pride and self-exaltation. Like Christ in the second temptation, the priest is tempted to cast himself down from the heights, expecting the angels to catch him. It is the temptation to turn ministry into a spectacle, seek the limelight, dominate conversations, influence every discourse, and make himself the center of attention rather than Christ. This temptation intensifies when the priest stops praying, when he forgets that he is an alter Christus, called to serve Christ and not himself. His ministry becomes rooted not in the glory of God but in self-glorification. He seeks to be seen, to be heard, to be followed. Social media becomes a stage for self-display rather than an instrument for evangelization. He desires to control every event and dominate every discussion, because his identity is no longer rooted in Christ but in his reputation. This craving for fame is the opposite of John the Baptist’s humility, who declared: “He must increase, and I must decrease.” (John 3:30) Yet, for the priest who falls into this temptation, the need for adulation becomes his new god, an insatiable hunger that demands constant feeding. He is no longer content with serving God in hiddenness; he wants recognition, validation, and applause. Recognizing that a successful priest is not necessarily a faithful priest is important. As St Gregory notes, such a priest wants to possess all the dignity of holiness even after he has abandoned the ways of holiness. A priest may draw crowds, build magnificent structures, and lead large charitable projects, all while being inwardly disconnected from Christ. There is a difference between success and faithfulness in the priesthood. Faithfulness is to the Cross of Christ; success is to the works of the world. A priest is not called to be successful; he is called to be faithful. This is why, more often than not, a priest consumed by fame will gradually shift away from spiritual regeneration and focus solely on social work and activism. While social justice is an integral part of the Church’s mission, it cannot replace spiritual renewal. Social work must flow from spiritual renewal. The craving for fame ultimately stunts spiritual growth, for humility, not applause, is the soil in which holiness flourishes. The true priest, like the Psalmist, must pray: “Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to Your name be the glory.” (Psalm 115:1)

One of the clearest signs of a priest enslaved by the hunger for fame is his inability to handle the success of others. He cannot stand it when others are praised, when he is not the center of attention. Like the disciples who argued about who was the greatest, he constantly compares himself to others, seeking ways to outshine them. One of the most dangerous ways this temptation manifests itself is in the banalization of the liturgy. When Christ ceases to be the center of the liturgy, the priest turns it into a performance, adapting it to please the crowd rather than to worship God. Like Christ’s second temptation, such a priest justifies his actions by telling himself: “People are bored with the Mass! Let me entertain them, let me give them a spectacle that keeps them engaged.” At this point, the liturgical celebration is no longer about God but about the priest. Worship becomes a self-referential event, a show curated for human admiration rather than an encounter with the Divine. Pope Benedict XVI warned against such self-indulgent worship, stating: “Worship is no longer going up to God but drawing God down into one’s own world. Worship… becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation. Instead of being worship to God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself. Ultimately, it is no longer concerned with God but with giving oneself a nice little alternative world, manufactured from one’s resources. The liturgy becomes an apostasy from the living God, an apostasy in sacral disguise.” True worship should lead us beyond ourselves, drawing us into the mystery of God. It is not about us, our preferences, entertainment, or emotions. The Mass is not a show; it is Calvary made present. When a priest succumbs to the temptation of fame, he subtly shifts the focus from God to himself, and the spiritual life of his flock suffers. He succumbs to the lust of pleasing men and displeasing the Lord. St. Gregory gives a beautiful analogy of such priests when he writes: “If a bridegroom were to send a servant with gifts for his bride, and that servant tried to seduce the bride, he would make himself an enemy of his master. The same thing happens when a pastor wants to be loved by the Church instead of being loved by the Redeemer.” Such a priest forgets his duty to admonish and warn against sin, instead becoming a master of flattery to preserve his reputation and ensure his good name remains intact. He seeks approval rather than truth, preferring to please rather than to challenge. It is to such as these that the prophet Ezekiel issues a dire warning: “Woe to those who sew magic bands upon all wrists, and make pillows for the heads of persons of every stature, in the hunt of souls!” (Ezekiel 13:18). This passage rebukes those who lull people into spiritual complacency, offering false security instead of calling them to repentance and conversion. Instead of proclaiming the hard but saving truths of the Gospel, this type of priest suffocates consciences with comforting words that sedate rather than awaken. He fails to be a true shepherd, becoming instead a spiritual merchant, selling illusions of peace rather than the demands of holiness.

However, it is crucial not to misjudge every priest who is active in public ministry as someone who is seeking fame. The Church needs visible and engaged priests who are present in the public square. St. Paul went to the Areopagus, which was the gathering place of public opinion at the time, engaging with the philosophers and intellectuals of his time (Acts 17:22-34). Likewise, the modern priest must not fear engaging the world, including the modern Areopagus of social media. If the Church is to evangelize effectively, it must go where the people are. Some priests are naturally visible because their mission requires it. Many saints, St. John Paul II, St. Maximilian Kolbe, St. Padre Pio, St. Teresa of Calcutta, became well known, not because they sought fame, but because their holiness attracted people to Christ. Thus, we must distinguish between two types of visibility: A priest whose public presence is a genuine call from God to engage the world. A priest who seeks attention for his own glorification. The true marker of distinction is humility. The priest who seeks Christ above all will gladly step aside when necessary. But the priest who seeks himself above Christ will struggle with obscurity. Fame is not inherently evil, but when it becomes the priest’s goal, it leads to spiritual decay. The greatest defense against this temptation is the cultivation of humility, a constant return to the self-emptying words of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30) Only in this way can a priest remain faithful, not to himself, not to the applause of the world, but to Christ alone.

The third great temptation of the priest is women. Before addressing this topic, I want to begin with a crucial clarification: this is not an argument that women are evil or that they should be avoided. Such a view would be both misguided and contrary to the very nature of the Church. In fact, a priest who actively avoids women does not demonstrate virtue but rather a lack of affective maturity, an essential quality for any true shepherd. Women are an integral part of the Church, and in many of our local communities, they form its backbone.

Like Christ, who was accompanied by women and formed profound friendships with them, the priest must also draw near to the women in his parish, be a source of strength for them, and serve as their spiritual father. A priest who fails to do so robs himself of an invaluable source of wisdom, service, and faith. Women have always played an indispensable role in the Church’s mission. St. Paul, in his letters, frequently mentions the women who were instrumental to his ministry, such as Lydia and Lois (Acts 16:14-15; 2 Timothy 1:5). Throughout Church history, we have seen powerful and courageous women who not only supported the ministry of Christ but also shaped the Church through their wisdom and spiritual influence. St. Catherine of Siena was a fearless voice of conscience to a corrupt papacy, calling for reform and renewal. St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare shared a profound spiritual friendship, one that encouraged holiness in each other. St. John of God and St. Teresa of Avila shared a bond of mutual inspiration in their quest for deeper union with God. To neglect the role of women in the Church is to deprive the priesthood of what Pope St. John Paul II, in Mulieris Dignitatem, described as the “feminine genius.” He emphasized that women possess a unique gift, particularly their capacity for love, self-giving, and nurturing relationships, qualities that enrich both society and the Church.

These maternal and sacrificial qualities, deeply embedded in the heart of womanhood, teach the priest valuable lessons about the nature of the Church. Women embody patience, perseverance, and strength, virtues essential to spiritual fatherhood. When Christ was dying on the Cross, the apostles fled, but the women remained (John 19:25). They were there to offer consolation in His darkest hour. After His death, it was the women who thought of embalming Him (Mark 16:1), their love driving them even beyond the tomb. This intuition into human suffering, this depth of love, is a great treasure that the Church cannot afford to lose. The priest, therefore, should never dismiss or distance himself from the great contribution of women; rather, he should embrace their presence as an essential part of his ministry. However, the priest’s temptation regarding women arises not from his recognition of their essential role, but rather from his failure to see them as persons created in God’s image, reducing them instead to objects of pleasure at his disposal. When this happens, the priest’s availability to his parish disappears, his pastoral presence diminishes, and he becomes consumed by self-indulgence and the baser instincts. Instead of being a shepherd, he becomes enslaved by his passions, prioritizing personal gratification over the spiritual needs of his flock. Thus, the priest’s challenge is not to avoid women but to see them rightly as sisters in Christ, co-workers in the vineyard, and spiritual allies in the mission of salvation. The priest must cultivate purity in his relationships so that his presence among women fosters holiness, not temptation. Only then will he reflect Christ, who honored, respected, and loved women in the purest and most redemptive way possible.

Why would women constitute a temptation for priests today? The average age of ordination in Cameroon is about 28 years, meaning that most of our priests are young men in the prime of their youth. As the late Cardinal Joseph Malula of Kinshasa once told his priests, “The oils of ordination do not vaccinate the priest against the desires of the flesh.” In their youth, many priests face strong temptations against purity that can easily derail them from the total gift of self that their vocation requires. Beyond youthfulness, the Cameroonian culture’s deep respect for authority plays a major role in this temptation. In our society, the priest is not merely an authority figure; he is a star. Wherever he goes, he is treated with deference, looked up to, and many seek his association. On average, most priests are gentlemanly, polite, kind, caring, and considerate, qualities that many women desire in a man. In a society scarred by sexual violence, broken families, and rampant promiscuity, the priest appears as a rare and ideal man, making him a particularly tempting prospect.

Like the third temptation of Christ, the Cameroonian priest quite literally has the world at his feet. The ever-present occasion of sin makes it difficult for him to avoid being drawn in. The Church, in her wisdom, imposes celibacy on Latin Rite Catholic priests to free them for mission. However, when a priest succumbs to lust, he becomes self-indulgent, less available, and directs his energy toward self-gratification rather than service. For a young priest in his late twenties or thirties, without the necessary affective maturity, this could be a serious obstacle to ministry.

A priest may fully understand the theological reasons for celibacy yet still find himself battling this temptation if he forgets that Christ is the power that drives his ministry. It is impossible to withstand this battle without prayer and an intimate anchor in Christ. There is a popular meme on social media of a monk sitting in a cell with a scantily dressed woman, closing his eyes in prayer to resist the onslaught of lust that could easily engulf his heart. That image reminds me of the famous story of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose family, in an attempt to dissuade him from joining the mendicant Dominicans, locked him in a room with a woman of loose morals. However, rather than fall, he drove her away and burned a cross into the door as a sign of his commitment to Christ. When the heart is not filled with hunger and desire for God, when the heart is not in love with Christ, it can easily be seduced into loving the flesh. Lust is a counterfeit god, a seductive idol that destroys the priest’s soul. It turns him from a shepherd into a wolf. “An unchaste priest is an unchaste demon,” wrote St. Peter Damian in The Book of Gomorrah. The spiritual harm caused by such a priest is enormous because instead of lifting souls toward holiness, he drags them down into the pit of sin.

Pope St. John Paul II, in Pastores Dabo Vobis, warned that priestly celibacy is not merely an external discipline but a profound spiritual gift that requires interior formation and vigilance. The priest is not just avoiding impurity for the sake of a rule, but to remain fully available for God and His people. Fulton Sheen, in his book Seven Capital Sins, described lust as the most enslaving of all sins because it darkens the intellect and weakens the will, making it nearly impossible for the sinner to rise without grace. “Lust leads to the loss of rational judgment. The intellect is clouded, and the will is weakened. Once reason is dethroned, man no longer acts as a free being but as a slave to his passions.”

In The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri places the sin of lust in the second circle of Hell, where those overcome by carnal desire are punished. They are swept violently by raging winds, never at rest, just as their passions never allowed them peace in life. A priest who surrenders to lust is like a wildfire in the dry season of the African savannah, consuming everything in its path because he has lost all spiritual brakes. His female parishioners become potential targets; he is no longer a priest available for their salvation but a lion waiting for the right time to pounce on its prey. Lust destroys a priest’s credibility and moral authority. It corrupts his soul and undermines the trust of the faithful. History bears witness to this. Lust was one of the sins that weakened the Church during the Protestant Reformation. Many clergy at the time were not living up to their vows and promises, making the Church appear like a cadaver, rotting and ugly, except for the saints who preserved its spiritual vitality. One of the first signs of a morally decadent Church is always a sexually decadent clergy. When the priesthood becomes corrupt, the Church loses her moral power. A powerful example is found in the Old Testament. In Samuel’s time, Israel suffered a devastating defeat at the hands of the Philistines. The reason? The priests, Phineas and Hophni, were immoral men, indulging in lust and corruption rather than ministering to the Lord. As a result, Israel lost the Ark of the Covenant (1 Samuel 2-4). When priests become slaves to lust, God’s presence departs from His people.

This temptation will always be with us. I once heard a seminarian ask an elderly Cardinal, “When does the temptation to sexual sin finally stop?” The Cardinal replied, “Two hours after you are buried in the grave.” We cannot command this temptation to vanish, but we can control it. Fulton Sheen once said, “Show me your bookshelf, and I will tell you what you are.” If he were alive today, he might say, “Show me your internet search history, and I will tell you what kind of priest you are.” I know that we all know what we ought to do as priests to control this raging inferno within us. But I will emphasize one thing only, the use of the phone. I dare say that this single device has single-handedly opened a new world of sin to priests, and if we cannot control it, if we cannot resist the urge to be glued to it, it will destroy us. In Light of the World, Pope Benedict XVI spoke of the silent crisis of priests who become enslaved to digital distractions and fall into impurity because of a lack of interior discipline. A priest must discipline his phone use. He must guard his eyes, his heart, and his time. Lust enters first through the eyes, then moves to the heart, and finally manifests in actions. That is why custody of the eyes is essential.