Priests and Authority

Several of my previous careers have been in positions of authority, usually delegated. A professor or teacher has delegated authority from the school district or university. A chef has delegated management authority. An engineer has delegated role authority in management or seniority hierarchies.

What does a priest have?

The easy answer is the authority that the role gives them, which is not a useful answer.

Another easy answer is because someone in authority said so, which is only a useful answer if you aren’t responsible for anything.

The next easy answer is the authority that the spirits give them, which is also not a useful answer.

A slightly harder answer is the authority that their community gives them, which is still not a useful answer.

Another slightly harder answer is the authority of violence—that is, their willingness to enforce their will with threats, which is still not a useful answer.

The hard answer is this: a priest has the authority they make in themselves.

Everything else, much like the delegated authority from the first paragraph, is justification. Everything else is how we rationalize acting authoritative. When I stood, in my early twenties, in front of fifty freshmen, it was the thing I told myself to stop my hands from shaking. When I yelled orders out to a kitchen full of ex-cons, it’s how I justified not being afraid. When I dressed down entire meetings for poorly defined specifications and unrealistic deadlines, it’s how I understood my goals.

Authority is a real bitch, because it comes with responsibility. You are responsible for creating your own authority, not just for what you do with it. No one can take what comes from you away from you, which is how you get kings and queens in vodou who live in abject poverty and yet command. The authority that comes from you does not have to be recognized to be what it is—sometimes, people simply refuse to recognize types of authority (usually because they need their authority to wear special costumes or skin colors.)

Recognized or not, it exists if you have supplied it, if you have it in you to supply it.