So, it was 1970 something, and the War in Vietnam was going strong. Richard Nixon had begun his political death spiral, and it seemed that the world had lost its center. Even my family was going mad. One brother was busy killing himself with drugs; one sister was busy destroying herself with everything else. It seemed to me that the world needed moral heroism, action beyond the pale. I didn't want to be a soldier, because that was not the kind of heroism I was looking for. I wanted to do something great--for God, for humanity, for the universe, for myself.
Now, I am and have always been stark raving Catholic. Sorry--I can't help it. It's in my genes, and in my history, and in my ancestors running through the bogs of Ireland, back to the warrior poets blessing and cursing kings with their words.
So, there was really only one thing I could do--join the priesthood. I couldn't think of anything more heroic, more sacrificial, than giving up sex. The fact that I had just broken up with my girlfriend gave this desire a special urgency, but more than anything else, I wanted to do the Big Thing, to elect myself a hero, and like Don Quixote, charge off against windmills, leaving the world a better place than the one I was born to.
I used to ask myself: when I am on my deathbed, will I want to look back on a heroic life or on the life of an ordinary guy? Heroism won hands down. The fact that this was blatant hubris didn't occur to me. And like Oedipus, those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.