The subject matter and central-eastern European phrasing of that sentence suddenly brought to mind Zosima (the priest from Dostoevsky's novel Brat'ya Karamazovy); he was a priest, or rather a monk, who people would flock to, a healer of sorts. Was a mystical sort of guy, also a genuinely nice guy, seemed to have a divine connection. In anycase, he died at a certain point (it is a long book) and his body very quickly began to decay and smell bad. This was a big scandal because true holy men were not supposed to quickly decay and smell after they died. So the sound and tone of your statement, "
priests,if they are a real, true priests from the calling of their hearts" took me back to the good, true priest Zosmia and his suspiciously smelly corpse

. Great novel
As far as the toxicity of empathy you have to think of the origins of where empathy comes from. It comes from ones own ability to empathize with the pain of another based upon their own similar experience or history. So in some ways, empathy is really a reflection of your own pity for yourself. In some ways sympathy is more noble because it isn't based on some shared personal experience. A woman who's husband left her has a greater capacity to empathize with a woman in a similar situation than one without that shared experience. Anyone who has ever described themself to me as being an "empath" has also been noticeably and conspicuously more self-focused and egocentric than the general population.
Think of the empathy that MDMA produces. Is that valuable and meaningful, particularly the outward expression of that to others? Say a person amongst a group of people at a rave, while high on MDMA, turns to their group of friends and says, "man I love you guys, I'm going to always be there for you guys", or perhaps think back on a deep conversation with a friend while high on MDMA, how strong of a bond did that actually form?
Funny enough, I once slept with a girl who was engaged to be married, and was a self-described "empath". Right before I said, "hey aren't you engaged?", and she said, "yes, but once when he and I took MDMA together we said we'd both understand and forgive each other if we cheated on one another". I thought, damn people suck

and then proceeded to sleep with her because I am no priest like Zosmia (although in retrospect Zosima was implied in the novel to be a womanizer when he was younger -- perhaps thats why his corpse stunk).
So yeah, empathy can be toxic, and ultimately of questionable value. True sympathy, is more noble: feeling bad for someone even though you have no experience with their type of suffering and cannot relate.
But conversely, empathy is what builds non-profit foundations, etc. No one starts a foundation for a rare form of pediatric cancer because they sympathize with the sufferers. They start it because their daughter had it. Humans, like all animals, behave largely and almost entirely in pursuit of self-interest or as a reaction to truama.