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Show 38 . THE INTERMOUNTAIN CATHOLIC EDITORIALS The Catholic Priest There are not enough people who appreciate the arduous work and trials of the parish priest. There are now in the United States slightly less than 25,000 Catholic priests. With a Catholic population, of 20,000,000 people, this would require one priest to care for the spiritual welfare of about 800 persons. Among, and with that many people, a priest finds but little spare time. At least 4,000 confessions must be heard during the year, or an average of 80 per week, and these are often heard in one or two days. Then there are the instructions for the children; the services of Mass, vespers, Lenten Rosary, May devotions, Forty Hours, Missions, bazaars, parochial schools, building, and the soliciting of funds. And all this is done for a salary sometimes less than a bank clerk or a grade school teacher receives for his work. Then there are the sermons to be prepared, the daily prayers to be said, difficulties of, and between, his parishioners to be straightened out, and a multitude of other duties to be attended, besides the general reading and studying a priest must do to keep up with the times. Really, it is a wonder that the average priest can bear the load, keep up physically and not lose his mind. still some Catholics think that their parish priest has no work, has nothing to do but talk about money; and some families would sooner . leave the Church than contribute ten dollars per year to that priest and the congregation that are to educate their boys and girls to be moral and upright men and women. Really and truly, if apy one of those who now grumble at their spiritual leader could carry and were given those loads and burdens to carry for one week, "he would never again ' complain of a priest with reference to spiritual or financial matters. The parish priest is a remarkable person, I and deserves uncommon obedience and respect. The labors he performs are equal and harder than' those of. the common laborer; the duties he performs are important and serious; and the exacting and thorough training he had to receive before ordination are not equaled nor excelled by any other vocation or profession in the experience of man. Where the average person has not spent one year in college, the priest had spent perhaps ten years in colleges and seminaries and all this for our benefit. And no doubt parents and parishioners who oppose and talk against their priests in a rude and unreasonable manner, are acting They are perhaps driving themselves and their children into organizations and folds, some of which are laboring overtime to destroy our faith and counteract the work and humanitarian mission of the Catholic priesthood and the Catholic Church. May we not as Catholics for the sake of God and the welfare of the world at large, ponder deeply on the sacred work and important office of our priests, to the end that we may rather assist and encourage in the great work they do, and for centuries have done, and that still so much needs to be done for the worlds and our own salvation? ill-advised- ly. i nd p r Pictures There are few things that add charm to a home as do good pictures. They change a room from the commonplace to a delightful center of lovely color and fair vistas. There are rooms wherein we have been for some few moments, and yet the charm of them remains in our memory for long years. We may have faced a picture of a cool, quiet forest, with its inviting path leading into mystic unknowns. There may have been the portrait of a lovely lady who regarded us with cool, sweet eyes and made us feel that her quiet, quaint repose was a reproach to our jerky restlessness. |