OCR Text |
Show T LOYALTY TO THE PASTOR There is not perhaps a parish, great or small, in this country, where the pastor does not sometimes long to- hear an authoritative voice urging his people peo-ple to "hold up his hands." Nobody knows so well as he that great American Ameri-can fact that here every man is his neighbor's judge and that in consequence, conse-quence, public opinion is the autocrat by whose favor every movement stands ' or falls; nobody knows better than he, i either, that with us public opinion has most emphatically the mark of a half-educated half-educated opinion, in that it is more critical than appreciative. Appreciation is the flower of the finest minds only, and our American Catholic pastor, knowing so often by sad experience that he is as likely to be judged by the smallest failing as by his highest vir-j vir-j tue, has good reason to question whether even the seed of that fine flower flow-er has been yet dropped Into the aver, age American mind. It is not that the parish critic is so numerous, but he is so loud. He is the outcome of a nature which lacks the sense of proportion, and when in the exercise of his characteristic prerogative, preroga-tive, he proceeds to express his plain opinion of his pastor, it generally turns out that he has a small complaint against an otherwise very good man, which lies somewhere in the following category of minor defects: He is either a poor prencher.'or he is a rhetorical dude; he is a lax financier, or he puts too much of a commercial value on everything;. ,he is too rigid in enforcing the parochial school regulations, regula-tions, or he is too friendly to the state schools; he is too autocratic, or too complacent; he Is too much of a re-cluse re-cluse or he" Is":' too 'much given to social so-cial reunion with - friends; he Is too much concerned aftout the "figure the Church makes before outsiders, or ha is so regardless of outsiders that .-he' recklessSy scandalizes their ignorance. The fact of a true self-devoted life which is often a lire of daily crucifixion crucifix-ion for the sake of the highest things .does' not count at all in this opinion. These are the people who pull down the pastor's hands. There are also the others who say. nothing either in praise or blame, and are culpable for not joins' jo-ins' their best to-"hold up the' pastor's hands." A good resolution, therefore, for all who read this article would be to determine de-termine to "hold up the pastor's hands" j with all faithfulness, to keep to oneself the word of idle criticism, to cultivate with regard to him the beautiful virtues vir-tues of appreciation, gratitude and loyalty. loy-alty. - Above all. In the heme circle, loyalty to tbe pastor should be a household watchword.. The children and young people should never hear a word about him that -would not serve to "hold up his hands." The old virtue of unquestioning unques-tioning reverence does not seem to thrive in American soil. What then is to take its place and make it possible for religion to do its work for both" priest and people, if not the newer virtue vir-tue of intelligent loyalty? |