Sometimes I am a tad slow on the uptake. I like to think I have an innocence about me and not that I’m slow and dimwitted.  I have conclude that there are many, many priests that want to do the very minimum with truth because they choose to worry about earthly things, (lights, boilers, roofs et. al.) Fortunately or unfortunately I do not care about such things.  The things that brought me to that grand truth are legion. I want to touch on two, and both of them are connected.

Since I seem to be one of the few priests that try to preach the truth of Jesus Christ I do receive push back from people who want to believe whatever makes them feel good about themselves. Of course, they never actually come to me. Here is my first problem with that…how about the pastor or the Chancellor tell the people who complain that their understanding of Catholicism is not authentic. (I only preach the Gospel of Christ that St. Paul preached.)  Since it has already been written for me there is no need for me to write or preach something other than the gospel. The rub is that pastors would rather not deal with the truth or deal with irate and delusional parishioners. The bottom line is the salvation of souls is less important than the boiler.

The other thing that chaps my ass, (to use a colloquialism), is that it was admitted by the Chancellor that the complaints aren’t always about what I’m saying but how I’m saying it…my tone. That sounds awfully politically correct and somewhat feminine. The salvation of souls isn’t masculine or feminine just ask St.’s Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Sienna, Joan of Arc, the Blessed Mother et. al. their number one priority is/was saving souls for God.  It is misogynistic to say otherwise.

The knowledge was put before me that a friend of the Office Manager was feeding her information about my homilies. The office Manager in turn tried to clarify what she was told by going to the organist. The organist, God bless her, told the Office Manager that everything I said was the truth.  The relatively new term, “snowflakes” comes to mind when dealing with the un-catechized or poorly catechized.

As I have often said from the pulpit many times,” I am not going to go to hell for not preaching the gospel. I may go for other things, but it won’t be because I did not preach the gospel.”