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" Unless your justice abound more than that of the Scribes and Pharisees, you shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven" — Matt. v. 20.

At all times men have had ideals of goodness which they looked up to and admired, and which the best among them have had the ambition to imitate. The popular ideal of the Jews when Christ came, was represented by the Pharisees, — men orthodox in faith, correct in life, ardent in the love of country, strict in the observance of the Law. Such men could not fail to win influence and popularity; and they enjoyed both in a high degree. The people who gathered round Our Savior on the Mount did not conceive of any form of life higher or better than what they had hitherto looked up to in their accredited teachers; yet He tells them plainly that their qualities were entirely insufficient to secure admittance into His kingdom. What a shock it must have been to them to hear this for the first time! But if they will only wait, the divine Teacher will show them how incomplete, and in most cases how hollow, were the lives they so admired.

From the facts of the Gospel narrative, and still more from the unsparing denunciations of Our Lord himself (Matt, xxiii. 13, and foll., Luke xvi. 39, and foll.), we may easily gather what were the shortcomings and vices of the Pharisees. Their "formalism" first of all, their exaggerated concern for externals, for the minutiae of the law, united with a practical disregard for its fundamental principles. Next, "their pride" and self-importance, revealing itself at every step, and leading to hardness of heart, and contempt for others. Finally, " their ostentation " and constant display of whatever in their lives and actions could win them the admiration of the people.

The Gospel is the opposite of all this. It leads men back to fundamental things, to the indestructible principles of justice and of love. It teaches them to act righteously for righteousness' sake, to look to God for approval, not to man. It keeps their weaknesses before them, humbles them, and makes them think more of others than of themselves. In a word, the Christian type is the exact opposite of that of the Pharisee, and something incomparably nobler and higher, even in the most unpretending of those who follow it. 

Indeed, the Pharisaic type, in its crude, unmitigated form, has become unbearable to the modern mind, fashioned by Christian traditions. But because it is, after all, true to man's natural instincts, it has not entirely disappeared from the world. Something of it may be found even in the life of a priest. He may be good, faithful, zealous ; yet, at the same time, self-important, exacting, sedulous in cultivating public opinion, eager for praise. His composed demeanor and his devotional practices may conceal even from himself much that is mean and selfish. In his concern for minor objects, he may "neglect the weightier things of the law : judgment, and mercy, and faith ; " and while " cleansing the outside of the dish" overlook the impurities it may contain.

A priest, too, may select and follow false ideals; nor is the thing at all uncommon Thus he may not fully believe in the purely Christian virtues, — such as humility, gentleness, self-denial — or in the special requirements of the priestly character. He may not even believe in the higher forms of natural virtue, all based on self-sacrifice. His ideal may be practically that of the popular priest, the successful priest ; that is, successful in doing external work, or in reaching positions of honor or emolument. His principal ambition may be to secure what will lighten, and lengthen, and sweeten existence — just like any man of the world. And yet, " unless his justice abound more than that " of those men to whom he looks up with envy, he is unfit for the work of the  priesthood; and, if he has assumed its responsibilities and fails to bear them, he is unfit for the kingdom of heaven.

The truth is, the ideal of the priesthood is not an open question at all. What sort of man a priest ought to be, what is implied in his sacred character, what he is really pledged to by the reception of orders, is determined almost as precisely as the doctrines of faith, and has varied as little in the course of Christian ages. It can be gathered from the Gospel; it is found in St. Paul ; it is spread out in the pages of the Fathers, in the enactments of councils, in the teachings of the Saints ; and everywhere it is visibly and unmistakably the same.

Source: Daily thoughts for priests, Rev. Fr. John Hogan, 1899

 Answer: They are of use in saving souls! Certainly, here is an employment which is at least as good as many others.

The mechanic works upon matter; the priest works on the soul. As much as the soul is higher than matter, so much is the priest's work higher than all the labors of the earth.

The priest continues the great labor of the salvation of mankind. Jesus Christ, his God and his Model, began it; His priests continue through all ages.

After His example, the priest goes about doing good. He is a man who belongs to all; his heart, his time, his health, his diligence, his purse, his life, belong to all; above all, to the lowly ones of the earth, to children, to the poor, the neglected, those who weep, and who are friendless. He expects nothing in exchange for this devotedness; most frequently, indeed, he receives only insults, abominable calumnies and ill treatment. True disciple of his Divine Master, he replies only by continuing to do goo.

What a life! What superhuman abnegation!

In public calamities, civil wards, contagious diseases, in times of cholera, when the Protestants ministers and philanthropists think of personal preservation, the priest is to be seen exposing his life and health to relieve and save his brethren; such was Monseigneur Affre, Archbishop of Paris, on the barricades; such were Belzunce and St. Charles Borromeo, in the time of the plage at Marseilles and Milan; such, during the cholera in 1832 and 1849, all the clergy of Paris and so many other towns, who made themselves the public servants of the whole people.

Msgr. Affre

This, then, is the use of priests! I should like to know if those who attack them are of more use.

The ungrateful wretches! They are never weary of loading with insults him whom they summon to their bedside in time of sorrow or privation, who has blessed them in their earlier years, and who never ceases to pray for them.

All the miseries of our country arise from our not practicing what the priests teach. And unfortunate France, torn with civil discords and political commotions, may apply to herself the language addressed to the chaplain of one of the Paris prisons by a poor convict, who had returned to God with all his heart. The priest had given him a little Christian's manual. "Ah Father!" he said one day, showing the little book, "If I had known the contents of this, and had practiced these maxims all my life, I should not have done what I have now done, nor should I have been where I now am!"

If France had always known, and if she now knew what priests really do teach, and if she had always practiced those doctrines, and continued doing so, she would not have been tossed about by three or four revolutions in the space of fifty years, and be reduced to ask herself in the present day, Am I about to perish entirely? Can I still hope to be saved from destruction?

She may hope to be saved, if she will again be truly Catholic! She may hope to be saved if she will but take heed to the ministers of Him who SAVES the world.

The priesthood is then the safety of France! For without religion society would be destroyed.

Her children, then, owe honor, veneration, gratitude, more than ever to the priestly character. Those who repulse the idea have not the intelligence of our age or country.

Away with these worn-out prejudices, then. Away with these coarse and injurious epithets, with which the blind impiety of Voltaire and his followers have so long assailed the Catholic Priesthood!

 Let us respect our Priests. If we see imperfections, even vices occasionally, among them, let us remember that we must ascribe to the man all that belongs to frailty.

Let us endeavor, in those cases, not to look at the man, to see nothing but the priest; as a priest, he is always worthy of respect, and his ministry is always a holy one; for he is the perpetuator of the office of Jesus Christ, the great High Priest, through successive ages, and it is of him that the Savior has said, " He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Him that sent you."

Source:  Short Answer to Common Objections Against Religion, by Louis Gaston Adrien de Segur

Answer: What do you venture to assert? The priests of Jesus Christ are impostors! Pray, how do you know that? How can you read their hearts, and pronounce whether they believe or do not believe in the sacred origin of their priesthood? It is the accuser's business to prove what he advances. I defy you to prove this accusation.

You will, perhaps, cite, by way of proof, the name of some bad priest.

I must then remind you that the exception proves the rule. A wicked, unbelieving priest would not be so much the subject of comment if the great majority were not so holy, pure and venerable.

A spot of ink is seen with extraordinary distinctness on a pure white robe; it would be hardly perceptible if the robe were black or soiled.

So it is with the Catholic priesthood, to whom impiety thus pays an involuntary homage.

That there are bad priests is not a strange thing. Remember there was a Judas among the twelve Apostle! Just as the Apostles, the first priests, the first Bishops of the Church, thrust out the traitor from among them, and were not responsible for his crime, so the Church condemns, with even more energy and horror than you yourselves express, those traitorous priests who desert their sublime duties! She first endeavors to bring them back into the right way by gentleness and pardon; priests, as well as other men, have aright to mercy; but the irreclaimable, those who persevere in the bad road, she cuts off from her communion, and strikes them with her anathemas.

Priests are impostors! And what interest have they then in hearing your confessions, reproving you for your vices, preaching to you, catechizing your children, feeding the poor, giving to this one good advice; to that one, consolation; to another, bread?

Would it be possible to curtail by a farthing their slender revenues, and the still more slender nature of their occasional fees, if they kept silence about the irregularities and excess of their parishioners, if they admitted any or every person to the sacraments, without giving themselves the trouble of examining the state of their conscience, or if they were to abridge their catechizing, etc.? What worldly interest have they then in fulfilling well their ministry?

No, no; the priest is not what the impious proclaim him to be, and it is because they are aware of this that these people detest the priest so cordially. They see in him the representative of the God Who condemns their vices, the envoy of Jesus Christ, whom they blaspheme, and Who will judge them. They see in him the personification of that law of God which they unceasingly violate; and it is because they do not wish to acknowledge the Master that they do not wish to recognize His minister.

Source: Short Answer to Common Objections Against Religion, Fr. Louis Gaston Adrien de Segur

Answer: Certainly one ought not to be a bigot! Who says you should? Do those who rant most about bigotry really know what bigotry is? If so, it would be well to use the knowledge for their own improvement: for generally they are the most intensely bigoted bigots. They are so deeply immersed in their own little puddle of bigotry that they cannot see a whole ocean of fairness beyond them.

Bigotry is not religion, it is the abuse of it.

The defects of persons who are guilty of that abuse, generally from ignorance, ought not to be imputed to Religion.

Religion is abused, like every good thing in the world. We must reject the abuse, and retain the use. We must be pious, but we must not be bigots. God loves one, but He does not love the other. The desires to behold in our hearts devotion, that is, devotedness to His service, devotedness to the duties which He imposes, and love of His commandments; but He does not desire to see bigotry reigning in them, that is to say, those enthusiastic, those narrow-minded or superstitiously religious practices, which often replace the chief object by the accessories, and substitute the means for the end.

Nevertheless, these abuses of religion are not so universal and so heinous as they are generally said to be.

Generally speaking, they do not injure any one, and are only hurtful to those who commit them. Those who fall into these pitiable mistakes are unenlightened persons, who surround and fatigue themselves with numerous external forms and practices of devotion, food in themselves, but carried to too great a length; who assume a certain strangeness of manner; who torment their consciences in the fear of doing wrong; and who become excited and angry, through misguided zeal, when it would be more prudent and wise to remain silent, etc.

This is bigotry. It is a great defect, but I should be glad to think there were no worse ones here on earth! Those who inveigh so loudly against bigotry, and are indignant at the absurdities it gives rise to, are too often persons who remind one of the criminal, who, sentenced to perpetual labor for a frightful murder he had committed, was indignant at having given him for his prison companion a thief!

They are often more worthy of censure than those whom they attack.

Their profligacy, bad conduct, neglect of the most sacred duties, religious ignorance, licentious conversation, evil example, etc, etc, are not these abuses? Are they not crimes?

Their whole life is an abuse; and the abuse of devotion is, I venture to say, the only one they never commit. Would it not be as well to exchange this one for the others, I ask?

Do not, then, be a bigot, but a Christian, and a good Christian. Love God, serve Him faithfully, observe all His commandments; fulfill all your duties, so as to be pleasing in the eyes of God, and listen with docility to the teaching of the ministers of Jesus Christ.

Source: Short answers to common objections against religion By Louis Segur

The faith of the Curé of Ars was his whole science; his book was our Lord Jesus Christ. He sought for wisdom nowhere but in Jesus Christ, in His death and in His cross. To him no other wisdom was true, no other wisdom useful. He sought it not amid the dust of libraries, not in the schools of the learned, but in prayer, on his knees, at his Master's Feet, covering His Divine Feet with tears and kisses; in the presence of the holy tabernacles, where he passed his days and nights before the crowd of pilgrims had yet deprived him of liberty day and night, he had learnt it all.

Source: The Spirit of the Cure of Ars by John E. Bowden 1865

"Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice's sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." Matt. V.10

There is nothing for which Christ seems more concerned to prepare His Apostles than the active, violent opposition of the world. He warns them repeatedly that they must not expect to fare better than Himself; that they will have to suffer all manner of ill treatment on His account; that they will be taken up and dragged before unscrupulous judges, cast into prison and tortured; that their very friends and relatives will turn against them and betray them; finally that they will be an object of universal distrust and hatred among their fellow-men.

Subsequent events abundantly verified the Savior's prediction. The lives of the apostles, so far as we are acquainted with them, seem to have been full of suffering and trials, and all ultimately crowned by martyrdom. St. Paul, the apostle whom we know best, tells the Corinthians what he had to endure. "Of the Jews five times did I receive forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned; thrice I suffered shipwreck; a night and day I was in the depths of the sea. In journeying often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils from my own nation, in perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils from false brethren. In labor and painfulness, in much watching, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. " 2 Cor. ii. 25....

For three hundred years the history of the Church is a history of persecutions; nor did they cease with the conversion of Constantine. Under many of his successors, confiscation, exile, prison, and death were the lot of Christians true to their faith. In deed it may be said that at all times the good have had to suffer, and to suffer "for justice's sake;" that is, because of their very goodness. The dishonest, the corrupt dislike them, as interfering with their pursuits and their pleasures, and because the very life of the just man is a protest against their methods. It is thus that they are described in the book of Wisdom: (ii.12), "Let us therefore lie in wait for the just because he is not for our turn (he is of no use to us), and he is contrary to our doings, and upbraideth us with transgressions of the law, and divulgeth against us the sins of our way of life. He is become a censurer of our thoughts. He is grievous to us, even to behold, for his life is not like other men's and his ways are very different."

And so will it be, St. Paul tells us, to the end of the world. "All that will live godly shall suffer persecution." At the hands of the evil-minded, the good will be made to pay the penalty of their goodness; the faithful and fervent will have to bear the criticism of those who choose not to follow in their footsteps; converts to the true faith will forfeit position or fail to reach it because they have not closed their eyes to the light; born Catholics will seek in vain for what they might easily reach if they were known to be indifferent to religious truth, or to have eschewed all belief; men of integrity who hold office or fill positions of trust will be driven from them because they refuse to share in the dishonesty of others or interfere with their crooked ways; at every turn of life the conscientious will have to suffer for conscience's sake.

The priest does not escape the common law. He too has occasionally to suffer for justice's sake. He may be led by a simple sense of duty or by the impulse of zeal to a manner of action which is not approved of by all. He is often found fault with, criticized, not only by the ignorant, the thoughtless, and the wicked, but sometimes by good people, and even by his fellow-priests. But he finds an encouragement that never fails in the voice of his conscience and in the promise of his Divine Master: "Be glad and rejoice, for your reward is very great in heaven." Yet, he must be sure that what he has to endure is not of his own making. With the best intentions a man may be injudicious in his action, indiscreet in his methods. His firmness may degenerate into obstinacy, his zeal into intolerance. He may, under the name and cover of duty, become self-righteous, narrow-minded, impatient of contradiction, thus awakening opposition and leading to trials hard to bear, but for which there is no reward.

"It is good for us sometimes to suffer contradictions, and to allow people to think ill and slightingly of us, even when we do and mean well.

"These are often helps to humility, and rid us of vain glory. For then we more earnestly seek God to be witness of what passes within us, when outwardly we are despised by men and little credit is given to us. " Imitation i, 12.

Source: Daily Thoughts for Priests, Very Rev. J. B. Hogan S.S., DI president of St. John's Seminary Brighton, Mass 1899