Dear Daniel:

Canon Law, with specifics spelled out by the Conference of Bishops, requires that a priest wear his clerical garb:

Can. 284 Clerics are to wear suitable ecclesiastical dress, in accordance with the norms established by the Episcopal Conference and legitimate local custom.

While the title "father" has not always been the custom, it is the custom today. A priest is called "Reverend Father", a deacon is called "Reverend Mister".

For this priest to choose not to use his priestly title implies that his is ashamed to be called a priest before men. Jesus says:

(Matthew 5:14-16) "You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hid. Nor do men light a lamp and put it under a bushel, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven."

This priest apparently wants to hide, like a coward, under a bushel basket and not let the light of Christ that he is to be shine before men. Shame on him.

I think it is an excuse, not a reason, to say that someone may be offended. Balderdash! No sane person will be offended by a priest wearing priestly garb and being called "father", especially in a Catholic college, for pete sake.

No, there is something else going on with this priest.

I do know that there does exist ill-will people who might actually say they are "offended" by such things. When that happens, cowards submit to the Tyranny of the Perpetually Offended.

Well, I am offended by a priest not wearing clerical garb and not being called "father". So why do these people so concerned that anyone will be offended not be concerned for my feelings on the matter. The politically correct are always hypocrites.

I think what you did in class was courageous. Good for you. Someone needed to stand up against this priest's cowardice and idiocy. You are doing nothing rude. Actually, it is the priest who is being rude.

This reminds me of the idiocy of "tolerance". Bishop Sheen back in the 1930's said that American was not suffering from intolerance, but from too much tolerance.

Louis de Wohl wrote an essay in the late 1950s on the same topic:

Tolerance is not a virtue. It is no more than an amiable weakness. It it is typical of the confused thinking of our time that many people regard it as a virtue and believe they are giving praise when they say a man is tolerant. To tolerate something means to accept it or to permit it, even though one does not agree with it. Tolerance is an entirely passive concept, and only too often serves as a cloak for indifference and cowardice. It is, as someone once said, "lowest form of collaboration"; and for exactly that reason, it entails a great deal of personal responsibility. He who tolerates evil becomes an accessory to it.

Truth, because of its very nature, is absolutely intolerant. Two plus two equals four. Truth must protest against any other result of this addition. It will not accept seventeen, and will not accept three and nine-tenths. Only four.

Besides, there is a certain measure of condescension about tolerance. I tolerate your proximity. Nice of me, isn't it?

But the worst thing about tolerance that it knows nothing of love. It is, at best, the pale stepsister of patience.

All this does not imply that intolerance is a good thing. The opposite of a swelling on your head is a hole in your head, and that is not so good either.

In like manner, this priest's fetish to not offend anyone is actually offensive. He is presuming that some of his students are so immature and/or mentally imbalanced as to be offended by who he is. So in his act of feigned concern for others' feelings, he is calling his students stupid.

He is condescending to his students. "I tolerate your immaturity. Nice of me isn't it."

Indeed, if Jesus was so supersensitive about offending others his mission would have failed. He would not have gone to the Cross and man would not have been redeemed.

Truth offends those who do not want to hear it.

If I were in the class I would continue to call him "Father". I am not afraid to be Catholic.

Pray for this poor confused and prideful priest.

God Bless,
Bro. Ignatius Mary