the pastoral approach

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Jul 08, 2007

Rev. John F. Baldovin, a professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology in Cambridge, tells the Boston Globe that he understands the appeal of the old Mass.

But I think this is the wrong way to go about redressing some of the mistakes of the last 40 years, and a lot of crazy people are now going to come out of the woodwork, people who are discontent with the way the church has gone for the last 40 years.

Hmm. If mistakes have been made over the last 40 years, then the people discontent with the results of those mistakes aren't necessarily crazy. But for the sake of the argument let's concede that "a lot of crazy people are now going to come out of the woodwork." That raises the question: What is the appropriate attitude of a Christian pastor toward crazy people?

What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not protect the ninety-nine from the inconvenience caused by that one crazy? And if the lost one comes back, truly, I say to you, he wonders why it didn't stay in the woodwork.

(That's my own translation of Mt 18: 12-13; some translations differ.)