The Morning Star And Catholic Messenger

The idea of such persons is that a priest is something extraordinary, that he is without the pale of the world, and that, consequently, he should not live in any respect as do the citizens of the world. Another objection made by those self-constituted censors is that a priest never has money which is properly his own, that all he possesses is merely the gift of his parishioners, that he is a mere trustee, and is accountable to his religious cestui que trusts for the manner in which he administers the trust reposed in him; that anything expended for any other purpose than for the necessary use of the Church is an improper conversion.

Our readers will find it to be an unexceptional rule that he, who is always so rigid in his exactions of the clergy, is himself given in no small degree to dissipation in more forms than one; that he who continually expressing his anxiety about the manner in which this priest or that priest is spending money, has never yet contributed a dollar to the fund which he alleges is being improperly used.