Pope Gregory the Great wrote a book entitled "The Book of Pastoral Rule". It is a guide book intended to help priests work with parishioners and run a parish. It was, pretty much, required reading for anyone looking to become a priest for the better part of the last thousand years. It still contains a lot of advice that would be useful to priests today, and is a great gift for anyone who either is a priest or is joining the priesthood. Of all the advice that Gregory gives, I'm going to focus on what he says regarding the way a priest should interact with his parish. Prudence is key. Sometimes the right thing said at the wrong time can be just as damaging as saying the wrong thing. Whenever a priest is interacting with a parishioner, or a group of parishioners, he needs to be aware of who his audience is, know what advice they need to take, what advice they are LIKELY to take, and what they are going to completely reject. He can't just come into the pulpit wielding the truth like a blowtorch. He has to know when and how to use it to most effectively help the people who come to him. This means that he must "avoid offering the right words too frequently or unprofessionally because. . . of what is said [and how the audience receives it] when. . . the speech [is] offered hastily or carelessly. This type of speech. . . show[s] that he does not know the advanced needs of the audience" (57). He has to know his audience well enough to know how to deliver the truth to them in a way that they will accept it. He also has to know when to back off. If he doesn't then he risks losing them entirely: "For just as falsehood always harms. . . so to hearing the truth can be harmful" (110). Whatever the priest says should always be adapted to the needs of his audience. Like he said above, truth delivered without discretion can have a destructive effect. Some people are not ready to hear the truth, for reasons that are good and bad. For instance, often times a parishioner may come to a priest and ask for help with a set of competiting vices. For example a person may be seriously running the risk of overeating because they have a history of malnutrition. So they may hold back on criticizing the person for overeating because they know where that person is coming from. They know that the person is overeating to counteract the bad habit of not eating enough that they have built over the course of a lifetime. Only once the parishioner has gone a sufficient way down that path should the priest say "hey I think you need to start thinking now about not overeating." Otherwise the person may just fall back into the previous sin. Or there may be a case where one vice is feeding off of another vice, such as in the case of an alcoholic who is also lazy. In that case, it would be appropriate for the priest to allow "the lesser [sin] to grow in order that the more dangerous" sin can be properly dealt with (200). Get him sober first and deal with the laziness afterwards. It is very important that priests are prudent in the way that they deal with parishioners. They have to be aware, insomuch as they can be, of what the needs of the parishioner in question is, and how to give the parishioner what they need in a way that the parishioner will actually accept. It doesn't matter so much what worked before, if it doesn't work now throw it out. Even if it is "the truth" because, as was said before, the truth has to be something that is dealt with gently. In the hands of an anesthesiologist, you go to sleep. In the hands of an amateur, you die. In the same way those who are careless in dealing with the truth kill their patients, whereas those who aren't careless with the truth save their patients.
