Case XLIX: Pastoral Prudence

About this virtue, so necessary in our difficult times, there can not be too much said or written. Needless to say, pastoral prudence consists in the priest’s capability and skill to view circumstances and conditions objectively, and to employ the means at his disposal that in all he does or avoids to do, especially in difficult and delicate cases, he promotes and achieves the aims of his office.

The sentence of Holy Scripture: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (P. 110, 9) finds full application upon pastoral prudence. It points out one of the fundamental conditions without which there can be no genuine pastoral prudence. For holy fear is interior reverence, pious deference to God and respect of His holy Will, and it leads to conscientiousness, to a blamelessly moral, even perfect, life. Only a morally irreproachable priest can possess pastoral prudence; the more perfect his virtue, the more will his prudence increase. Of the opposite, Holy Writ tells us: “Wisdom will not enter into a malicious soul, nor dwell in a body subject to sins” (Sap. 1, 4). There belongs also to the priest’s moral rectitude continuous study, as the fulfilment of a positive obligation of his state of life.

Where these fundamental conditions prevail, there also will the virtue of prudence find an agreeable abode in man, and will be bestowed if solicited.

The particular foundations of prudence are modesty and humility, its chief obstacles self-satisfaction and conceit. Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and hast revealed them to little ones. The modest and humble man will not jump at his first conclusions as the correct and infallible ones, he will distrust himself and use mature deliberation. Of this deliberation St. BERNARD writes: “A prudent pastor will precede every work of his by a certain threefold consideration. First, whether it is lawful; next, whether it is becoming; finally, whether it is also expedient. For although it is certainly established in Christian philosophy that nothing is becoming unless it is lawful, and nothing is expedient unless it is becoming and lawful, nevertheless it does not immediately follow that everything lawful is becoming or expedient.” The modest and humble man will not content himself, in difficult and delicate cases, with his own deliberation; he will seek, and listen to, the views of others, their opinions and counsels. On this subject St. BONAVENTURE has this to say: (De Sex alis) “It is a great act of wisdom to accept advice readily, and to ask for it modestly. Thereby a superior attains a threefold advantage: he gains, first of all, a greater certainty—if others are of the same opinion—that he does not err; secondly, he is less liable to blame, if he does not succeed in what he has done after listening to the counsel of prudent and righteous men; thirdly, as reward for his humility he will receive a special enlightenment from God in order to avoid unforeseen obstacles and to find appropriate means. Furthermore those whose opinion or advice he has secured will support him, and will defend his course, whether or not it is attended by good results.”

It is not absolutely necessary that he, whose opinion or advice we seek, should be specially distinguished in knowledge and experience. He who is not personally, or only slightly, interested in a matter often sees in it some circumstances that escape the one deeply concerned in the same. It will not be beneath the dignity of a learned and experienced parish priest, in difficult and delicate cases, or when introducing reforms, to ascertain his young curate’s views. This will also tend toward the instruction of the younger priest; at any rate the superior will avoid the dissatisfaction of the curate, and avoid his expressing disapproval to parishioners, if the parish priest makes changes in the pastorate which become known to the curate only as a fait accompli, especially if new duties for the curate are a result of the innovation.

Canon ANTHONY Skocdopole, D.D.