It is not meant to be inferred that all social invitations should be refused and all intercourse with one's neighbour avoided. Such would be both impossible and undesirable. Nor, indeed, can it be allowed that such invitations are by any means always accepted from motives of recreation at all. Such is of course often the case; but often it is not. In many instances the priest may be fulfilling a duty of charity, or finding a means of spreading his pastoral work, and the recreation may be a secondary consideration, or may even be absent altogether. Indeed, as a priest gets into years he will find more and more that many of his duties will bring all that is necessary for him in the way of recreation without his seeking it by any special act; and this even though he has to face much which is dull or unattractive or monotonous to him. The late Canon Oakeley, in his lectures at St. Thomas's Seminary so far back as the year 1870, lays stress on this point:—[2]
"A priest," he writes, "especially in some of the less populous missions, will soon find that social intercourse with his parishioners is quite as often a duty of charity as a means of personal recreation. He must either refuse invitations altogether, or participate in some festivities which will tax his good nature and exercise his self-denial quite as much as many of his severer duties. He may have to sit out a dull dinner-party, with uncongenial companions, on a hot day in summer. He may have to carve a round of beef for thirty hungry children at a Christmas party. He may have to adapt himself to the tastes and manners of the poorer members of his flock at some rural entertainment where his presence will tend to promote innocent mirth and to check dangerous excesses. On these and similar occasions he will find it necessary to put a restraint on his natural inclinations, in order to confer on those for whose happiness he is responsible that especial gratification which good Catholics of every class derive from the sympathy and society of their priest."
Yet, apart from duties of charity, some recreative society can lawfully and advisably be sought in the houses of the laity; but it should be strictly under control and subject to narrow limits. Above all things, a priest must not be a slave to it, so as to be driven by human respect often to accept invitations which his reason may tell him to be inordinate. A priest should not be a pleasure-seeker; and if he is not ready to deprive himself of much society which has an attractive appearance, for the sake of his work and for the recollection of his life, it is an unfailing sign of the loss of the priestly spirit. But precisely what limits to lay down for himself, cannot be stated in general terms, for it depends not only on a priest's own personality and temperament, but also on the circumstances in which he is placed. Canon Oakeley, however, adds one restriction which should certainly be adhered to, for we live in an ill-natured world, and our best friends are ready to be captious in their fault-finding:—
"The priest in society," he writes, "must never forget that he is a priest. Even if he forgets it, others will not. The ambiguous jest, the anecdote of questionable propriety, the loose and unguarded manner, with other such indications of the unpriestly character, will be remembered and perhaps quoted against him when the evening is over, and when its warping influences have given way to calmer thoughts and cooler judgments. The same persons who in the spirit of hospitable good nature have placed in his way the inducements to those excesses which at least weaken morality, if they do not occasion scandal, will be among the first to criticise the indiscretions to which they have helped to give rise. The demeanour of a priest in society should always be marked by humility, modesty, courtesy and prudence. He should be swift to hear and slow to dogmatise. He should avoid arguments except when necessary for the vindication of truth; and when thus necessary, he should maintain his side with meekness and in the spirit of charity."
There is one kind of social intercourse that should be an unmixed good, and often is so—the meeting with our fellow clergy. It is difficult to get them together for merely social gatherings; but any part of their work which brings them across their fellow priests is to both parties a source of strength as well as recreation. One of the great advantages of the monthly Theological Conference is that it brings groups of clergy together and is often made the occasion of a dinner or other social gathering. In like manner, not the least of the benefits which the Clergy Fund confers on its members is the bringing together of all the clergy of the South of England once a year to spend an evening in each other's society.
Even gatherings of the clergy, however, are not without their abuses. The sight of a party of priests playing at cards hour after hour, till late at night, with its usual accompaniments, is happily more rare than it once was; but it is hardly obsolete even yet. Of course there is nothing in itself wrong in a game of cards, or in playing for money, provided the stakes are low; but it is well known as leading to much abuse. The excitement is of an unhealthy kind, and whether one is winning or losing, it is difficult to break off when a suitable hour arrives. Indeed, the whole question of card-playing needs treating with caution; both because it so often leads to what is undesirable, and because the recreation it affords is at best out of proportion to the time consumed. After a long session one ends less fresh than one began. A game of whist, or to some extent bridge, in which considerable skill is required, rests on a somewhat different footing: but even of that we should be wise to exercise a careful control.
From the social side of a priest's life, one naturally turns to that which has most influence on him when he is alone and which will include the chief part of his solitary recreation—his reading. To say that much of the success or failure of his priestly life will depend on the proper direction of his reading is merely to say what is obvious. Leaving out of account his directly spiritual exercises, he will undoubtedly have a large amount of time on his hands which may be most usefully employed in reading, and which otherwise will be simply wasted. A certain proportion of this may be solid work, such as theological or other study, necessitating close application. A mathematician may utilise his powers by studying problems or other matter, which stimulates and improves his mind. But there must be a large amount of time left when the mind is too tired for serious exertion, and this can be profitably devoted to reading of a lighter nature.
The first idea that occurs to one is novels. In past times a stricter view obtained about novel reading than seems to be the case to-day. There is no doubt that a purely sensational novel is a powerful instrument for the loss of time, and it engenders an unhealthy craving for excitement of an undesirable type. A novel which is chiefly read for the excitement of its plot is beyond all doubt the priest's enemy, and a greater and stronger enemy than many realise. Such novels exist to-day in large numbers, and are sold at low prices. Perhaps for that reason they are not spoken of with much respect, and being of a generally low order, are less likely to ensnare us than those of a generation or two ago. This of course does not apply to classical novels, such as Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, etc., nor to many modern novels by standard authors. But there are many to which it does apply. Even the best novels are permeated with worldly ideals, and the mainspring of the story always turns upon love affairs, which even to a Christian in the world should not be the exclusive motive of life. Nevertheless, if such books are read with care and discrimination, much recreative as well as educational thought can be obtained from them without any serious instilling of wrong principles.
The general subject of novels, however, is too long and complex to discuss here. We can perhaps get a little more practical on that of newspapers. To a priest a certain amount of newspaper reading is not only desirable, but necessary to keep him in touch with the world in which he lives and works. To know what is going on politically, the forces at work in Parliament, the agitations through the country, the relations of capital to labour, the lives and deaths of distinguished men, is essential to the conditions of modern life. Would that newspaper reading stopped there! Alas, many of the principles are unconsciously imbibed and are detrimental to the priestly spirit. This is no new evil. So far back as about the year 1836, Dr. Newsham of Ushaw wrote to Dr. Wiseman, as he then was, Rector of the English College at Rome, deploring the newspaper as the source of much of the want of ecclesiastical spirit among the clergy of his day:—[3]
"I will say to you frankly that there is a very great want of a spirit of piety, faith and religion in our clergy. It is useless to investigate the cause of this. I will say briefly that it has probably in good measure arisen from the great majority of the missionaries being young men, from the little control that has been exercised by the Bishops for many years over their young priests on the mission, and probably above all from the spirit of the times which is incessantly infused into the mind of a young man by our abominable newspapers. In fact, a greater pest, a more efficient weapon of the devil does not exist in the world than the English newspapers. Their pernicious effect on the minds of our young ecclesiastics has been observed and lamented by many others as well as myself."