One of my favorite scenes from my favorite movie “Catholics” is where the young traditional monk schools Fr. Kinsilla the young punk from the Vatican on the duties of a priest. Its all about doing your duty. “The people don’t want your social Justice they want you to Baptiste them, marry them, bury them. Show them there is a God above, a God who cares”.
I recall growing up in the archdiocese of Chicago, St. Isaac Jogues in Niles Illinois. Fr. Leo Spring was the pastor. My family and Fr. Spring go back a long way. Just out of the Seminary as a young priest he married my mom and dad at St. Tarcisis in 1941 literally 3 months before war broke out. He baptized my two older sisters. He started St. Jogues parish when it was literally a farm field back in 1959. The first parish masses were read in the gym at Notre Dame High School where I went to school years later. In order to build the church he used almost all of what he inherited from his parents on their death. The parish was so new my Dad volunteered to go door to door calling on new parishioners when many of the homes were still under construction. You see this was the early 60s the days of urban sprawl.
One of the reasons my parents bought were they did was Father was the pastor of the local parish and he said would accept me to their very crowded growing school. Another thing I have to be thankful for were those wonderful nuns, the sisters of Christian charity that Father Spring got to work there. Tuition was 8 dollars a month. Fr. Spring kept it that low so parents could afford to send their children to Catholic school. I owe much of hanging on to my Catholic faith to them. I recall going to the rectory to study to be a altar boy with Fr. Collins and I would see Fr. Spring in his cassock and Beretta, smoking his cigar taking his daily stroll around the neighborhood. Unlike today those days the clergy made you feel secure, warm, and always made themselves available. None of them were into politics or wanted anything to do with it. Catholicism was job one. My dad once asked Father, in a half kidding way, “How come they never made you a Monsignor yet ?”. Father came back with the simple but honest answer. “Because anything above the parish priest is political, and I don’t play politics”. Far cry from today huh?
Having parents close to the pastor had its shares of problems however. Especially handing out report cards. Fr. Spring would do it in each classroom. Problem was he sat in a chair in front in the classroom and looked at the grades before he handed them out. 9 out of 10 times it was always “Oh Albert I know your parents will be very disappointed with this”. LOL and they usually were. I can hear all the woke liberals now, “oh how terrible, destroying a child’s esteem like that!”. Bull crap it only made you work harder so you did not have to repeat the chastisement. It also made you a stronger person. I suspect that is why Father did it. Its a far cry from where we are are today, children are given rewards for simply competing. That builds nothing, esteem, work ethic or anything. Probably why the world is in the shape it is today.
Fr. Spring was ordained by Cardinal Mundelein, then served under Stritch and Meyer. Three definitely orthodox prelates. Then under Cody, Louisiana fats we called him,Fr. Spring began to change. More pessimistic. My mother used to tell me all Fr. Spring wanted was a new church. Cody shoved a rectory down his throat and took the remaining money for his project renewal. Probably went to parishes Cupich later sold to the muslims. Mom used to say Fr. Spring said he wants a real church, not “one of those round things”. The original church was kind of a temporary thing it was build to become the eventual school gym. It was attached to the school, I remember when president Kennedy was shot the nuns ushered us all in the church to pray the rosary. Cody’s appointment was it for Fr. Spring, he took retirement down to a monastery in Arizona. Fortunately the poor man did not have to endure the Satanic pervert Bernadine and his destruction of St. Mary of the Lake Seminary and the Archdiocese of Chicago in general.
You can still find these types of priest but these days only really in the TLM orders, These were the guys who kept ministering to the faithful during the scamdemic with not only the mass but all the sacraments. Meanwhile the Novus Ordo completely shut down. The hell with souls (literally) we have to obey our socialist masters.