His Bite Was as Bad as His Bark

I keep remembering April 17 as the birthday not of a relative or a friend, but of one of my pastors when I was a boy. How could anyone from way back then and there forget this man? Let's call him Monsignor Bulldog, because that's exactly what he looked like, and that's exactly the personality he had. Mind you, these were the days of emphasis on duty, guilt, shame, and fear in my church, and the Bulldog played them to the hilt with his sheep.

And sheep we were, because no one, not even prominent businessmen in the church parish, nor even its three associate pastors, would stand up to the Bulldog. I don't exaggerate when I say that EVERY Sunday from the pulpit, Monsignor would spend most or all of his sermon time preaching about how the church needed more money, how the members had to give more to begin or complete the extensive building projects he had planned. He would pepper his fund-raising talk with references to "almighty God"---not "the heavenly Father," or "Our Lord," or "Jesus our Savior," etc., but "almighty God" (what an insight into the notions of power and control with which he enwrapped and used God).

I saw the Bulldog on several occasions suddenly stop talking from the pulpit, descend it, and quickly walk down the aisle to someone in a pew, or walk up the stairs to someone in the choir balcony, or even walk just outside the church door to someone sitting or standing on the church steps---to scold them loudly and angrily for their "disruptive" talking or movements during his preaching. I was in the town barber shop one day when Monsignor entered for a haircut. All the men and boys (a typical all-male shop in those days) fell silent, as they watched the trembling hands of the poor barber make small talk while trying to cut the pastor's hair as fast as possible.

Later I learned from a couple of the associate pastors, who lived in the same rectory as the Bulldog, that Monsignor would actually give these grown men a 9:00 p.m. curfew each night, and would lock them out the rectory if they would return late. This he would do after he would lock their refrigerator every evening right after supper.

Everyone privately moaned when he ordered the felling of eight or so giant, majestic oak trees, which provided needed shade and beauty for the church grounds, so that he could have the whole area paved for parking.

And still the parishioners paid their pastor tribute---tribute in the only form they knew would be approvable: frequent cash-money gifts and many bottles of expensive liquor to him.

Monsignor was found dead on Christmas morning in the rectory when I was a teenager. He had drunk too much from the dozens of holiday-gift liquor bottles which packed the living room. It was then announced that he had been a secret, lifelong diabetic.

The Bulldog lived most of his adult life scaring the hell out of people. Come to think of it, wasn't that supposed to be his professional task anyway?

-Old Gargoyle