'I've been walking the streets of New York in a clerical collar every day for more than forty years. And every day the streets are full of thousands of strangers. "Good afternoon, Father," "How ya doin, Father," "Say a prayer for me, Father." This is routine. Routine also is being stopped and asked for advice on something or the other, and it's not unusual to hear a confession on a street corner. ...In any event, wearing the collar is a way of showing the flag for the Church. During the height of the publicity over the sex-abuse crisis a couple of years ago, some priests were saying that they were ashamed to wear the collar in public. Shame on them. As Paul tells Timothy, "We have been given the spirit not of timidity, but the spirit of power and love and self-control."During that troubled time, I regularly had strangers telling me to hang in there and not be discouraged. I remember one fellow on First Avenue and 19th Street who pulled over to the curb and shouted, "Don't let the bastards get you down, Father." (Actually, he had an unprintable adjective for the bastards.) Catholic piety is wonderful.'
Fr. Richard John Neuhaus