{"id":2216,"date":"2013-07-30T05:00:16","date_gmt":"2013-07-30T03:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2216"},"modified":"2013-07-29T21:30:03","modified_gmt":"2013-07-29T19:30:03","slug":"he-thinks-he-is-doing-good-and-does-not-know-any-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2216","title":{"rendered":"HE THINKS HE IS DOING GOOD AND DOES NOT KNOW ANY BETTER"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 31 year-old Jean Joseph Touche was already a priest when he joined the Oblates. One of the historians of Laus tells us that Father Touche had \u201ca flare for the unconventional that was more or less careless and his zeal, which was great, at times lacked prudence. This sometimes produced a few disagreeable incidents\u201d (G. Simonin, \u00ab Chronique de Notre-Dame du Laus \u00bb, <em>Missions OMI<\/em> 1897, p. 199). This colorful character was the cause of much vexation for Eugene.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>It would be useless to make the slightest reproach to the good Father T[ouche]; he thinks he is doing good and does not know any better.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>Letter to Pierre Mie, 22 August 1825, EO VI n. 196<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Writing to Touche himself, one senses the frustration in Eugene in trying to cope with his \u201cunconventional\u201d approach:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>It greatly disturbs me, my very dear Father Touche, that you take so badly what I believe in my soul and conscience I ought to say for the greater good of the Society in general and for individuals in particular.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>Every time that I have needed to make an observation to you, you have been upset; however, I could quote twenty letters from you in which you beg me always to say frankly what I think without fear of displeasing you, you asked me this as a mark of friendship, as a proof of my personal appreciation of you, etc. So what ought I to do?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<h5 style=\"text-align: justify;\"><strong>On the one hand, there is the duty to do which I am encouraged by your own words; on the other, the fear of displeasing you and of troubling your soul. Holy simplicity, ever be our lot<\/strong>!<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em>Letter to Jean Joseph Touche, 11 September 1825, EO VI n. 197<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\">\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA leader is a dealer in hope.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Napoleon Bonaparte<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 31 year-old Jean Joseph Touche was already a priest when he joined the Oblates. One of the historians of Laus tells us that Father Touche had \u201ca flare for the unconventional that was more or less careless and his &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2216\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[36],"class_list":["post-2216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","tag-community"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2216"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2216\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}