By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Catholic Culture - In the 1980s, during an ordination Mass in the upper Midwest, a kindly bishop offered a thought-provoking contrarian homily. He said priests should not treat the people like sheep. Sheep are, well, kind of dumb. A bunch of sheep is a flock, not a herd. But they have a passive herd mentality as they silently line up for the slaughterhouse. A sensitive, educated priest should never malign his sensitive and educated people by calling them sheep. But this bishop’s advice soon became just another tired—and soon to be retired—religious fad.