Despite the fact that Yvo grew up as the quintessential best little boy in the world, he still ended up a great guy! Yvo, who lived in late 13th century France, really didn’t see any reason to be selfish with his goods. He spoke up on behalf of those who were marginalized in society. He gave a damn about poor people. And women. He enjoyed the company of people–all people, any people, anywhere. And when he found himself made a curate, Yvo said “no” to wearing furs and finery, and consistently refused to live in some sort of holy, separatist bubble.
The response of the Church hierarchy was to try to “moderate” his behavior. Only give away some of your food, the bishop told Yvo. So Yvo gave the bishop half of his loaf of bread and then gave the other half to some of those undesirables he really enjoyed hanging out with. Don’t degrade the priesthood by your appearance (since he stopped wearing fur and finery), he was told. So Yvo found the some plain, stark, simple fabric to wear and kept it clean and well-mended and said that that would have to do, as he had no money for anything better.
Yvo made such a difference to so many people that he ended up a saint, fairly much despite the hierarchy. In an attempt to still get the last word, the Church (and Butler being one of its representative historians) has made the point that the only reason that Yvo could be a saint while spending time with obvious sinners was because he armed himself in prayer. Yvo got regular “God inoculations” to avoid the infection of sinners. The Church’s advice: Don’t try this yourselves, people. This has been the Church’s line, never Yvo’s!
The Church has cherry-picked from the life and example of Jesus, and ignored the rest. It was ok for Jesus (and for a well-armed-through-prayer Yvo) not to make distinctions socially between saints and sinners, but that’s not how “good Christians” should behave….after all, bad company corrupts good morals. The Church has taken upon itself the job of separating wheat from chaff, despite Jesus’s admonitions not to judge (lest you be judged by the same standard you use), Jesus’s parable about the wheat and weeds and the dangers of mistaking one for the other and uprooting the wrong plants, and Jesus’s clear statement that any separating to be done will be by God in the last days and not by humans now.
It seems like the inoculations really need to against the judgmentalism of the religious rather than the putative sinfulness of the masses.