I accept the mantle of pedant with as much grace as I can muster.

Dear Father Steve:

I certainly would not call you a "pedant".

I simply took a sharp rebuke and sent it back to its rightful owner.

Truth is, I admire your scholarly familiarity with Greek.

I do not think it is necessarily the sine qua non of a proper education nowadays, but it is certainly knowledge admirably transmitted, like sunlight, to illuminate and not to impress.

That is your way, Father Steve, for which you are all the more esteemed by all who know you. It is not the way of a pedant.