Fr. V. echoes my thoughts on the matter of random complaining:
I once had a spiritual director, an Opus Dei priest, who said after I had grumbled about my bishop, “Never speak ill of your bishop.” He was absolute. I don’t know if I am that absolute. Some bishops need to be spoken ill of at least in certain situations. But the vast majority of the Church’s grumbling is simply counter productive. Are we not family? Should we not be as “functional” as possible?
The thing is, the grumbling can bring a community down. The constant tearing down of a pastor, a bishop, or even a pope can only damage us. Look what happened to Saint John of the Cross (notice the saint part) whose community grumbled against him and treated him most sorely. A room full of people each stating one thing that they don’t like about someone up on the chain can leave the whole room with the impression that everyone is in agreement that they do not like him. All of a sudden a bad humor spreads and bad humors are generally hard to put out.
I have to wonder just how many people have looked into coming Home to the Church and were scared away when they found just how crotchety some of us can be at times. Yes, there are priests and bishops who do things which need to be highlighted so that, by unleashing “the power of the blog” it may be possible to set things aright. Very often the virtue of Charity is misunderstood in both directions, and likely quite as often even those who wish to exercise Charity mistake how to do so. The Lord knows I certainly have done so. Advent certainly seems a good time to reflect on how we can better exercise true Charity.
