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A young priest who recently
took over his first parish was rudely shocked one day when he heard members
of his Orthodox Catholic flock engaging in biting gossip. Even loyal and
fervent Orthodox Catholics sometimes catch themselves joining in gossip
about a priest who they know, or one of whose faults they have heard.
What did Father J. M. K. think?
'There's a special kind of
malice attached to speaking evil about priests. They have the high and
responsible office of administering to the spiritual needs of all the
people of their parish. In general, the higher the office and dignity
of the one whose reputation is assailed, the greater is the harm done
by the evil task . . . and the greater the sin that is committed."
But can't a person criticize
the dress or voice of a priest?
"Yes," says Father,
"there are some things that may be said about a priest that do not
in any way reflect on his good name and do not make respect for the priest
more difficult for others.
"Active priests occupy
a prominent position before their people." Every member of their
flock is interested in them. Thus, there is no harm done when parishioners
tell one another about a priest being bald, or not very good looking.
"Certainly there would
be little harm in commenting that a certain priest is a very nervous public
speaker, or very shy ... so long as these are objective traits and the
comment is not inspired by personal ill-feeling."
Then Father brought up the Ninth Commandment.
"In general," he
said, "it forbids two great sins against charity. The first is detraction-which
means unnecessarily revealing the secret but real sins of somebody else.
Gossip comes under this heading.
"The second sin is that of slander or calumny. This means telling
evil lies about others . . . interpreting their secret motives as evil
. . . putting out suspicions of evil in others as if they were proved
facts."
He explained they were sins
because they injure the good name of a fellow human being. Secondly, they
do harm to the good order of society by breaking down respect for lawful
authority. It makes obedience and even the practice of religion itself
difficult for those who have heard the evil talk about others.
He disapproved of so-called one-man campaigns of condemnation against
a pastor's method of administering his parish.
"There are some Orthodox
Catholics who make their dissenting views a starting point for a crusade
of constant criticism and rebellious talk. They don't like the method
of collection. They nag about these matters to everybody they meet. They
do their best to make the pastor appear to others as ignorant, imprudent,
foolish and perhaps even idiotic just because they disagree with the way
he does things.
"This sort of constant
criticism, accompanied, as it usually is, by the bad example of refusal
to cooperate in any way with the pastor, can in due time cause much damage."
The young priest continued.
"Priests are human beings. In dealing with multitudes of people,
they cannot escape hurting individuals now and then. Like everybody, priests
ace subject to sickness, fatigue, moods, mistakes of judgment.
He gave three examples. A priest
may rebuke a person coming late to Divine Liturgy without knowing that
the person may have been the one in a hundred who had a good reason, A
priest may get impatient with a mother's crying child and thus incur the
mother's wrath. A priest may choose the wrong approach for reminding a
backsliding parishioner of his duty to help support the parish financially.
"Such incidents, and a
hundred like them, have caused persons to bear a grudge against a priest.
Very often it is persons who have been greatly at fault who are most apt
to nurse a grudge against a priest. The worst of this is that such persons
don't come to church regularly and keep their children away-using as an
excuse . . . 'Father was unkind to me' ."
Despite their lofty vocation,
priests remain human. They have to save their own souls like everybody
else. But they can also choose to lose them. The Orthodox Catholic faithful
will always see some faults in their priests and will have some reason
to be resentful toward them at times, Is there an answer?
"Yes." he said. "God
promised infallible guidance to His Church, and Grace and salvation through
the Divine Liturgy and the Sacraments. He did not promise that all His
priests would he saints and geniuses at the same time.
"Before unnecessarily
criticizing the clergy, remember that a whispered prayer for the priests
will be a far, far better thing to do."
From Word
Magazine
Publication of the Antiochian Orthodox
Christian Archdiocese of North America
February 1961
p. 9
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