“There will always be those who reject truth; we need to make sure it isn’t our growling teeth that causes them to flee…”

I stumbled across this in a blog post by Diane Korzeniewski, about celebrated preacher Fr. Bill Casey, and it hit me between the eyes:

Some mistakenly think that I am against pointing out problems facing Catholics, or among the members of the Church, or even confronting people with error.  That’s not the case.  What I have an aversion to, because I believe it to be damaging, is outward contempt for others, or mocking them and having fun at their expense, scoring figurative “points” on the most entertaining put downs. This puts an ugly face on the Church, which can be sinful under certain circumstances.

…There will always be those who reject truth, but we need to make sure it isn’t our growling teeth that causes them to flee.  As I often say, we can only count those who come on account of our words or example, but we can never know the many we pushed away.  We will have to account for that on the day of our judgment, if God finds our lack of virtue contributed in some way. This is a subject I don’t think is taught enough when it is much needed to temper or moderate our knowledge of problems confronting Catholics today.