Kook Magnets...
Father Jim Tucker writes quite charitably about churches as ‘kook magnets.’
He quotes his secretary,"Father, before I started working in the rectory, I had no idea how much nonsense that priests have to deal with on a daily basis."
No kidding. That is a massive understatement.
If the Church has a preferential option for the poor and marginalized, it seems to me that we have to extend that option to the neurotics, psychotics, and angry people, too... even though it would be nice if they wouldn't call and write and ring the doorbell so much.
There are times when I am supposed to answer the door through the little speaker in hopes of keeping out the truly dangerous. The problem is that I have yet to have someone announce him or her self as unstable and out of touch with reality. Of course, there are just the irritable parishioners with an ax to grind. But I know them by name and buzz them in anyway. And try to placate them so that they can’t dump all their ‘issues’ directly on the fathers.