Once -- in a time and place that shall not be named -- one of my parishioners pulled me aside to very intentionally and carefully inform me, “Nobody wants you here as our pastor. You’re going to destroy our parish.” Now having been a priest for two decades and in many different parishes and places, I have skin thicker than a sperm whale -- which Grok informs me has the thickest skin of any animal in the world. Trust me, mine is thicker. Even so, being bluntly informed that I was a failure temporarily pierced my armor. My first reaction was anger. After that, depression. Then despair. Finally, gratitude.
Why was I grateful for the comment? Because, until that moment, I was blissfully unaware that there was friction in the parish. I learned two lessons from that interaction.
First, a priest will always have haters. No matter how nice he is, how humble, how much the parish thrives, he will have detractors. Not that I’m claiming to be anything other than an average priest! The point here is that even an ideal priest, a priest like unto Christ himself, will not be universally loved. We know this because Christ himself was not universally loved. Up until that point in my ministry, I was under the illusion that I could make everybody like me. I am grateful that I no longer suffer under those unrealistic expectations.
Second, I learned that, even if someone is making an unreasonable, unfounded complaint, it’s very much worth my time to listen. If I can get past the tone of the comment, there is always a grain of truth or an insight to be gleaned. For a long time, if I didn’t get along with someone, I would villainize and dismiss them. If someone didn’t agree with me, I was arrogant enough to assume that literally everything they believed and said was wrong. But after a lifetime of interacting with people like this, I’ve come to be grateful for their truth-telling capacity.
We need the challenger
A worthy nemesis is extremely valuable. We all need that guy in the work meeting who challenges everything we say, the teacher who doubts us, the interlocutor who criticizes, questions, and prods. Each political party needs the other and, dare I say it, the President of the United States needs the Holy Father. Priests need blunt parishioners and children need parents who keep them accountable. We all need people who will keep us on the straight and narrow. In a perfect world, we have friends who will, charity and gently, tell us the hard truths we need to hear, but this isn’t a perfect world and I, for one, know that I prefer to avoid difficult topics with my friends. Prudentially, we don’t always know when to say a hard truth to a friend and when it’s counter-productive, so we usually err on the side of silence.
Not so with the worthy nemesis. The nemesis will freely overshare. The nemesis will often be wrong but, sometimes, the nemesis is right. Whenever I manage to get past the negative tone, the critical attitude, the mixed motives, I am tremendously improved by listening to my worthy nemeses.
Pope Leo XIV recently offered wisdom on this topic when he emphasized the importance of listening to adversaries. Continuing to speak and listen even to our enemies is the only way we can build peace, he says. He quotes St. Augustine, who says, “those who love peace also love the enemies of peace.” I don’t know about you but I lack the strength to consistently follow this advice, which is why the example of Our Lord is so important. He prays for his enemies even as they crucify him. If he can do that, I can also listen to my (much more mild) persecutors, pray for them, and hope for the best for them.
I would even go so far as to say that patiently listening to a worthy nemesis is required of us as Christians. By this, I don’t mean to say that their words are always true. We need to be careful to not allow their negativity to affect us or destroy our self-confidence. Sometimes they’re right; in my experience they’re more often wrong. But I want to be listening for the times they’re right, and I also want to use the times they’re wrong as motivation.
A chance to re-examine
My goal isn’t to “rub it in” or “show them.” Rather, I use doubters as motivation to re-examine my goals and methods, to seek additional advice from people I trust, and to recommit myself to what I know to be true. For instance, that time a parishioner told me that I was going to destroy the parish, I knew from our Sunday attendance that the parish was actually thriving and growing. I used the nay-saying as motivation to continue pastoring the parish to the best of my ability. I also used it as motivation to be better at communicating our parish goals, to spend more time with neglected parishioners who were feeling left out, and to pray for every single soul that God had placed in my care.
Whatever role a worthy nemesis might play in your life – at work, home, in the family, or if it’s simply that random person in your orbit who seems to have it out for you – practice valuing your interactions with that person. Listen to them. You never know how it might benefit you, or how an authentic, listening response might disarm them.
If we are ever going to live in peace together, we have to put in the work. Peace isn’t simply the absence of conflict. Peace is achieved. It is earned. The first step in the process is listening to each other, even to those who tell us things we would rather not hear. Peace, ultimately, is grounded in truth, and the more practiced we are at productively hearing the truth, the better the chances are that we will continue to personally grow and progress. For now, I’m grateful for worthy nemeses, but I look forward to the blessed day when they no longer exist because we’ve become friends.
