Walking a Fine Line

We’re a little more than halfway through the Spring semester and, as usual at this point, I’m drowning in grading. Grading the work of communication students is more than just assigning a letter. It involves a lot of feedback. And that’s time consuming.

Grading student video scripts is especially challenging. It means walking a fine line. I need to prepare students for the type of harsh feedback that editors and producers often give, while at the same time remembering they are students who are trying their best but have not yet reached a level of professional competence. And that it’s my job to help get them there.

Grading the work of communication students involves a delicate
balance between criticism and praise.

It can be easy to stray too far from that line. That’s why it shook me a little when the producer of our news magazine program – a student with great promise and exceptional leadership skills – mentioned that one of our student reporters was “freaking out” and had said, “Casella hates my script!”

Even though nothing could be further from the truth, the student had to get that misperception from somewhere. Or someone. Me.

It was a reminder that, when it comes to misperceptions, we are often our own worst enemy. That includes our Church. We project the image that we are one big, happy family filled with peace, love, and joy. And we are. Sort of. We can be. On our best days. But that’s just one limited aspect of who we are.

Honestly, do you know any perfect family? I don’t.

As Fr. Thanh Nguyen noted in our earlier interview, the Church is filled with brokenness. There’s a lot of hurt and a lot of misunderstanding. And all too often, this perfect image turns people away, believing they can’t live up to our standards. And they’re right. They can’t.

Neither can we. No one can.

Our Church is an ideal that no one can meet. That’s why, in his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium (Joy of the Gospel), Pope Francis writes that the Eucharist “is not a prize for the perfect but a powerful medicine and nourishment for the weak (47)." 

These misperceptions may make us seem "too holy" to those who may be interested in exploring our faith. The Church – the Vatican, the clergy, and the laity alike – needs to work harder to eliminate these misperception. Just as I need to pay more attention to the misperceptions I give my students.