In a real sense, this is very good. 

It's what Pope Francis wants....a "messy church", the periphery speaks, the lay speak their minds.

It's right in line with what Pope Francis has asked for. 

The petitions and calls and complaints and protests are forms of "dialoging and encountering".

This isn't the "controlled" form of dialog that Father Martin loves, where he gets to control the topics, the messages allowed, and so forth.  

Martin likes "encounter and dialog" when he can ensure the outcome.  He has a sort of "rigidity" in his message.   He doesn't seem to like the "messy" Church

He's not very risky for sure.

It's Martin that is afraid of REAL dialog and diversity of views, where the voice of ALL the Catholics can be heard.

Well the silenced majority response to Fr Martin has "morphed" and it's been converted into protests and phone calls and so forth.

NCR loves protests...so I am a bit surprised at the tone of this article and the comments.