1/2 . . .A Father’s Thoughts on the Current Crisis
Christopher Check August 23, 2018 Catholic Answers
My wife Jacqueline and I have four sons. Thanks be to God, they never fell victim to the calculating predations of a bishop or priest seeking to gratify his disordered passions.
Many fathers’ sons and daughters did.
I cannot know the fullness of the heartache those fathers will carry to their grave, to say nothing of the trauma their children will. Nonetheless, I find it difficult to look at the scandals in which the Church today is mired from any perspective other than that of a father.
Since their youngest years, I have been telling my sons that the greatest and most important thing in their lives is their relationship with Jesus Christ, who, in his infinite and merciful love, gave us the Catholic Church so that we could come to know him and love him though the scriptures and the sacraments. . . .
. . . The grave sins of clergymen can never alter this truth. There is nowhere else to go to have our sins absolved (John 20). There is nowhere else to go to eat the body of Christ and drink his blood so that we have life within us (John 6).
More than once my sons have heard me say, with Hilaire Belloc, that we know the Catholic Church is a divine institution because it survives and even thrives in spite of the flaws of those to whom God has entrusted it. . . . .
. . . . Catholic Answers will continue to answer the apostolic call. I believe that we will because the members of the Catholic Answers team do what they do out of love of Jesus Christ.
As there are abundant reasons for hope, there are also abundant reasons for vigilance. Theodore McCarrick is no longer a cardinal and awaits canonical trial, yet any bishop accused of covering the sins of priests who still holds office must make a credible account to the faithful, or else resign.
And may the faithful, in the interest of good vigilance going forward, have a clear understanding of why we are here and what they can do. . . .
A number of bishops, including the pope, have identified clericalism as the culprit.
See the whole article here . . . . .. . . But clericalism becomes intolerable when within its network loyalty is more highly valued than integrity . We have seen a circling of the wagons to hide terrible sins. That practice has now been exposed—sometimes with good motives, sometimes with bad—by the bright lights of instantaneous communication, but the faithful will have to be alert to future occasions of clerical wagon-circling.
Bishops need to be more alert, too, to the sins (including those of omission) of their brothers in the episcopacy; though the faithful might be surprised to learn the canonical limits bishops face in seeking to discipline their wayward brothers. (I have asked Jimmy Akin to treat this particular question in a separate piece.)
Nonetheless, bishops can, one, properly vet seminarians, and two, properly form seminarians for holy orders. I have asked Fr. Hugh Barbour to write in more detail about this matter of priestly formation. . .
On the question of vetting future priests, it needs to be stated that the current crisis may well have been enabled and exacerbated by clericalism but its origins are in something more sinister. Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin has been explicit: “It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy . . . Share it widely.
This homosexual subculture was generations in the making because the Church failed to follow her own moral and practical wisdom. In 2005, the Congregation for Catholic Education reaffirmed the longstanding principle that the Church “cannot admit to the seminary or to holy orders those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’” This kind of directive is not new. . . .
. . . . It is not for nothing that the document uses homosexuality and pederasty in the same sentence. By my rough tally, almost eighty percent of the clergymen accused in the Pennsylvania report were accused of sexual abuse of boys. Of those, where the ages of the boys are given, the great majority were teenage boys. These numbers comport with the findings of the John Jay Report from 2004. It will help no one to talk solely of clericalism while ignoring the deeper problem of clerical unfaithfulness to the Church’s teaching on chastity, especially with respect to homosexual acts. . . . .
. . . .Catholics must be aware of the scandal and its origins, and be vigilant, but we must not allow ourselves to become preoccupied with all this evil. It’s harmful to the soul. Let us instead redirect our attention toward the divine. . . . .
. . . . “God makes use of evil in such a superb way and with such skill that the result is better than if there had never been evil.” . . . .
That is a reasonable point but I think Check and Catholic Answers are aware of this.Easy to say we must not be preoccupied with all of this evil when your own child was not sexually abused by a priest.
And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death.-- CARDINAL JOSEPH RATZINGER
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. “The church will become small.” from Faith and the Future (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009).
Note the original publication date of Faith and the Future was 1969.
Reprinted with permission from Ignatius Press.