Catholic Faith Despite Church Scandals

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Booknut

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How do you continue strong in your Catholic faith despite the sex abuse scandals that the church will undoubtedly have to deal with for many years to come?

I am struggling with this, which is why I ask.
 
The doctrinal scandals that are currently muddying the waters around the Catholic Church haven’t tinkled down to our parish and, more importantly, our diocese, so it’s not hard to ignore them at this point.

D
 
Would you be uncomfortable if some very well known Priests had

been a traitor
Judas
denied God
(St. Peter)
expressed a lack of faith in the Resurrection (
St. Thomas)
been cowardly in the face of the persecution of their leader
(pretty much all of them)
Who would choose them?
Well Jesus himself did, and most did repent.
Also the actions of individual Priests or Bishops do not change the correctness of the teachings of the Church.
 
Don’t forget that one of the Apostles (St. Paul) helped murder another by stoning and persecuted other Christian disciples. He brought them back in chains!
 
Sex abuse and cover ups happens in every religion and in every secular community on Earth.

We should not be surprised that humans and their fallen nature are present within the Church.
 
Booknut said:
How do you continue strong in your Catholic faith despite the sex abuse scandals that the church will undoubtedly have to deal with for many years to come?

I am struggling with this, which is why I ask.
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I don’t go to Catholic Church for the priests. I go for the Eucharist which I can’t get anywhere else. I’m not going to let the sins of a few keep me from the One True Catholic and Apostolic Church

and this:

Do you know - the Catholic Church educates 2.6 million students everyday at the cost to The Church of 10 billion dollars, and a savings on the other hand to the American taxpayer of 18 billion dollars.

Graduates go on to graduate studies at the rate of 92%, all at a cost to the parent. To the rest of the Americans it’s free.

The Church has 230 colleges and universities in the U.S. With an enrollment of 700,000 students.

The Catholic Church has a non-profit hospital system of 637 hospitals, which account for hospital treatment of 1 out of every 5 people - not just Catholics - in the United States today.
 
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Sex abuse is a terrible crime. It should be properly investigated and punished appropriately. The Church has a record of being too slow to confront it in many situations. And the Church has also paid a high price for that both financially and in reputation.

But we must remember that, while despicable, these scandals involve less than 3% of the Church. Remember that 97% - A+ if you will - lead a proper life.

Remember too that sex abuse happens in all walks of life. We do not walk away from other institutions that are suppose to set the example.

But MOST IMPORTANT in keeping our Faith, we must ask ourselves, “Do these scandals force us to no longer believe in Christ Himself? Holy Eucharist? Reconciliation? Will Christ agree we were right to walk away from HIM in retaliation against those who abused?”

My Faith is about about my belief in Christ, the Living Son of God. That the Devil has smacked down 3% of the clergy is no justification for me to walk away from Christ.
 
Is it a teaching of the Church that people should do bad things (abuse children, etc.)?

Of course not. Individual people were abusing their power and position. Those people were betraying the Catholic Church, not accurately representing it.

Not going to turn my back on the Church because of the actions of a few people who acted badly.
 
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If someone cheats on their spouse, it is permissible to divorce the unfaithful partner in the Catholic Church. When trust is broken it is not unlike having doubts about clergy that should be above reproach. It is understandable that some would not be as forgiving as others.
 
Booknut said:
How do you continue strong in your Catholic faith despite the sex abuse scandals that the church will undoubtedly have to deal with for many years to come?

I am struggling with this, which is why I ask.
Click to expand...
The church is made up of human beings. Fallible, sinful human beings. It’s horrible that these things happened, it’s so very disappointing that those who should be shepherds of souls failed so badly. But, nevertheless, they are human too.
I can’t claim freedom from sin myself, so how could I leave the church over others being sinners too?
 
We are all human and sin. It happens in all faiths, not just the Catholic Church. It’s a result of human sin, not the Church. I won’t let anyone stop me from what I know is truth- the Church. Think of the delight Satan gets when he is successful in leading someone away from Christ. I pray it will never be me.
 
As it stands about 4% of priests have been accused, (not convicted) of abuse. This is terrible no question about it. But I never questioned my faith over it for many reasons.
  1. 1/12 apostles or 8% (this being Judas) betrayed Jesus in the garden.
  2. Every mass in the very beginning, we ask God to forgive us our sins, even the priest does this.
  3. I understand that many out there wear a “false hood”. Presidents, priests, cops. I’m still a Catholic, I still believe in USA, I still hold MOST cops in a high regard. I hope this helps.
 
I had a wonderful priest in high school for religion class, all the students liked him. Years later, he was involved in a sex scandal, but I couldn’t bear any malice, because I only remembered him as an exemplary teacher and priest. We all fail and sin, my Faith isn’t shaken by things like this, it’s for God to deal with. I just continue to pray for all priests, even those who have committed those sins, those who left their vocation.
 
Booknut said:
How do you continue strong in your Catholic faith despite the sex abuse scandals that the church will undoubtedly have to deal with for many years to come?

I am struggling with this, which is why I ask.
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You and many others are struggling because of the sex abuse scandal .

Many have turned away from the Catholic Church .

In “Catholic” Ireland Mass attendance was 90 percent , but recent surveys put that percentage at between 30 and 35 percent. In the Archdiocese of Dublin, it is less than 20 percent, and some urban parishes report weekly attendance as less than 2 percent of the Catholic population.

I have read more than once that this scandal is the biggest crisis in the Church since the Reformation .

We need to admit to the evil for what it is , and make no excuses whatsoever .

We need to be ready for some rough seas for the Barque of Peter .

It is not going to be easy .

With heads out of the sand we need to be ready , with trust in Him who alone is the Holy One , for the new Dark Age I believe we are entering or have entered .

In the power of the Holy Spirit we need to cling on to what is true . That it the only way I can see of remaining strong in my faith in God .
 
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Sex abuse in the Church has indeed been a great scandal to the faithful. Yet it seems to me that most of the cases I have read about have involved cases which occurred 20 to 40 years ago, and occurred at a time when many seminaries were in a lax condition.
 
Given the days of psychological testing that is required for a vocation to be accepted into a seminary program, I’d say that the Church is doing more than enough to ensure that past mistakes are no longer taking place.
 
The Church is not a museum of Saints but a hospital for sinners.
 
Booknut said:
How do you continue strong in your Catholic faith despite the sex abuse scandals that the church will undoubtedly have to deal with for many years to come?

I am struggling with this, which is why I ask.
Click to expand...
  1. Other people’s sins have nothing to do with my belief in Jesus or my relationship with Jesus. My Catholic faith is about “me and Jesus”, not about priests or about other people’s actions generally.
  2. Some priests are sinners or criminals, just like some doctors, lawyers, engineers, politicians etc are sinners or criminals. Every profession has got some bad eggs in it. One doesn’t write off the whole medical or legal profession because a few doctors or lawyers were dirty, same with the priesthood. I was never raised to believe priests were perfect or super holy or on a pedestal, and was rather taught that they were human and could sin just like anybody else.
  3. I have also known many good priests who were never accused or suspected of anything. None of the priests at my parish growing up or at my regular parishes as an adult have been accused, although some of the neighboring parishes had problem priests. My experiences with priests throughout my life have been on the whole very positive.
  4. The vast majority of the cases I’ve heard about happened a very long time ago, like several decades back. I have some knowledge through my work of how pedophile cases were legally (mis)handled in past decades and how many people were generally misinformed about pedophilia then and did not realize it was serious or did not think offenders would continue to re-offend, and I think that contributed to the bishops and other administrators making some really poor decisions. Other things they did, such as the way they handled some of the cases, make sense to me from the standpoint of mitigating legal risk and seem like they were probably done on the advice of counsel.
Having said that, I think it’s important that policies, such as safe environment and better screening of candidates, be put in place to avoid future incidents, and I have confidence the churches are now doing that. In the two cases where I’ve heard about a priest having an issue in the last few years, the priest was removed immediately and in one case criminally charged with the story running in the newspaper.
 
JimG said:
Yet it seems to me that most of the cases I have read about have involved cases which occurred 20 to 40 years ago, and occurred at a time when many seminaries were in a lax condition.
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And also at a time when many institutions, including law enforcement, were not as knowledgeable or well-equipped to deal with child sex abuse as they are today.

i can actually remember reading an article in Readers Digest as a young person in the 1970s where they discussed that some pedophiles just wanted to touch young children in a “grandfatherly” way and discussing how police weren’t really concerned about them because they weren’t really dangerous to the children. With that kind of attitude prevailing among the police and printed in a general readership magazine, it’s pretty clear that the harms of abuse were being minimized and ignored by society in general, not just the Church.
 
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