Hi,
Is the Catholic Church more into power than faith? That’s certainly what the secular progressives want you to think. But the Church’s greatest power is moral power. No organization of its size and age has held the moral bar so high and so steadily for so long. This is very intimidating for those who want to live amoral lives. This is why they have been so gleeful over the recent scandals.
Why do you seem to be all right with human weakness in individual priests, but not with such weakness in bishops? The Church is both human and divine and has been so since its beginning. Judas betrayed Jesus, St. Peter denied Him and the rest abandoned Him. But with His grace, except for Judas who hanged himself and St. John who died of old age, the rest all gave their lives for Him.
While no number of abusive clergy is acceptable, the percentage of priests who have abused children is minimal compared to the number of priests as a whole. Further, if the media would go after our educational system as they have with the clergy, we would find a far greater number of abuses there. But our liberal educational system doesn’t intimidate the secular liberals.
But most importantly, it is the Catholic Church that makes the passion and death of Jesus on the cross available to us on it altars day after day. This greatest act of love was seen as absolute weakness and failure by the secularists of its day. But it is where the Church’s power is to be found. Such power is found in such a degree no where else. This is the power we see in the lives of such people as St. Pio and Blessed Teresa of Calcutta. It remains your hope and mine.
Incidentally, capitalizing the first letter of every word is not necessary and makes the sentence difficult to read.
Fr. Vincent Serpa, O.P.
