Father Rolheiser makes some excellent points that I would like to comment on. Just hear me out.
I think the most important truth of which he reminds us is that fact that we are all one Church. This takes us back to the dogma of the Mystical Body. All of us like to think of the Mystical Body as clean, glorious and beautiful. But that’s a post resurrection body. The Mystical Body of Christ extends in all directions of human history. Before rising in a glorified body, Christ had to die in a bloody body, one filled with wounds, covered in spit, bruises and cuts. His body was marred by the sins of humanity.
As Catholics we must accept that we are part of a body that is marred by sin. The sexual abuse of children and the mistakes by bishops is without a doubt a serious issue. It can neither be swept under the carpet, nor can it be pushed off and dumped on someone else’s lap as many Catholics try to do. The very idea that many Catholics suddenly point the finger to the priests who committed the crime and the bishops who failed to manage it, is a form of heresy. It’s almost as if we were saying that this group of people are sinful and we’re not. Such a statement is the kind of statement that the Pharisees made about the people around them. The Jews made the same statement about the Samaritans. Muslims make the same statement about Christians and Jews. Do you follow my point? Everyone can point to the sins of another. But the fact is that these are not the sins of another. They are the sins of Catholics. Therefore, they are our sins.
Our holy Father Francis and Paul of the Cross, John of the Cross and St. Paul were enamored of the cross. Why so? These men realized that the cross had three dimensions. 1) On the cross was hung humanity’s sin. 2) On the cross hung humanity’s only hope for salvation. 3) On the cross hung humanity’s future. Let’s focus on the third dimension. Christ’s death on the cross was a public proclamation that humanity’s sinfulness must be exposed, to be forgiven. You cannot enter eternal life, unless you hang on the cross. To put it differently, you cannot claim your future in Heaven, unless you can claim your present place in the sins of the world.
Some have sexually abused children. Other have killed children in the womb. Yet, others have allowed children to die of hunger around the world. I’m not sure that we Catholics can be exhonerated from these crimes against children. In one way or another, we have contributed to or allowed them to exist. Some have committed these crimes. Others have turned their back and ignored them. In a very real way, we as Catholics must share the moral responsibility for the crimes against childhood. Child sexual abuse is not a sin of the priesthood. It is a worldwide pandemic. I will add, that it is actually in third place among the crimes against children. The dubious honor of first place belongs to abortion. Second place to hunger. Third place to sexual abuse.
Contemplate the cross and the one Catholic Church. Because we are one Church, we must assume a shared responsibility for all the sins committed against childhood. To say that I’m less guilty than the guy next to me is to say that I am more virtuous. That’s pretty arrogant. Let us not forget that pride comes before the fall.
Do we then sit back and say, “This is the plight of the cross and we just have to live with it?” No. That’s not the message here at all. We don’t sit back and wait for it to go away or for someone else to clean up the mess. We all have to work to clean up the mess. But we also have to grow up. This is why the saints that I mentioned above were so much in love with the cross. These holy men were adult men of faith, not children. They had grown up. They knew that they had to do something to bring the crucifixion to its conclusion. But throwing stones at the cross was not going to do it. As I said in one of my other threads “Just Say No”. I believe that I put it on the spirituality forum. We can’t just start slinging mud at every bishop, lawyer, priest, religious, newspaper, pope. That just makes the mess bigger. It only serves to raise the adrenalin levels to create a reactionary mindset, on top of an already existing devastating situation.
The tendency, that I see on many of these threads, is exactly what Father is saying in his article. When Catholics begin to shout, accuse, blame, threaten, etc. We’re creating a mob mentality and triggering a riot. How is that being more like Christ? Christ who was not sin, became sin for our salvation. Yet we who are sinners, want to place a distance between ourselves and stone our own body.
Theologically, we are called to be the good thief who acknowledged that he deserved the cross. We deserve this, because we have allowed a world to exist in which children are killed in their mother’s womb, starved, and sexually abused. Therefore, we deserve to be crucified by the world.
Now we must embrace the cross and look at how we are going to protect children, not only from sexual abuse, that crime is third on the top three. But we must look at sinners as Mary did. Yet she was silent. She simply stood there. We have no idea what went through her mind. Yet we all call her Mother.
Are we the unrepentent thief who challenged Jesus to get this over with and get them the hell off the cross? Or are we the good thief who said, “Remember me.” The two most important words that the good thief said to Jesus were, “Remember me.” Remember me Lord, because I too am a sinner.
We must protect childhood from abortion, starvation and exploitation. In addition, we must want to forgive the sinner as Christ and Mary did. If anyone had a good reason to be angry, it was Mary. She just pondered what she saw. She grew in self-control, dignity, and charity, instead of anger and despair.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
