Recommend to a friend + Homily on this issue + Bishop Burke's Article
The Vatican Response: 18
October 2002
The Bishops Meeting in Dallas
Bishop Gregory's
Address, Statements & Presentations,
Charter for the
Protection of Children and Young People
Pending Recognitio:
Essential Norms for
Diocesan/Eparchial Policies Dealing with Allegations
of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests, Deacons, or Other Church Personnel
This is a
difficult for all of us who love God and God's Church. The scandal of
sexual abuse of minors by priests is disturbing and confusing. It is a
sure sign that there is evil in the world, and that we need to not only respect,
but combat. Many who have have left the Church or who have disliked the
Church will use this issue to attack the Church and prove that they were right
all along. Priests are becoming afraid to be alone with anybody, even to
hear a Confession. Scandal is not new to the world or to the Church,
that's for sure.
We send our daily Morning Prayer to more than 8500 e-mail addresses all over the world. All subscribers are able to submit prayer intentions to the entire group. I've been surprised that in the past months only about a half-dozen prayers dealing with this issue have been submitted. Prayer powerful. Prayer is where we can gain the most strength. We need to pray!
We can be sure too, that some of the allegations made will not be true. In the climate we find ourselves in, it can easy for an innocent person's life and reputation to be ruined before all the facts are known. It is important that we are patient and do not pass judgment until all the evidence is in. That's the only fair way.
We find ourselves in this beautiful Season of Easter, glorying in the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. We know that God is stronger than any death, darkness, sin or scandal. The way through this challenge and all challenges is to face it head-on. We'll need courage, that's for sure. We'll need a great deal of love as well. The holiness of our own lives will continue to be a beacon to those around us. God will be with us every step of the way!
We recommend this link, as a source of
official statements, articles, activities for youth and adults, resources and
prayers:
http://www.smp.org/tragedy/Issues.cfm
Our page on Resentments can be helpful, too:
http://frpat.com/resentments.htm
Let me know if you find other helpful resources. Above all, let's pray. We can pray for all victims of clergy sexual abuse. We can pray too, for those priests who have been abusive, and for Bishops, Cardinals and those in authority who need the wisdom and courage to respond in the proper manner. We pray too, for those whose faith has been challenged and tested by this issue, for children everywhere who look to priests for guidance and strength. We pray for priests too, who feel somehow tainted by this scandal and who are tempted to hold back in situations where closeness and compassion are needed.
May we rely upon God for wisdom, courage and strength. May we handle this issue with courage, grace and great compassion. May we grow ever closer as the Body of Christ as we continue Christ's saving work in the world we live in.
The following is a homily given by a Massachusetts priest. I think it's very helpful. We can speak frankly about what has happened, accept God's call to great holiness, and work to bring Christ's love to those who need to experience it the most. It's a great time to be a Catholic. It's a great time to be a priest. God will bring us through!
The headlines this past week did not focus on the Patriots' march to the
Super Bowl, or on who would QB, Drew or Tom, or even on the President's state of
the union address and his comment that there are many Al-Qaeda operatives in the
US like "ticking time-bombs." None of these was the top story. The headlines
were captured by the very sad news that perhaps up to seventy priests in the
Archdiocese of Boston have abused young people whom they were consecrated to
serve. It's a huge scandal, one that many people who have long disliked the
Church because of one of her moral or doctrinal teachings are using as an issue
to attack the Church as a whole, trying to imply that they were right all
along. Many people have come up to me to talk about it. Many others have
wanted to, but I think out of respect and of not wanting to bring up what they
thought might be bad news, have refrained, but it was obvious to me that it was
on their mind. And so, today, I'd like to tackle the issue head-on. You have a
right to it. We cannot pretend as if it didn't exist. And I'd like to discuss
what our response should be as faithful Catholics to this terrible scandal.
2) The first thing we need to do is to understand it from the point of view of
our faith in the Lord. Before he chose his first disciples, Jesus went up the
mountain all night to pray. He had at the time many followers. He talked to
his Father in prayer about whom he would choose to be his twelve apostles, the
twelve he would himself form intimately, the twelve whom he would send out to
preach the Good News in His name. He gave them power to cast out demons. He gave
them power to cure the sick. They watched him work countless miracles. They
themselves in His name worked countless others. Yet, despite all of that, one
of them was a traitor. One who had followed the Lord, who had had his feet
washed by the Lord, who had seen him walk on water, raise people from the dead,
forgive sinners, betrayed the Lord. The Gospel tells us that he allowed Satan to
enter into Him and then he sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, handing him
over by faking a gesture of love. "Judas," Jesus said to him in the garden of
Gethsemane, "Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" Jesus didn't choose
Judas to betray him. He chose him to be like all the others. But Judas was
always free, and he used his freedom to allow Satan to enter into him, and by
his betrayal, ended up getting Jesus crucified and executed.
3) So right from the first twelve that Jesus himself chose, one was a terrible
traitor. SOMETIMES GOD'S CHOSEN ONES BETRAY HIM. That's a fact that we have to
confront. It's a fact that the early Church confronted. If the scandal caused by
Judas were all the members of the early Church focused on, the Church would have
been finished before it even started to grow. Instead, the Church recognized
that you don't judge something by those who don't live it, but by those who do.
Instead of focusing on the one who betrayed, they focused on the other eleven,
on account of whose work, preaching, miracles, love for Christ, we are here
today. It's on account of the other eleven, all of whom except St. John was
martyred for Christ and for the Gospel they were willing to give their lives to
proclaim to us, that we ever heard the saving word of God, that we ever received
the sacraments of eternal life.
It's the same way today. We can focus on those
who betrayed the Lord, those who abused rather than loved those whom they were
called to serve. Or we can focus, like the early Church did, on the others, on
those who have remained faithful, those priests who are still offering their
lives to serve Christ and to serve you out of love. The media almost never
focuses on the good "eleven," the ones whom Jesus has chosen who remain
faithful, who live lives of quiet holiness. But we, the Church, must keep the
terrible scandal that we've witnessed in its true and full perspective.
4) Scandal is unfortunately nothing new for the Church. There have been many
times in the history of the Church when the Church was much worse off than it is
now. The history of the Church is like a cosine curve, with ups and downs
throughout the centuries. At each of the times when the Church hit its low
point, God raised up tremendous saints to bring the Church back to its real
mission. It's almost as if in those times of darkness, the Light of Christ shone
ever more brightly. I'd like to focus a little on a couple of saints whom God
raised up in these most difficult times, because their wisdom can really guide
us during this difficult time.
5) St.
Francis de Sales was one saint God raised up after the Protestant Reformation.
The Protestant Reformation was not principally about theology, about the faith,
although theological differences came later--but about morals. There was an
Augustinian priest, Martin Luther, who went down to Rome shortly after the
papacy of the most notorious pope in history, Pope Alexander VI. This pope never
taught anything against the faith--the Holy Spirit prevented that. But he was
simply a wicked man. He had nine children from six different concubines. He put
out contracts against those he considered his enemies. Martin Luther visited
Rome shortly after his papacy and wondered how God could allow such a wicked man to be
the visible head of his Church. He went back to Germany and saw all types of
moral problems. Priests were living in open relationships with women. Some were
trying to profit from selling spiritual goods. There was a terrible immorality
about lay Catholics as well. He was scandalized, as anyone who loved God might
have been, by such rampant abuse. So he founded his own Church.
Eventually God
raised up many saints to combat this wrong solution and to bring people back to
the Church Christ founded. St. Francis de Sales was one of them. At the risk of
his life, he went through Switzerland, where the Calvinists were popular.
Oftentimes he was beaten up on his way and left for dead. Once he was asked to
address the situation of the scandal caused by so many of his brother priests.
What he said is as important for us today as it was for his listeners then. He
didn't pull any punches. He said, "Those who commit these types of scandals are
guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, " destroying other people's faith
in God by their terrible example. But then he warned his listeners, "But I'm
here among you to prevent something far worse for you. While those who give
scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take
scandal, who allow scandals to destroy their faith, are guilty of spiritual
suicide." They're guilty, he said, of cutting off their life with Christ,
abandoning the source of life in the Sacraments, especially the Eucharist. He
went among the people in Switzerland trying to prevent their committing
spiritual suicide on account of the scandals. I'm here to preach the same thing
to you.
6) What should our reaction be then? Another great saint who lived in a
tremendously difficult time can help us further. The great St. Francis of Assisi
lived in the 1200s, which was a time of terribly immorality in central Italy.
Priests were setting terrible example. Lay immorality was even worse. St.
Francis himself while a young man gave some scandal even to others, by his
carefree ways. But eventually he was converted back to the Lord, founded the
Franciscans, helped God rebuild his Church and became one of the great saints of
all time. Once one of the brothers in the Franciscans asked him a question. The
brother was very sensitive to scandals. "Br. Francis," he said, "What would you
do if you knew that the priest celebrating Mass had three concubines on the
side?" Francis, without missing a beat, said slowly, "When it came time for Holy
Communion, I would go to receive the Sacred Body of my Lord from the priest's
anointed hands."
What was Francis getting at? He was getting at a tremendous truth of the faith and a tremendous gift of the Lord. No matter how sinful a priest is, provided that he has the intention to do what the Church does at Mass, for example, to change bread and wine into Christ's body and blood, or in confession, no matter how sinful he is personally, to forgive the penitent's sins, Christ himself acts through that minister in the sacraments. Whether Pope John Paul II celebrates the Mass or whether a priest on death row for a felony celebrates Mass, it is Christ who himself acts and gives us His own body and blood. So what Francis was saying in response to the question of his religious brother that he would receive the Sacred Body of His Lord from the priest's anointed hands is that he was not going to let the wickedness or immorality of the priest lead him to commit spiritual suicide.
Christ can still work and does
still work even through the most sinful priest. And thank God! If we were always
dependent on the priest's personal holiness, we'd be in trouble. Priests are
chosen by God from among men, and they're tempted just like any human being and
fall through sin as well. But God knew that from the beginning. Eleven of the
first twelve apostles scattered when Christ was arrested, but they came back.
One of the twelve sinned in betraying the Lord and sadly never came back. But
God has essentially made the sacraments "priest-proof," in terms of their
personal holiness. No matter how holy they are, or how wicked, provided they
have the intention to do what the Church does, then Christ himself acts, just as
he acted through Judas when Judas expelled demons and cured the sick.
7) And so, again, I ask, "What's should the response of the Church be to these
deeds?" There has been a lot of talk about that in the media. Does the Church
have to do a better job in making sure no one with any predisposition toward
pedophilia gets ordained? Absolutely. But that would not be enough. Does the
Church have to do a better job in handling cases when they are reported? The
Church has changed its way of handling these cases, and today they're much
better than they were in the 1980s, but they can always be perfected. But even
that is not enough. Do we have to do more to support the victims of such abuse?
Yes we do, both out of justice and out of love! But not even that is adequate. Cardinal
Law has gotten most of the deans of the medical schools in Boston to work on
establishing a center for the prevention of child abuse, which is something that
we should all support. But not even that is a sufficient response.
The only adequate
response to this terrible scandal, the only fully Catholic response to this
scandal, as St. Francis of Assisi recognized in the 1200s, as St. Francis de
Sales recognized in the 1600s, and as countless other saints have recognized in
every century, is HOLINESS! Every crisis that the Church faces, every
crisis that the world faces, is a crisis of saints. Holiness is crucial,
because it is the real face of the Church. There are always people, a priest
meets them regularly, you probably know several of them, who use excuses for why
they don't practice the faith, why they slowly commit spiritual suicide. It can
be because a nun was mean to them when they were nine. Or because they don't
understand the teaching of the Church on a particular issue, as if any of these
reasons would truly justify their lack of practice of the faith, as if any of
them would be able to convince their consciences not to do what they know they
should.
There will doubtless
be many people these days, and you will probably meet them, who will say, "Why
should I practice the faith, why should I go to Church, since the Church can't
be true if God's so-called chosen ones can do the types of things we've been
reading about?" This scandal is a huge hanger on which some will try to
hang their justification for not practicing the faith. That's why holiness is so
important. They need to find in all of us a reason for faith, a reason for hope,
a reason for responding with love to the love of the Lord. The Beatitudes, which
we have in today’s Gospel, are a recipe for holiness. We all need to live them
more. Do priests have to become holier? They sure do. Do religious
brothers and sisters have to become holier and give ever-greater witness of God
and heaven? Absolutely. But all people in the Church do, including lay people!
We all have the vocation to be holy and this crisis is a wake-up call.
8) It's a tough time to be a priest today. It's a tough time to be a Catholic today. But it's also a great time to be a priest and a great time to be a Catholic. Jesus says in the beatitudes we heard today, "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you falsely because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great." I've been experiencing that beatitude first hand, as some priests I know have as well. Earlier this week, when I finished up my exercise at a local gym, I was coming out of the locker room dressed in my black clerics. A mother, upon seeing me, immediately and hurriedly moved her children out of the way and shielded them from me as I was passing. She looked at me as I passed and when I had gone far enough along finally relaxed and let her children go, as if I would have attacked her children in the middle of the afternoon at a health club.
But while we all might
have to suffer such insults and slander falsely on account of Christ, we should
indeed rejoice. It's a great time to be a Christian, because this is a time in
which God really needs us to show off his true face. In olden days in America,
the Church was respected. Priests were respected. It's not so any more. One of
the greatest Catholic preachers in American history, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,
used to say, that he preferred to live in times when the Church has suffered
rather than thrived, when the Church had to struggle, when the Church had to go
against the culture. It was a time for real men and real women to stand up and
be counted. "Even dead bodies can float downstream," he used to say, pointing
that many people can coast when the Church is respected, "but it takes a real
man, a real woman, to swim against the current." How true that is! It takes a
real man and a real woman to stand up now and swim against the current that is
flowing against the Church. It takes a real man and a real woman to recognize
that when swimming against the flood of criticism, you're safest when you stay
attached to the Rock, on whom Christ built his Church. This is one of those
times. It's a great time to be a Christian.
9) Some people are predicting that the Church in this area is in for a rough
time, and maybe she is, but the Church will survive, because the Lord will make
sure she survives. One of the greatest comeback lines in history happened just
about 200 years ago. The French emperor Napoleon was swallowing up countries in
Europe with his armies bent on total world domination. He then said to Cardinal
Consalvi, "I will destroy your Church." "Je detruirai votre eglise!" The
Cardinal said, "No you won't." Napoleon, all 5'2" of him said, "Mais oui, je
detruirai votre eglise!" The Cardinal said with confidence, "No you won't. If
bad popes, immoral priests and thousands of sinners in the Church haven't
succeeded in doing so from the inside, how do you think you're going to do it?"
He was pointing to a crucial truth. Christ will never allow his Church to fail.
He promised that the gates of hell wouldn't prevail against his Church, that the barque of Peter, the Church sailing through time to its eternal port in heaven,
will never capsize, not because those in the boat won't do everything sinfully
possible to turn it over, but because Christ, who is in the boat, will never
allow it to happen. Christ is still in the boat and he'll never leave it. The
magnitude of this scandal might be such that you may find it difficult to trust
priests in the same way you have in the past. That may be so, and that might not
be completely a bad thing. But never lose trust in Him! It's His Church. Even if
some of those he chose have betrayed him, he will call others who will be
faithful, who will serve you with the love with which you deserve to be served,
just like after Judas' death, the eleven apostles convened and allowed the Lord
to choose someone to take Judas' place, and they chose the man who ended up
becoming St. Matthias, who proclaimed the Gospel faithfully until his martyrdom.
10) This is a time in which all of us need to focus ever more on holiness.
We're called to be saints and how much our society here needs to see this
beautiful, radiant face of the Church. You're part of the solution, a crucial
part of the solution. And as you come forward today to receive from this
priest's anointed hands the sacred Body of your Lord, ask Him to fill you with a
real desire for sanctity, a real desire to show off His true face. One of the
reasons why I'm here in front of you as a priest today is because while I
younger, I was under impressed with some of the priests I knew. I would watch
them celebrate Mass and almost without any reverence whatsoever drop the Body of
the Lord onto the paten, as if they were handling something with little value
rather than the Creator and Savior of all, rather than MY Creator and Savior. I
remember saying to the Lord, reiterating my desire to be a priest, "Lord, please
let me become a priest, so I can treat you like you deserve!"
It gave me a great
fire to serve the Lord. Maybe this scandal can allow you to do the same thing.
This scandal can be something that can lead you down to the path of spiritual
suicide, or it can be something that can inspire you to say, finally, "I want to
become a saint, so that the Church can show your true face, O Lord, to the
world, so that others might find in you the love and the salvation that I have
found." Jesus is with us, as he promised, until the end of time. He's still in
the boat. Just as out of Judas' betrayal, he converted that into the greatest
good in world history, our salvation through his Cross, death and Resurrection,
so out of this he may bring, and wants to bring, a new rebirth of holiness, a
new Acts of the Apostles for the 21st century, with each of us -- and that
includes YOU -- playing a starring role. Now is the time for real men and women
of the Church to stand up. Now is the time for saints. How do you
respond?
Fourth Sunday in
Ordinary Time,
Year A
Zephaniah; 2:3, 3:12-13; 1Corinthians 1:26-31; Matthew 5:1-12
Recommend to a friend + Homily on this issue + Bishop Burke's Article
©MMII Rev. Roger Landry. Published here with Father Landry's permission.
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