The report's been published. It’s been a while, and nothing new seems to be happening, and that my dear beautiful Catholic Church, is the problem. The synods, the meetings, the letters, the talks, the policy changes, the reports, the hand wringing, the sorrow expressed, does not seem to have made any difference in how the Church as a body is acting, or in how the Shepherds are leading.
Good priests struggle to do what they can, because no one can know which priests focus only on the outside of the cups. It is to our sorrow, that the trust afforded their office, is justifiably shaken, and it is to their sorrow and all of Heaven’s sorrow, that the trust is not being rebuilt at this moment, by visible actions of reparations on the part of the whole Church by those who know, the laity need to see that the Bishops and Priests, that all who even tangentially contributed to the wall of silence, the years of silence, the enabling of abuse, the paying off of therapies and tuitions and whatever else was done to hush the scandals over the decades, get it. As a member of your flock, who loves being a sheep, I wish to let you know what we, your sheep would wish more than anything.
Dear all Shepherds who turned out to be wolves, you wear a ponderous chain, you’ve made it link by link and yard by yard year by year. It is a ponderous chain. It is not too late for God’s mercy, but it time to come forward and recognize the great damage done by sins of omission and commission, in the name of protecting the idea of the church from the reality of her leaders. The Church is bigger than our sins, it is the Bride of Christ. The Church is owed your loyalty, your faithfulness, and your permanence as her servants, so begin today. If you’ve messed up, even beyond what has become known, begin again.
Dear Shepherds who didn’t do any of this, but must bear the burden of association, it is a hard cross Christ asks you to bear, but know you have been afforded the opportunity to really participate in Christ’s passion as a result of this grievous wound, to wear the scourges, to feel the agony in the garden, and to carry all the sins of those who sinned saying the same words, hiding under the collar, and the pains of your people, all of us, all of your flock wounded by the wolves. You must be true shepherds now, and lay down your life for your flock, in full confidence, Christ will restore you if you do. We need this, more than ever.
As long as we continue as an institution as an earthly organization, waiting for the trouble to blow over, for people to be distracted, for the news cycle to turn to something else, we will continue to fail in our only mission on this Earth, to win souls for Christ. As long as we maintain the Church as a means of advancement, prestige, power and lucre, where people remain silent so as to get key assignments, we are treating the Bride of Christ like a corporation, and more sheep shall be devoured, scattered and lost.
We need to deal with the unspeakable, the scandal not merely of the abuse of power by predators in the clergy of both fellow clergy and children, but also of the cover up, which continues. The level of transparency rings hollow, because we are still only just finding out about countless incidents in countless dioceses. We have to wonder, what don’t we know, not because we wish the Church to be torn down, but because we want the velvet curtain hiding all that’s been hidden, torn down. People of good faith, deserve to know when the institution they’ve entrusted with their faith formation, with their children, with their time, their treasures and their talents, have acted poorly, whether recently or decades past. As a matter of justice, the protocols which have protected the ranks of priests and bishops from this sort of fiscal and legal scrutiny, the deference to a person of a cloth, is something the laity can no longer grant carte blanche.
So dear Shepherds, please get the reality, not that we want to constantly scream or cry or blame or shout about what should have been done, but that we need to see (because matter matters), some outward indication of an invisible reality, of your grief for what has been done to your fellow priests and by your fellow priests, to your flock, past and present. We need it now, and we need it ongoing, so that we as a people and all as priests, never forget this darkness, this grievous wound of this past century done to the heart of Jesus.
At the preaching of Jonah, the King and all the people of Nineveh donned sack cloths, proclaimed a fast and prayed. We know the Church holds the Eucharist, so there is something greater than the preaching of Jonah here, for which we ought to as a body, be donning sack cloths and fasting. This is the struggle you were called to the Priesthood to weather, and if you don’t, there will be many sheep who do not know the great joy of Christmas, of Christ present today and every day because they only see what has not been done and think you do not take this faith to be a reality but a means of living, and thus they will shake their heads and say “Bah, humbug.” They will wander and be lost because they hoped it was real and true, and the witness of both those who were the cause and those who felt the effect, did not register this is the way, the truth and the light and vital to your forever happiness.
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