1,300 Embraced Splinters

Over and over again, in everyday stuff and online, I find faces of despair.  People have much to be angry over, and they're hurt they have to wrestle with this pain when there's so much that needs tending too.  This great mess called life keeps getting somehow messier, and it's frustrating to people of good conscience, of good will, of good faith, to find themselves overwhelmed with the levels of stupidity, cruelty, indifference, clericalism, protectionism and self-indulgence and self delusion we're bombarded with on a daily basis. 

In the Church, people are taking their children from schools, and themselves from the pews, because the leaders/princes of the Church have shown themselves to be poor shepherds in one of the most primary of roles, and as such, it is legitimate to question, how good they are at shepherding in any of their other functions.  It seems, to the laity, the leadership of the Catholic Church does not yet grasp in its totality, how much damage they've created by their slow plodding approach to things in this situation. 

I'm reminded of this scene.

The faithful are the hasty hobbits.  They've said they'll address this in November.  It' rather like Treebeard's telling Merry, "We've just finished saying Good Morning." and Merry's terse response, "But it's nighttime already! You can't take forever." 

Elizabeth Scalia says as much in her very fine article here.  I second all she recommends.

People do feel put upon by the public calls for prayers and fasting when it does not seem those who perpetuated or aided and abetted or ignored these crimes/sins are doing much at all other than publicly wringing their hands.  However, what we are asked to do is still of great merit, not merely for their souls, but for our own. 

I would love for Bishop after Bishop, even those who are good ones, to say, I renounce, I resign, I will serve at the lowest position, and for them to do it.  We need to see something from the Bishops akin to this: 

Even if they've earned a spot on the team by their efforts, talents and service.   

They know the ways of the saints.  Saint Maximilian Kolbe said "Take me instead."  in the concentration camps.  If he could surrender a place of no comfort for a place of certain death for love of Christ, for love of the other, a father who cried out, how is it no bishops, no cardinals feel this same push of the Holy Spirit?  If they cannot see it, then what about us who can?

Well, if they don't, then, we who feel the pain of the fathers and mothers over their crushed children, and of the children who were so violated, we must say, "Take me instead." and that's why it's not wrong for the laity to pray and fast and offer penance.   We need to take on something, something which will cost us, something public and I do not know what it is, but since we see the pain, and we know the depth of it, it's not enough to howl "Do something."  If they don't get it, then it must be us who act. 

I go back to the report, there are over 1,000 victims.  There are over 300 priests.  So there should be a 1,300 day penance, if only to give some hint of action on the part of the laity and yes, we will do penance for the guilty, and penance in reparation for the damage done to the innocent. 

Yes.  But what do we do?   

1) Begin.  Write on your calendar today, Victim 1.  Writing it down, since we don't have the names, is a way of beginning.  

2) Offer a sacrifice of today, of something today for victim 1.   

3) Tomorrow, begin again, for victim 2. 

4) If you forget, begin again anyway. 

5) If you mess up, offer your foolish forgetfulness. 

6) Keep at it.  

For those who question, what good does sacrificial offerings do to the sufferings of the past, or of today, for the victims of the sufferings? 

Answer, more than we can understand. 

1) It acknowledges the reality of the injury done (something kept hidden for far too long).  

2) Spiritually, you become united with Christ by your sacrifice/atonement.  Christ suffered and died for each of us, we're not even doing much more than offering a splinter, but we can unite with Christ with that splinter.   

3) It might prompt you individually to more, because the Holy Spirit always starts with mustard seeds. 

The number of victims posted would take from today to Friday, May 21, 2021.  May 21st is a feast day in the Catholic Church, the Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church, instituted this year by Pope Francis. I didn't know that until I googled it, it seems providential, to pray for each of these little ones harmed by the church, to the Mother who birthed Christ, who loves the Church as none of us do, and who wants all of us home at the altar.   

7) When you get to day 1000, begin work on the alms giving and prayers for those who did or hid these acts.   Here, 

8) Give something away each day for 300 days. It can be time, it can be things, it can be money, but surrender something.   

9) Why?  

          a) Because these acts occurred over time, and so time is something that must be given in response. 

          b) Because the only way we won't be driven from the life of the Church even as we cling to the faith of it, is by willful obedience, and this is a discipline which will allow us to lead by example. 

          c) Because these priests, who did these things, they also held the Eucharist, they were consecrated to Our Lord, and God does not want any of his sheep lost, and they were/are lost.  We must be like the good shepherds to these lost shepherds with our prayers.  The prayers will not be wasted, (but I did put them after the victims because yes, I'm still annoyed and flawed and know we all need time to beat that down. Our prayers will be like the Lord's invitation to their souls, to respond to the feast.  We cannot save them, but we can participate in their salvation by our prayers.   We can imitate Christ's mercy on the cross which came before anyone asked or acknowledged what they'd done.   

It won't be a Year of Mercy or a Year of Humility, because it will take three years, six months and three weeks plus a day to embrace the  1,300 splinters, by the people of the Church for the Church, out of love of Christ, and all those injured by this grievous wound, this great thorn.. 

That day will be March 17, 2022, the feast of Saint Patrick's, and a feast day marking the chasing out of the snakes from Ireland. I didn't know that either when I googled it.  So to me, feasting for the victims with the promise of Mary whose foot crushes the serpent, and with Saint Patrick, who chases the snakes away, is the proper response.  For me, it is too wonderful and too perfect a timing not to begin.

So let us begin.  

Ugly Questions Unanswered

The deeper one reads, the harder it gets.

 There have been some who sought to soften the impact or influence of the Pennsylvania Grand Jury report, by disputing whether rape took place, pointing out media bias, and blasting the fact that this report includes some material inadmissible in court, and without the opportunity of those accused within the report, to dispute it.   However, the sheer weight and cost to the lives of those who testified, and those who testify by their deaths, cannot be sponged away. 

The Catholic Church and her princes are supposed to stand for something better, bigger, more universal.  That so many have been found, that there are so many hidden reports, memos, documents revealing this problem, indicates somehow, those in power felt comfortable with how things were. They could live with themselves and with others, content to justify continuing as is. 

I can't.

Here are the hard questions already formed. I know there are more.  

Why were virtually none of these incidents reported to the police? 

Why were none of these cases and reports investigated beyond the initial moment? 

Why did the process of dealing with complaints become merely a filing procedure?  Not just when first reported by also later *After 2002.

Who saw the notes? 

Who decided to do nothing or to stop investigating at some point and why? 

Who filed the notes away?  Who knew where the notes were? 

Even when cases were investigated, and checks written because of prosecution, did no one within the diocese stop to wonder, if there were others that might be doing the same sort of damage?

Personal note: It is right and just when an injury is done, for the person/institution causing the injury to make restitution. 

However, where did the money come from to pay for counseling, to cover the checks written to victims?  Someone signed off on those checks, so someone knew. 

Those putting into the collection basket each week, did not.  Catholic laity gave in good faith, and would pay for those injured, but we ought to not have continued to support those who broke the faith, those who did the injury, those who perpetuated the silence and the crimes/sins, and who proved themselves over and over and over again, to be unable to restrain themselves from one of the most basic and fundamental acts of abuse/evil known to the Christian and Non-Christian world alike. 

No matter who you are, you do not harm the innocent.   The innocent were harmed.  Their childhoods were aborted, sometimes leading to self-destructive behavior like drug and alcohol abuse and lives of destitution or death. While the victims suffered the aftershocks of the injury, the perpetrators collected pensions, monthly stipends, and treatment for their maladies.  

Our collective ignorance was an additional injury, because we merrily kept on giving and supporting those doing the harm, and thinking ourselves good for giving.   

In the report, why was a priest paid to maintain his silence? 

Why when the scandals broke in 2002, were these incidents not revealed?

Is it because none of us want to look? 

Is it because we naively hoped with policies in place, the problems revealed by the grand jury report, would go away? 

Did people know and just not tell? 

How do we make sure silence doesn’t cover injuries in the future? 

How can we trust the stewards of the Church, if they were unfaithful in large matters, vital matters, matters of the soul, how can we know if were they trustworthy in smaller ones? 

How can we know that those who don’t have these problems revealed by a grand jury, simply don’t have their problems revealed? 

What else is hidden? 

These are ugly questions, which if we’re serious about cleaning and clearing out the mess from our Church, we must ask them and answer them.

I don’t like ugly questions, because they usually involve ugly answers as well.  This report scourges the soul, because it reveals and reminds us, all of us, each of us, how capable we are of sin.   We willingly sin when we perpetuate it, deny it, when we fall asleep in its presence, when we think we can buy off our conscience with thirty pieces of silver, when we disbelieve its existence, or run away from it. 

For those who don't want to see, who don't want to believe, who don't want to know, I urge you, we must read it. We must embrace this cross, with all its ugliness, with all its splinters, with all its thorns, or we will find ourselves nailed to it by the world.   We must be willing to look and do a collective examination of conscience, if we are to do justice to the victims, and begin the process of being the Bride of Christ we’re called to be and save as many souls as possible.

Page 995.   Three-hundred sixty-one pages to go.  

We're Going to Have to Wrestle With This...

Lots of people say, "I'm spiritual, not religious." and it is because they fail to see the connection between the physical actions (in the sacraments and ceremony) and the deeper reality these physical signs, symbols, gestures and prayers, reveal.  Faith without works is dead, as Saint James said. In the case of the Pennsylvania report detailing accusations, assaults, actual documentations and testimony covering several decades, involving 300 priests and over 1,000 children, we have case after case after case, of works without faith. 

That seems like it might be an overstatement, but the business of the Church seemed to triumph over the spiritual reality of the Church. There will be some who read the report, and because many of these documented abuses took place decades ago, clamor for everyone to move on.   However, these sins, and they were sins, and these crimes, and they were crimes, demand we wrestle with the reality, we are never free from the temptation to cut ourselves off from God, even when where we work, what we do, and all that surrounds us, even the words we must say, call out to God.   We can have everything and forfeit it for a want we can't have.  We can be living out our vocation, and fail the moment things become difficult.  We can fail by looking away, by pretending whatever we see, isn't that bad, or by pretending what we do in this circumstance, doesn't matter. 

We're part of the defense against the Gates of Hell because we are the Church.  Ergo, we must not be asleep in our spiritual lives.  To have acted and preyed upon so many, (1000 known), spiritual deadness must have abounded.   By what we do and what we fail to do, we will find ourselves saying, "Lord, Lord! When did we see you suffering?" and find ourselves spit out for our lukewarmness.   There's a lot of millstones to go around, for neglect, for institutional protectionism, and for actual assaults and failure to report, and profound indifference to the subsequent suffering. 

The error for each of us, is to will only to move forward, as if we can somehow discard sin like a skin.  It's an error of worldly thinking to think we could ever purge sin from our hearts.  Only God's grace can burn away our hardness of hearts, and forge the soft points that should be steel.   We cannot ever taste even a little of sin, for it's like we're all alcoholics, it's just the flavor of the liquor we're debating.    

The whole of the Church will have to perform a penance.  I propose a Year of Humility, both public and private, where we pray, fast and do reparations and alms giving.  We offer masses and shun feasts other than the Eucharist. We hold confessions every Friday from sun-up to sun-down and try to have 24-7 adoration staffed so every parishioner, every family performs a holy hour during the year, as part of the whole Church response to storm Heaven begging for grace, for healing for the victims, and yes, even for the perpetrators.   


As an institution and organization, there's a desire to move on, but we need to wrestle with this pain and it's going to be messy. It's going to hurt.   To begin to heal, we must first allow ourselves to examine this wound and be willing to enter into it.   

The one comfort I can give, is our faith is not based on the faith lives of men but from Christ.  He's with us, he's on the cross for us.  He invites us to enter into his suffering for the Church and we should.  If you want to read what else I've written about this subject, it's over at the National Catholic Register: The Wake Up Call We Need, and if you have a suggestion for further discussion on this matter, leave it in the com box.  

The Grand Jury's report is here. Read it. Weep. Pray. Fast, and weep again.