Comment to Catholic Leadership Needs a New Focus
Wow. In 7 paragraphs you've elected to so completely shred Rome that one wonders how it lasted 2 years, let alone 2,000. I think there is profound hurt among many existing and lapsed Catholics, and I would agree that the institution does too little to heal those hurts. Yet the complaints you raise today would find no support a few decades earlier -- in 1950 most, if not all, prominent Christian denominations would have the same posture concerning birth control, abortion, sex outside of marriage, and female ordination. Just how did people get by for those 19 centuries under these seemingly oppressive false norms?
Your implication is that we in the 21st century are the first generations to be afforded far more liberal and enlightened standards -- yet we tend to be indulgent, self-absorbed people who are readily crippled by our own psyches. Perhaps this sense of rightful repudiation of old standards makes it more difficult to humbly discern our individual brokenness. There must have been some wisdom to the old traditions that call us to be open to life, and to be profoundly respectful of sexual union. Is it so difficult to simply confess our times of indulging in behavior that was less than ideal, and to disclose what conditions pulled us into those behaviors -- and to do so again and again, if necessary?
To me Church authorities can seem flawed and over invested in self preservation and self-aggrandisement -- but human authority structures are always beset with problems of ego inflation. I don't think we will find one that isn't. At least the Roman Church has acknowledged its problems with child molestation and has vigorously implemented multiple levels of alerts to vastly improve child security. Clearly there are different ways to reconcile oneself to the flaws and failures that are inherent to institutionalized religion. The Protestant Reformation was one, but it proved that new institutions still have the same problems inherent to the old institutions.
My comfort comes from these facts: it is the person of Jesus Christ who refuses to condemn the woman caught in adultery, who urges us to understand why the father celebrates the return of the prodigal son, and who innocently absorbs the terror and shame of crucifixion without calling for holy wars of reprisal. Unfortunately, His Church is a shameful emulator in general -- but it has AMAZING saints on the frontiers. Gandhi was inspired by the Sermon on the Mount to deploy non-violent resistance in India, as was MLK in Dixie -- as was John Paul II in confronting the Polish State as a bishop and later as counselor to the Solidarity movement. And it was Mother Teresa who deployed love of neighbor like so few others have done -- a feminine giant who took no notice of the petty Church factions that want to keep a gal down.
Like the Church, the human race in general is a shameful emulator (with shining exceptions on the frontier). The whole point of us being here in this life is for each of us to set aside our prideful egos and embrace our natural connectedness, to overcome differences, to find more ways to include and fewer ways to exclude, to come to the aid of the needy, to generously apply forgiveness and mercy, and to confront wrongs respectfully and nonviolently. No doubt this is enormously challenging -- but it is the noble calling for which we were created. I will continue this quest, and out of my own free will, I choose also to remain in relationship with Jesus Christ, with the Creator, and even with the Roman Church.
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