Crisis in the Church.
The scandal in the Catholic Church today has shaken the lives of many. If that isn’t bad enough, the crisis may have only gotten started. The gale-force winds only begun to blow. What can be done in the face of such a storm but to hunker down and pray it out? Well, pray, yes. But defense is not exactly the posture God has called us to take as witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Alive with his life, those who profess faith in Jesus are called to be saints ablaze with the presence of the Spirit who is both Gift and Love. With this in mind, I offer for thoughtful Catholics and Christians of all stripes the following reflection.
Politically astute Americans understand that ‘the money’ plays both sides. For example, during election cycles, big banks, large corporations, and billionaire investors quietly provide considerable support to the leading candidates of both republican and democratic parties in an attempt to secure their interests in the face of political change. So no matter which party takes office, the more things change, the more they stay the same.
This is the Devil’s game. Enemy of the faith, and the Father of Lies, evil plays both sides. Theologically conservative or liberal, the Novus Ordo Mass or Tridentine, the camp doesn’t matter. The spiritual interests at work are kept in place. Bring the faithful into conflict in order to remove charity from the hearts of men and women in every age.
What should we think as Catholics when some do not seem to understand that the Lord’s Prayer is not so much a personal prayer as it is a communal prayer, prayed by the faithful for the deliverance of the entire Church? The last two lines said not for a present moment of personal trial as for an eschatological time to come when the entire creation, including the Church, will be engulfed in a tribulation so great that “if those days had not been cut short, no one would survive” (Matt. 24:22).
What are we to think when talented, well-intentioned clergy, perhaps graced with gifts of communication and affability work diligently to bring God into the lives of others while alienating fellow brothers and sisters faithful in Christ? Catholics who cannot accept beliefs about gender and sexuality that both historically and at present are understood differently by the Magisterium.
What do we say to cardinals and prelates who issue proof-texted declarations and statements to the public for the purposes of “clarity” and the “salvation of souls” posturing as sacrosanct an unadulterated lineage of beliefs which has never existed in the Church? The tradition of Papal encyclicals alone going back to Benedict XIV in 1740, including those designated as “social” encyclicals, are evident of substantive inconsistencies and contradictions in authoritative Papal teaching. (Michael Schuck, 1991)
What can be said when non-mainstream media outlets and self-proclaimed Catholic YouTube pundits, enraged like most of us by the financial corruption, moral filth, and liturgical irreverence on parade in the Church, spout eternal damnation for all who refuse or simply cannot tolerate emotionally the reigning dysfunction and bail?
The Devil plays both sides. First-class manners, like superb scholarship, prudent news reporting, clarity of speech, and informed conversation should always be in style. Moreover, especially among us Christians, who have received the incomparable gifts of baptism and eucharist, the virtue of charity, which is a share in the very being of God without which none of us will be saved, should be supreme. Duplicity, political machinations, and all ‘realist’ interpersonal tactics, as well as, bombastic rhetoric, grossly exaggerated assertions, and carefully crafted sloganeering is an affront to Jesus Christ.
These worldly exploits undermine the building-up of a simple trust and gentleness between those who profess to love the Lord. They remove from our souls and the Church the light and salt that should be part of the character of our faith and our testimony to the world.
Saint John of the Cross wrote,
“They’ll be thinking it was all rather special, and that God had spoken; and it will have been little more than nothing, or nothing, or less than nothing. Because if something does not give birth to humility, and love, and dying to self, and godly simplicity, and silence — what can it be?” (Iain Matthew, 1995)
Chaos is both strategy and goal of the one whose name in Greek means, ‘to throw apart.’ He is arsonist and fireman at the same time. We foil the Devil’s plans by clinging to the one who is meek and humble of heart, whose name is Savior. We wise-up and see that the enemy uses our best intentions and sincerity against us. He paves the way that leads to destruction whenever the faithful abandon honesty, self-restraint, and sensitivity to the scruples of others for a seemingly greater good (1 Cor. 9:19-23). For when lawlessness increases, the love of many will grow cold (Matt: 24:12).
In necessariis, unitas; in dubiis, libertas; in omnibus, caritas—In necessary things unity, in doubtful things freedom, in all things charity. Amen
