The letter I sent to my sister, regarding the current scandals in the Church.
"I feel like you are assuming I am defending the Church and that we are in this discussion of defending vs not defending the Church and it's actions. THAT IS NOT WHAT THIS IS! I am NOT defending the Church, and I'm as mad as you!!! I couldn't sleep last night I was so upset I do admit, when that Grand Jury report came out, I was repulsed and disgusted, but I wasn't surprised, because I knew it wasn't a NEW scandal. It was the same scandal we already knew about in Boston and Spokane and other places around the country, from the same time period, just in a different place and a greater scope. That stuff all happened 30-70 years ago. And I knew that there had been reforms in 2002, hopefully addressing the issue, so it wouldn't continue. Children wouldn't be put at risk again. But then, this new McCarrick thing makes me realize that abuses are STILL GOING ON. Maybe it looks different now because of the reforms. Maybe it targets young but adult men in seminary rather than young children, because that's not considered criminal. But it's still there, and it's STILL HAPPENING. That makes me SICK. And disgusted. And angry. And betrayed. By even the highest levels.
The question is, and the question Rob and I keep asking is... what do we DO about it, as lay people? When you see leaders acting in such ways??? Do we leave? Do we fight? We don't just passively sit by. Rob wants a revolution, but that doesn't look like a political revolution would. We don't rise up with guns. Not in the Church. I know that my trust is in CHRIST, and not in men. Men fail all the time. Even men that aren't supposed to. The lifeblood of the Church is the sacraments, not men. And the sacraments, even if performed by evil men, are still valid. The gospel yesterday was perfect. "Lord, where would I go? You hold the keys to eternal life." Even if I wanted to leave the Church... where would I go?? Who else holds the deposit of faith, and the Eucharist? That's what I can't leave. But I can and WILL fight to purify Christ's Church, even if it means we lose 75% of our members. If it's small and meek instead of powerful... then it will get back to what it was in the beginning anyway. A persecuted Church, but a faithful one. If we worship in nearly empty buildings, so be it.
I told Rob that the way we as lay people act is ANGRY, yes. The Bride of Christ is soiled. But then, we become SAINTS. Because Saints are the spiritual soldiers that the Church needs now to fight its battles. And we hold each and every person accountable for their actions, because dang it... those children didn't deserve what they got. Those seminarians didn't deserve what they got. So we demand accountability. We demand JUSTICE.
Just so you know definitively how I feel, and not just ASSUME that I'm defending the Church. I am NOT. But I will not leave it. I will fight for it. Like I fight for my family. Like I fight for my marriage. We fight for the worthwhile things. We fight to make them better. We don't leave.
I often wondered if I had lived during the time of the Reformation, knowing the abuses of the Church, how I would've responded. Would I have stayed? Or left? Now I know. I would have stayed. I will stay. But I will NOT be content to leave things as they are.
Today is the Feast of St. Monica. St. Monica is the patron saint of difficult marriages and victims of adultery. The Bride of Christ, the Church, has been soiled, and failed her marriage vows. St. Monica is the patron saint of wayward children. We children of God have lost our way. But St. Monica is also the patron saint of conversions. Our family of Christ needs a conversion of heart!!!
St. Monica, pray for us! "
And this is appropo. From Pope Emeritus Benedict, back in 1969 when he was Father Ratzinger.
"The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality....From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges....But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship."
And this is appropo. From Pope Emeritus Benedict, back in 1969 when he was Father Ratzinger.
"The future of the Church can and will issue from those whose roots are deep and who live from the pure fullness of their faith. It will not issue from those who accommodate themselves merely to the passing moment or from those who merely criticize others and assume that they themselves are infallible measuring rods; nor will it issue from those who take the easier road, who sidestep the passion of faith, declaring false and obsolete, tyrannous and legalistic, all that makes demands upon men, that hurts them and compels them to sacrifice themselves. To put this more positively: The future of the Church, once again as always, will be reshaped by saints, by men, that is, whose minds probe deeper than the slogans of the day, who see more than others see, because their lives embrace a wider reality....From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number of her adherents diminishes, so it will lose many of her social privileges....But in all of the changes at which one might guess, the Church will find her essence afresh and with full conviction in that which was always at her center: faith in the triune God, in Jesus Christ, the Son of God made man, in the presence of the Spirit until the end of the world. In faith and prayer she will again recognize the sacraments as the worship of God and not as a subject for liturgical scholarship."
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