With all the disheartening news in the Catholic world over the past several weeks, the Scripture readings during this same time have been extraordinarily pertinent and consoling. It is as if the Mass readings were tailored precisely to our questioning and our disillusionment. It makes me feel sorry for Catholics who are trying to work their way through all of this without "the lessons of encouragement...in the Scriptures" (see Romans 15:4, but also 1 Cor 10:11!). If you cannot make it to daily Mass, at least make the daily readings an essential part of your prayer life!!!
In the midst of new revelations (of old evils), today's readings are no exception. They follow from yesterday's passionate thread about the treasure of the Word of God, worth "selling all" to possess. (Indeed, Jeremiah sounds like no one more than Augustine with his distressing admission, "When I found your words I devoured them. They became my joy and the happiness of my heart...")
Today we are looking at Judgment Day, but not before another encouraging word from Jeremiah. Sent to the potter's house, the prophet tells us basically that we cannot mess things up badly enough that God cannot rework the situation to good. Not the original good, and not the good outcome we may expect or require, but a genuine good for which we will glorify him forever."Whenever the object of clay which he was making turned out badly in his hand, he tried again, making of the clay another object of whatever sort he pleased. ... 'Can I not do to you, house of Israel, as this potter has done?' says the LORD. Indeed, like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, house of Israel."
Today I am using this reading as a springboard to pray for priests who have fallen seriously in their vocation, or who are struggling wearily and are disheartened and afraid, even terrified, as their past sins, long ago repented and forgiven, threaten to come to light. Some of these men were corrupted in their youth. Pressured to please their superior, may have ended up with habits of alcohol abuse, pornography, or immoral behavior (even all of the above), but they were permitted to go forward to the altar of God, bringing their newly acquired compulsions with them to the ministry.
When yet another disedifying story reached me yesterday, I wanted blood. No more secrets! No more hiding! No more hypocrisy! I wanted all the names published on the front page of the New York Times. I wanted to see a procession of men in cassocks beating their breasts and chanting "mea maxima culpa."
But then last night I couldn't sleep, thinking of the priests whose worse nightmare is coming true a decade or more after they have repented, confessed, and done penance. I've been praying for them nonstop ever since. Some of these men (and others who may have never confronted the matter face-on) may be tempted to suicide. Satan still "prowls like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour" (1 Peter 5:8), and no morsel is more tasty to him than someone consecrated with priestly chrism.
I am convinced that many of these men have faced the full truth of the wrong that was done to them, and which they themselves in turn did to others. I do not for a minute doubt that some of these men are living saints, daily offering reparation for those evils and actively cooperating with grace in the daily effort to replace vice with virtue and laboring in ministry to make positive atonement for the damage done to the Body of Christ through their sins.
God can work with the clay in his hands. We can only see that things have turned out very badly indeed, but God is infinitely creative and faithful. All this will turn out to good in some mysterious way (Romans 8:28). Our part is to cooperate with forthrightness, fidelity, charity, and prayer. "For men it is impossible, but not for God" (Matthew 19:26).
2 comments:
Repented? Without helping the victims? Without addressing the idea that there were other wolves in sheep’s clothing shuffled around by bishops, still actively seeking children to abuse? Do you know the statistics for pedophile “conversion “? Cold day in hell scenario, in many ways. The idea of sympathy for the suffering, “repentant” pedophile makes the predator a victim, and ignores the true victims, who were not living off the collection basket, just trying to get on with their lives. But, as these reports confirmed, that was until very recently standard operating procedure. Oh, these pedophile priests and the bishops that protected them, while bullying the faithful to keep quiet will have a lot to answer for.
Granted: sociopaths don't repent. Their minds are so warped that they do not recognize the evil they do as "theirs" or as a problem. I did not have pathological serial pedophiles in mind when I wrote this post almost two months ago. I was thinking especially of one priest I know who failed once, miserably, out of sheer human weakness, who repented profoundly and who made amends in a way acceptable to the victim and his family. This was decades ago, and while the priest was allowed to celebrate the Mass, he was not permitted to return to parish ministry. However, his experience of profound and humiliating failure gave him a way to minister to others who could face the temptation he had fallen into. After the 2002 zero tolerance policy was implemented, he lost all possibility of serving even them. It seemed to me that this renewed crisis put him in a double jeopardy, facing a repeated condemnation for his original crime, when he is still paying his debt to society and to the Church.
People do repent, even of heinous crimes. And to disallow them that grace, to resent their sin to such an extent as to forbid them to ever crawl out from under it, is very dangerous. Even righteous anger can become a cause in itself, self-perpetuating and destructive.
That said, I am still waiting for those who have been all to silent to speak, to act, to set things right. If they do not have the courage themselves, perhaps the various inquests from government agencies will provide the opportunities. My concern now is that these studies of the past create a risk of scapegoating (with past crimes distracting attention from current problems that need to be addressed) and give current leaders a way of claiming that everything is really okay now; that there are no further causes for concern. (Still too many elephants in the rectory, by my way of thinking.)
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