Keeping the Faith

Catholics have had a great deal to process the past few weeks. Some of it was best processed in quiet, in prayer, and in the counsel of wiser souls.

What can we observe of recent weeks?

As the Pope’s moto proprio severely restricting the Mass in its extraordinary form appeared on the scene, we heard nearly universal disappointment, whether one spoke to non-believers, trad Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, or just one’s average fellow parishioner.

The main question seemed to be: Why, when the Church is plagued by so many dreadful problems, should eradicating an ancient, valid, and quite beautiful liturgy be the focus?

For the sake of “unity,” apparently, which for progressives seems rooted in a coercive punishing those of you don’t like.

It cannot have escaped anyone’s notice that scandals of serious import have abounded lately: the widely-publicized trial of Cardinal Becciu, for one, over corrupt financial dealings in the Vatican, and also the revelations about the Vatican’s property holdings & budget deficit, rife with stories of greed, waste, and poor investments.

And of course, shortly after the moto proprio‘s release, the handful of folks celebrating it had their crowing cut short by the bombshell report by Ed Condon & J.D. Flynn of The Pillar, which revealed that the Secretary General of the USCCB, “the most powerful priest in America,” Jeffrey Burrill, had left an extensive data trail suggesting hundreds of liasons through gay hook-up app Grindr. And nor was Burrill alone. The diocese of Newark and other areas (including the Vatican itself) seem also to have clergymen caught in the sting, with doubtless more to be implicated.

While America Magazine types flipped out over concerns of “journalistic integrity” and “judgementalism,” the average practicing Catholic seems to have rather set his face like flint, realizing that an overly sentimental and deferential attitude toward clergy has only contributed to the problem. That, even after 2018’s “Summer of Shame,” the highest-placed priest at USCCB could violate his vows over and over with no one to say boo, tells us all we need to know.

Silence, patience, trust, and/or reluctance to deal with the licentious subculture that’s been created within the priesthood is costing us dear in every conceivable way: from the good priests and seminarians who suffer indignities and spite, to the offending clerics who are poisoning themselves. One gets perfectly the fact that everyone’s a sinner and certainly no one wants their shame drug out into the light of day, but our clergy and prelates are not cleaning up the mess privately and the whole Church is paying for the failure.

That some high-profile priests and lefty Catholics seem more concerned with keeping the corruption on the down-low than with addressing it, seems to prove a well-established tenet: Lust makes one spiritually blind. Whether one is in the lay or the clerical state, it robs us of our vision and purpose and makes our works barren. Aquinas taught that:

“Now it is evident that pleasure fixes a man’s attention on that which he takes pleasure in. Now carnal vices, namely gluttony and lust, are concerned with pleasures of touch in matters of food and sex; and these are the most impetuous of all pleasures of the body. For this reason these vices cause man’s attention to be firmly fixed on corporeal things, so that in consequence man’s operation in regard to the intelligible things is weakened; more, however, by lust than by gluttony, forasmuch as sexual pleasures are more vehement than those of the table. Wherefore lust gives rise to blindness of mind, which excludes almost entirely the knowledge of spiritual things.”

(ST II-II, q.15, a.3)

To paraphrase the Angelic Doctor, the Grindr mentality makes you particularly stupid as concerns the things of God–which, especially if you are among the ordained, means you can’t do your job.

How is one who operates, as Aquinas says, in a state of almost complete exclusion of the knowledge of spiritual things to serve as a seminary rector, a teacher, a director of priestly formation, a counselor…. indeed, as a prelate of the Church? When the father of a family behaves in such a way, his spouse and children suffer. It isn’t any different here.

As if to drive the point home even further, it also transpired last week that Theodore McCarrick, the man probably most responsible for the current direction of the episcopacy in the United States, was at long last criminally charged with a 1976 sexual assault in Massachusetts, and we know, of course, of his longstanding affairs, the abuse of his priestly and episcopal position, and the silence in which it was cloaked.

The Pillar exposé perhaps hints at a shift. The worm has turned.

There are still other woes for the Church, the standard heartbreak of a fallen world. We could read, further away, of the dreadful numbers of Christians lost in Nigeria this year to militant attacks, or to the plight of the Chinese Catholics and long-suffering Cardinal Zen.

We could look at the vast numbers of our fellow Catholics who seem to have lost Faith or interest in the sacraments over the period of COVID, who are not returning, who grow distant from grace.

All of these crosses and crimes cry out for justice and for the healing hand of God operating through His Body. And our leaders could focus upon them and bear the cost.

But no. The progressives have decided that real problem lies with those fellow Catholics who like to receive Holy Communion kneeling and want a bit of Latin tradition; not with the reprobates and thieves, the architects of the culture of death, or those rejecting the deposit of faith. No; it’s the mantilla & maniple crowd that’s ruining things.

So where does this leave us? One could give way to despondency, anger, disgust, or fear.

But why should we?

In the midst of the greatest chaos, one sometimes finds clarity, a sort of eye in the storm to give perspective. Since when does a Christian turn away from a cross? It’s a contradiction in terms.

One does not have to look far to find many others in the Church who feel and think the same, and yet have their eyes fixed on the Lord. It’s been quite intriguing, for example, to see the response of a surprising number and variety of bishops to the plight of their traditionally-minded people. It’s been curious find even committed atheists rallying in support of the chief expression of Christian piety.

None of this is to say the coming time may be easy; one rather suspects not. It sometimes feels like the Seven Deadlies are are having a heyday in the Church.

Military elites have coined a phrase: Embrace the suck. It means, essentially, to strengthen your resolve, to get comfortable with suffering for your mission. To get into the fray and to do it.

But we can go further than stoicism. Is it not a privilege to be counted worthy to believe in Christ, to hope in Him, to love Him, in this historical moment? To be tested and tried, to be held to ridicule and even to suffer? Have we not been assured “where sin abounds, grace abounds all the more”?

We should perhaps go so far as to say with Fulton Sheen, in a dire historical moment: “These are great and wonderful days in which to be alive. I thank God … that I can live in these days.”

We need, rather than shying away from the troubles, to sink our teeth into them, to pray for humility and fortitude and wisdom, and to act where God calls.

Venerable Cardinal Newman said once:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission. I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work. I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments. Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him, in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him. If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers. He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.

So readers, let’s go all in. Keep the Faith.