A Crisis of Saints

A Crisis of Saints

By Fr. Roger Landry
April 2002

Headlineswere captured in February by the tragic reports that as many as seventypriests in the Archdiocese of Boston, Massachusetts, allegedly haveabused young people whom they were consecrated to serve. In the wakethis news, allegations of sexual abuse by Catholic priests have sprungup nationwide. It is a huge scandal, one that many people who dislikethe Catholic Church because of its moral teachings are using to claimthat the Church is hypocritical and that they were right all along.Many people have come up to priests like myself to talk about it. Iimagine many others have wanted to but have refrained out of respect orfrom not wanting to bring up bad news.

We need totackle the issue head-on. Catholics have a right to it from theirclergy. We cannot pretend it doesn't exist, and I would like to discusswhat our response as faithful Catholics should be to this terriblesituation.

The Judas syndrome

Thefirst thing we need to do is to understand this scandal from theperspective of our faith in the Lord. Before he chose his firstdisciples, Jesus went up the mountain to pray all night (Luke 6:12). Hehad many followers at the time. He talked to his Father in prayer aboutwhom he should choose to be his twelve apostles-the twelve whom hewould form intimately, the twelve whom he would send out to preach thegood news in his name. He gave them power to cast out demons. He gavethem power to cure the sick. They watched him work countless miracles.They themselves worked countless others in his name.

Yetone of them tuned out to be a traitor. One who had followed theLord-who had seen him walk on water and raise people from the dead andforgive sinners, one whose feet the Lord had washed-betrayed him. Thegospels tells us that Judas allowed Satan to enter into him and thensold the Lord for thirty pieces of silver, handing him over by faking agesture of love. "Judas," Jesus said to him in the garden ofGethsemane, "would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?" (Luke 24:48).

Jesusdidn't choose Judas to betray him. But Judas was always free, and heused his freedom to allow Satan to enter into him, and by his betrayalJesus was crucified and executed. But God foresaw this evil and used toaccomplish the ultimate good: the redemption of the world.

Thepoint is, sometimes God's chosen ones betray him. That is a fact thatwe have to confront. If the early Christians had focused only on thescandal caused by Judas, the Church would have been finished before iteven started to grow. Instead they recognized that you don't judge amovement by those who don't live it but by those who do. Rather thanfocusing on the betrayer, they focused on the other eleven on accountof whose work, preaching, miracles, and love for Christ we are heretoday. It is on account of the other eleven-all of whom except Johnwere martyred for Christ and for the gospel they proclaimed-that weever heard the saving word of God, that we ever received the sacramentsof eternal life.

We are confronted by the samescandalous reality today. We can focus on those who have betrayed theLord, those who abused rather than loved the people whom they werecalled to serve. Or we can focus, as did the early Church, on those whohave remained faithful, those priests who are still offering theirlives to serve Christ and you out of love. The secular media almostnever focuses on the good "eleven," the ones whom Jesus has chosen whoremain faithful, who live lives of quiet holiness. But we the Churchmust keep the terrible scandal that we are witnessing in its true andfull perspective.

Great saints of scandal born

Unfortunately,scandal is nothing new for the Church. There have been many timesthrough the ages when things were much worse off than they are now. Thehistory of the Church is like a cosine curve with many ups and downs.At the times when the Church hits its low points God raises uptremendous saints to bring the Church back to its real mission. It'salmost as if in those times of darkness the light of Christ shines evermore brightly. I would like to focus on a couple of saints whom Godraised up in such difficult times, because their wisdom can guide usduring our own difficult time.

Francis de Sales camealong after the Protestant Reformation. The Reformation was notprincipally about theology-although theological differences camelater-but about morals. Martin Luther, an Augustinian priest, livedduring the reign of perhaps the most notorious pope in history,Alexander VI. This pope never taught anything against the faith-theHoly Spirit prevented that-but he was a wicked man. He had ninechildren from six different concubines. He put out contracts on thelives of those he considered his enemies.

Luther, likeeveryone, must have wondered how God could allow a wicked man to be thevisible head of his Church. All types of moral problems confrontedLuther even in his own country of Germany. Priests were living in openrelationships with women. Some made exaggerated claims aboutindulgences. There was terrible immorality among lay Catholics. Lutherwas scandalized, as anyone who loved God should have been. He allowedthe scandal to drive him from the Church.

EventuallyGod raised up many saints to combat this erroneous solution and tobring people back to the Church Christ founded. Francis de Sales wasone of them. At the risk of his life he went through Switzerland, wherethe Calvinists were popular, preaching the gospel with truth and love.Several times on his travels he was beaten and left for dead.

Someoneonce asked him to address the situation of the scandal caused by somany of his brother priests. What Francis de Sales said is as importantfor us today as it was then. He did not pull any punches. He said,"While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent ofmurder [i.e., destroying other people's faith in God by their terribleexample], those who take scandal-who allow scandals to destroy theirfaith-are guilty of spiritual suicide." They are guilty, he said, ofcutting off their life with Christ by abandoning the source of life inthe sacraments, especially the Eucharist. He went among the people inSwitzerland trying to prevent their committing spiritual suicide onaccount of the scandals. As a priest today I would say the same thingto you.

What should our reaction be then? Anothersaint who lived in a difficult time also can help us. Francis of Assisilived in the thirteenth century, which was a time of terribleimmorality in central Italy. Priests were setting horrible examples.Lay immorality was terrible, too. Francis himself while a young mangave scandal to others by his carefree ways. But eventually he wasconverted back to the Lord, founded the Franciscans, helped God rebuildhis Church, and became one of the great saints of all time.

Thereis a story told of Francis of Assisi that sticks in my mind from one ofthe biographies I read as a seminarian. Once one of the brothers in theorder of Friars Minor who was sensitive to scandal asked him, "BrotherFrancis, what would you do if you knew that a priest celebrating Masshad three concubines on the side?" Francis replied, "When it came timefor Holy Communion, I would go to receive the sacred body of my Lordfrom the priest's anointed hands."

Francis was gettingat a tremendous truth of the faith and a tremendous gift of the Lord:God has made the sacraments "priest-proof." No matter how holy orwicked a priest is, provided he has the intention to do what the Churchdoes, then Christ himself acts through the priest, just as he actedthrough Judas when Judas ministered as an apostle. So whether Pope JohnPaul II or a priest on death row for a felony consecrates the bread andwine, it is Christ himself who acts to gives us his own body and blood.Francis was saying he was not going to let the wickedness or immoralityof the priest lead him (Francis) to commit spiritual suicide.

Christcan work still and does work still even through the most sinful priest.And thank God! If we were dependent on the priest's personal holiness,we would be in trouble. Though they are chosen by God from among men,priests are tempted and fall into sin just like anyone else. But ofcourse God knew that from the beginning. Eleven of the first twelveapostles scattered when Christ was arrested, but they came back.

The only authentic response

Therehas been a lot of talk in the media about what the response of theChurch ought to be to these scandalous deeds. Does the Church have todo a better job in making sure no one with a predisposition towardpedophilia gets ordained? Absolutely. But that is not enough.

Doesthe Church have to do a better job in handling cases when they arereported? Absolutely. Though the Church's procedures for handling thesecases are much better today than they were twenty years ago, they canalways be improved. But even that is not enough.

Do wehave to do more to support the victims of such abuse? Yes we do, bothout of justice and out of love. But not even that is adequate. CardinalBernard Law has persuaded many of the medical school deans in Boston towork on establishing a center for the prevention of child abuse, whichis something we should all support. But that by itself is notsufficient.

The only adequate response to thisterrible scandal, the only fully Catholic response-as Francis of Assisirecognized in the 1200s, as Francis de Sales recognized in the 1600s,and as countless other saints have recognized in every century-is holiness.Every crisis that the Church faces, every crisis that the world faces,is a crisis of saints. Holiness is crucial because it is the real faceof the Church.

There are always people-a priest meetsthem regularly, and you probably know several of them-who use excusesfor why they don't practice the faith, why they commit spiritualsuicide. It may be that a nun was mean to them when they were nine orthat they find the teaching of the Church on a particular issue tooburdensome. There are many people these days who say, "Why should Ipractice the faith, why should I go to church? The Church can't be trueif God's so-called chosen ones can do the types of things we've beenreading about!"

This scandal is a scaffold on whichsome will try to hang their justification for not practicing the faith.That is why personal holiness is so important. Such people need to findin all of us a reason for faith, a reason for hope, a reason forresponding with love to the love of the Lord. The beatitudes inChrist's Sermon on the Mount are a recipe for holiness. We all need tolive them more.

Do priests have to become holier? Theysure do. Do religious brothers and sisters have to become holier andgive ever-greater witness to God and heaven? Absolutely. All people inthe Church have the vocation to be holy, and this crisis is a wake-upcall.

It's a tough time to be a priest today. It's atough time to be a Catholic today. But it's also a great time to be apriest and a great time to be a Catholic. Jesus says, "Blessed are youwhen men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evilagainst you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your rewardis great in heaven" (Matt. 5:11-12).

I have beenexperiencing that beatitude firsthand, as have other priests I know.Earlier this week I had finished my exercise at a local gym and wascoming out of the locker room dressed in my black clerical garb. Uponseeing me, a mother hurriedly moved her children out of the way andshielded them from me as I was passing. She glared at me as I passed,and when I was far enough away she finally relaxed and let her childrengo-as if I would have attacked them in the middle of the afternoon at ahealth club!

But while we all might have to suffersuch insults and even slander on account of Christ, we should indeedrejoice. It's a great time to be a Christian, because this is a time inwhich God really needs us to show his true face. In bygone days inAmerica, the Church was respected. Priests were respected. The Churchhad a reputation for holiness and goodness. Not so at the moment.

The Church will never fail

Foralmost three years of my life in the early 1990s, while in my car Ilistened to nothing but tapes by Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, one of thegreatest Catholic preachers in American history. On a couple of histapes for priests' retreats, Bishop Sheen said that he preferred tolive in times when the Church has suffered rather than thrived, whenthe Church had to struggle, when the Church had to go against theculture. It was a time for real men and real women to stand up and becounted. "Even dead bodies can float downstream," he said, pointingthat many people can coast when the Church is respected, "but it takesa real man, a real woman, to swim against the current."

Howtrue that is. It takes a real man or a real woman to stand up againstthe current that is flowing against the Church. It takes a real man ora real woman to recognize that when you are resisting the flood ofcriticism, you are safest when you stay attached to the Rock on whomChrist built his Church. This is one of those times. It's a great timeto be a Christian.

Some people are predicting that theChurch is in for a rough time, and maybe it is. But the Church willsurvive because the Lord will make sure it survives. One of thegreatest comeback lines in history was uttered two hundred years ago.As his armies were swallowing up the countries of Europe, Frenchemperor Napoleon is reported to have said to Church officials, "Je détruirai votre église"("I will destroy your Church")." When informed of the emperor's words,Ercole Cardinal Consalvi, one of the great statesmen of the papalcourt, replied, "He will never succeed. We have not managed to do itourselves!" If bad popes, immoral priests, and countless sinners in theChurch hadn't succeeded in destroying the Church from within, CardinalConsalvi was saying, how did Napoleon think he was going to do it fromwithout?

The Cardinal was pointing to a crucial truth:Christ will never allow his Church to fail. He promised that the gatesof hell would not prevail against his Church (Matt. 16:18); that thebarque of Peter, the Church sailing through time to its eternal port inheaven, will never capsize-not because those in the boat won't doeverything sinfully possible to overturn it but because Christ, who iscaptain of the boat, will never allow it to happen.

Themagnitude of the current scandal might be such that some will find itdifficult to trust priests in the same way as in the past. That isregrettable, though it might not be a completely bad thing. Yet youmust never lose trust in Christ! It is his Church. After Judas's deaththe eleven apostles convened; the Holy Spirit chose Matthias to takeJudas's place, and he proclaimed the gospel faithfully until he wasmartyred for it. In the same way today, even if some of those the Lordchose have betrayed him, he will call others who will be faithful, whowill serve you with the love with which you deserve to be served.

Thisis a time in which all of us need to focus ever more on holiness. Weare called to be saints, and how much our society needs to see thisbeautiful, radiant face of the Church! You are part of the solution-acrucial part. And as you go forward in Mass to receive from thepriest's anointed hands the sacred body of your Lord, ask Christ tofill you with a real desire for sanctity, a real desire to show histrue face.

One of the reasons I am a priest today isbecause when I younger I was under-impressed with some of the priests Iknew. I watched them celebrate Mass and with little reverence drop thebody of the Lord onto the paten, as if they were handling something ofsmall value rather than the Creator and Savior of all, rather than myCreator and Savior. I remember praying, "Lord, please let me become apriest, so I can treat you like you deserve!" It kindled in me a greatfire to serve the Lord.

Maybe this scandal can kindlein you the same thing. If you choose, this scandal can lead you down tothe path of spiritual suicide. But it should inspire you to say finallyto God, "I want to become a saint so that I and the Church can giveyour name the glory it deserves, so that others might find in you thelove and the salvation that I have found."

Jesus iswith us, as he promised, until the end of time. He is still in theboat. Just as out of Judas's betrayal he achieved the greatest victoryin the universe-our salvation through his passion, death andresurrection-so out of this new scandal he may bring, wants tobring, a new rebirth of holiness, a new Acts of the Apostles for thetwenty-first century, with each of us-and that includes you-playinga starring role. Now is the time for real men and women of the Churchto stand up. Now is the time for saints. How will you respond?