“For whatever is hidden is meant to be disclosed, and whatever is concealed is meant to be brought out into the open.” Mark 4:22
At the time horrific details of hierarchical corruption began breaking, the first of all Psalms kept coming up in the Divine Office. The Divine Office is the prayer of the church. Second only to the Mass. Obliged prayer by all priests and religious. While everyone was weighing in on their perspective, God seemed to be weighing in on His: “For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to destruction.” (Psalm 1:6)
We are a people wired for truth. Looking for answers. Accordingly, we are bewildered and so deeply disheartened in not finding it where faith tells us it should be found. In fact, the opposite.
After berating a clerical culture, calling for transparency and to speak truth in the face of evil, when confronted with serious allegations, the pope pledges: “I will not say a single word.” (GO) And he maligns those with the audacity to speak as subjects of Satan. (GO) And advisors closest to him seem to confirm a growing, collective concern: “Church has entered new phase: with advent of first Jesuit pope, it is openly ruled by an individual rather than by the authority of Scripture alone or even its own dictates of tradition plus Scripture.” (Fr. Rosica, inside advisor to Pope Francis) (GO)
Of course, the light shines in the darkness (John 1). The pope does not define the Papacy; the Papacy defines the pope. In fact, respect for the Papacy demands accountability for the one in it in light of the One who established it.
This is what is happening. This is what needs to happen.
This ecclesial crisis is like the cold, sharp blades of a rototiller digging up hardened soil. It’s painful. It’s messy. It’s ugly. But it absolutely needs to happen. And we should praise God that it is. In this fertile soil lies seeds of revival, in need of the Light.
For too many years the harvest has been languishing in the darkness. Where only evil can contend. In absence of clear, consistent teaching and its compelling witness, we’ve been rending our garments, not our hearts. (Joel 2:13) We’ve been languishing in a culture of practical atheism, which Pope Benedict warned is even more dangerous than actual atheism. In a culture of practical atheism one can give all the appearance of religion, but be devoid of the underlying relationship.
Practical atheists are those who profess belief, but do not strive to live it. We make excuses for even mortal sin, such as contraception (87% of mass goers), pornographic media (over 50% of mass goers), extramarital sex, and voting for platforms that are instrumental causes of mortal sin (nearly 50%). Practical atheists may regularly go to Mass, and even commit to religious moments, but they are not intentionally fostering cultures of ever-deepening encounter with Jesus Christ in their hearts and homes. Their discretionary time and money reveals them to be much more intent on worshiping themselves, their entertainment, their comfort… than God.
In their half-hearted, contingent, if-it-doesn’t-ask-too-much “faith,” practical atheists give compelling reason for the impoverished masses to look directly at the icon and instrument of salvation, the answer to their deepest aspirations, and say, “No thanks!”
This is what lies in many of our hearts. Not simply infidelity, but under the soiled veil of the Bride of Jesus Christ. This is what the rototiller needs to dig up.
Accordingly, as exemplified by Carlo Maria Viganò (alleging Pope Francis’ complicity in shielding McCarrick), a great indication of revival is the audacity to shine a bright light on the ugliness we all share, that we all might repent:
"To restore the beauty of holiness to the face of the Bride of Christ, which is terribly disfigured by so many abominable crimes, and if we truly want to free the Church from the fetid swamp into which she has fallen, we must have the courage to tear down the culture of secrecy and publicly confess the truths we have kept hidden." (GO)
With a self-effacing, constant, primary attention to what we see in the mirror, let us not shrink from also turning with mercy and loving vigilance to the institutional church.
Sexuality matters. Quintessentially. For our self-discovery. For happiness in this world and the next. For fulfillment of our nature and mission in God. Sexuality is our capacity to make God, who is Love, known. Sexuality between husband and wife, resulting in family, is the cornerstone of civilization. Accordingly, sexuality is Satan’s greatest target. He seeks to trivialize it. Reduce it. Pervert it. Twist it.
Fr. James Martin, the pope has allowed you to be his spokesperson on matters sexuality, so I want to address you directly. Your public efforts most honestly, clearly and boldly disclose what lies beneath. Let us strive for truth in love-- for without love there is no truth, and without truth, there is no love! Let us reason together! (Is. 1:18)
So we’re not using code-language, when you speak of the “L.G.B.T. community,” let’s admit that you’re not simply regarding a proclivity, but presuming a defining identity, one that gives moral basis for extramarital, sexual activity. You have stated "[f]or a teaching to be really authoritative it is expected that it will be received by the people of God, by the faithful.” You go on to say: "The teaching that LGBT people must be celibate their entire lives has not been received." (GO)
Of course, this corresponds to what was recently suggested above, by papal advisor Fr. Rosica, with regard to the mind of the pope, that he is beyond the “dictates of tradition plus Scripture.” This presses you and the rest of us with the question:
Are you more about the mortal man in Office than the Eternal One who established the Office?
In so many words, you seem to anchor moral prescription in behavioral description. Is truth something each individual can create, or Someone who Created us? If the former, who’s to say anything is wrong? Should we cease calling for an end to gun violence in Chicago because it “has not been received”?
Now it’s been pointed out that this may be unfair. That your provocative statements are merely “pointing.” (GO) But even if so, doesn’t pointing matter? If I’m driving along the road and a trusted authority “points” me towards a bridge out, is he not morally culpable?
Pointing has a moral quality. One who points another in a wrong direction does so not out of love, but blatant disregard for Him who is Love.
You rightly speak of a church that is “welcoming.” But what does that mean to you? Your understanding of “welcoming” is suggested by the selective way in which you and others compare our church to a “hospital for sinners." If St. Augustine’s own Confessions doesn’t clear up what he meant (healing from sexual sin), let me respectfully ask: At such “hospitals” (churches), do "doctors" (priests) exist to diagnose the "sickness” (sin)? Are they "prescribing" a path to “healing” (repentance)? Is it actually happening? Are members of the “L.G.B.T. Community” repenting and converting? Where anywhere can we find expression of your desire for this to happen?
In absence of evident interest in real healing, moving people from sin to salvation, how are you not simply using the metaphor to validate a humanistic, impotent church, a social place with religious overtones, where the sick do no more than hang out in the lobby, drink bad coffee and, ultimately, perish eternally? In the Name of Jesus Christ?
Where anywhere in Scripture do we see Jesus neglect to invite sinners to repent? Where anywhere do we find him accept sinful action? In spite of this revelation, even in the shadow of our ecclesial crisis, even in context of the World Meeting of Families (GO), you advocated for L.G.B.T. identification.
Consider this. Would it be acceptable to you if someone gave your World Meeting of Families talk but, for each instance of “L.G.B.T.”, substituted “adultery”? For instance:
“Is it surprising that most adulterous Catholics feel like lepers in the Church?”
“Like any group, adulterers bring special gifts to the church.”
“God loves adulterous people—so should we. And I don’t mean a stingy, grudging, judgmental, conditional, half-hearted love.”
If you did oppose this substitutional use, by your own standard, why couldn’t you be accused of inequality, discrimination, bigotry, and hatred for not being as outspoken about the dignity, proclivity, orientation and identity of adulterous Catholics? What’s the difference?
What’s not at issue is the prevalence or form of misguided “orientations” to sin. We each have our own, without which we wouldn’t need the church. The issue is in uniquely identifying and elevating one particular type of misguided orientation, and as suggested above, validating extramarital-sexual action (sin) on the basis of identity.
If not faith, consider the verdict of nature. For you, and any others for whom revelation may be insufficient, who have a difficult time setting aside precepts of secular humanism, yet are honest in pursuit of demonstrable truth, I appeal to your common sense and the standard of nature.
Plain and simple, if a surgeon is not regarded as a bigot, hateful, discriminatory and the like for having the audacity to put certain body parts back only where they belong, where they are undeniably meant to function, then we ought not object to the proposition that a penis belongs only to a male, and a vagina, only to a female. And that male and female sexuality alone has complementarity of function. That the 23 respective chromosomes of sperm and egg alone, by way of sexual process alone, have the capacity for a new life. This is natural. Suggesting anything else is, by definition, "unnatural."
If no reasonable person would fail in naming the function of a list of body parts, e.g., “eye,” “ear,” “nose,” “liver,” “heart,” etc., why should they change if we were to include “penis” or “vagina”? If we so easily disregard nature and logic, if truth is dictated by desire, what basis have we to question one’s use of the terms "health" and "nutrition” in eating and vomiting?
If our whole is greater than the sum of our parts, can we not agree that our whole ought not be reduced to some of our parts? Can we not regard the common meaning of words sharing same root “gen” with genesis, gender, genitals, each indicating the purpose: generation?
The only “orientation” that really matters is the one we all share: from sin to salvation in Jesus Christ. And this will not be accomplished by our concepts and words, but by availing to Him who IS the Word. Embracing God’s undeniable design of sexual identity. However difficult. Herein is the precisely the purpose of the church, to lead us from sin to salvation in Jesus Christ.
Whether we embrace the lie that we are god, or embrace the underlying truth that God made us for Himself, it is for each of us to decide the meaning of what lies beneath.
"You are all children of the light and children of the day. We do not belong to the night or to the darkness." (1 Thes. 5:5)
