On the Recent Catholic Scandal

Almost seventeen years ago I stood with a colleague in the waiting room of our ER and watched live TV as the second jetliner crashed into the World Trade Center, making it immediately clear that this was no accident but an act of terrorism, almost certainly religious. I turned to my Mennonite friend and observed, “This is very bad for us believers. This will be used to impugn all people of faith.” Which indeed it has been by the New Atheists and the media in the years since.

Now we come to discover that for many years there have been priests who have been abusing our children and young adults, and again my heart sinks as it contemplates the deep depravity of mankind, and anticipates all the generalizations that will be made as a result of this discovery. Like 9-11, it is not a matter merely of anger at perpetrators and sorrow for victims, but also of the shame and dishonor brought to God and to all those who follow Him, even to those who are not and have never been pederasts. Already the news tells us of emptying Catholic churches and calls for the Pope’s resignation.

But those believers who think this is only a Catholic issue are either naive or have very short memories, and do not understand the larger narrative, which is that all people of faith are hypocrites, and especially Christians, and in direct proportion to their commitment to religious truth.

Many Christians have already begun to distance themselves from identification with the Church as a body. Individual spirituality is “in” (and safe), while commitment to a church is very “out”. “I follow Jesus but I don’t like the Church.”

There were things about my father that I did not like. There were things about my mother that I did not like. When I was an adolescent, I would pretend I wasn’t with them, and would walk a distance ahead or behind them at the mall. When I grew up I realized they were decent, good people with flaws like every one else.

There is a sense today of terminal disappointment in the Church, as if we expected much better and are surprised to find such sin in our midst. This betrays a very unfortunate ignorance of the nature of the Church, and of what we have been explicitly told to expect.

The entire Old Testament is a prolonged and lacerating account of the failures of a people called by God’s name, and especially of her leaders. Love David? So did God—but David was a liar and adulterer and he murdered one of his most loyal friends. Like Solomon? A committed womanizer who built alters to strange gods. This depravity is in fact one of the main points of the Old Testament, the other and more important being that God would ultimately send One who would be perfect and be the only perfect King, prophet, and priest.

In the New Testament, we again see the leaders of the Church sin and fail, and particular churches sin and fail, but not the Church as a whole, which, it teaches, is the body of Christ on earth. We are furthermore explicitly taught to expect deceit and corruption, sensuality and greed within the church. We are warned to beware of it, to search it out and try always to counter it and keep the church as free from these individuals as possible. We are to expect such “wolves in sheep’s clothing.” This is in fact where that term came from in the first place!

The second letter of Peter is one of several warnings about this. In fact, he thinks the warning so important that he makes it one of his last words to the church before dying. “Beware of lawless people among you, be careful not to be destabilized by them.” In chapters 2 and 3 he characterizes these dangerous people: “There will be false teachers among you…many will follow their sensuality…and in their greed will exploit you. They are bold and willful. They have eyes full of adultery. They entice unsteady souls. They entice by sensual passions of the flesh. They promise them freedom but are themselves slaves of corruption.” All this is said in warning about people within the visible church, even teachers within it. Our surprise to find them among us simply reflects either our ignorance of the scriptures or our failure to think they apply to us today.

They do apply to us. These scriptures also tell us that we, the body of Christ, are at war with powers who wish to destroy us, and especially destroy our message of the gospel. In every war, especially today, an important tactic is compromising the other side’s leadership. Many today think the Russians may have done so to our President, who himself may have done so to his opponents. We are all sinners and prone to corruption; the enemy will always find a way in among us, unfortunately.

So, what to do? It goes without saying (and is not the point of this essay) that we must love and comfort and seek healing and justice for victims, wherever and whoever they may be. But if we also leave or reject the body of Christ, his Church, then we have handed a victory to those who do not love the gospel, who would destroy the body of Christ on earth. No, we must confess and mourn our sin and the sins of these fallen or corrupt leaders (Blessed are those who mourn), confess that we are powerless to fix ourselves (Blessed are the poor in spirit), corporately turn ourselves toward Him who can heal us (Blessed are the meek), and consciously rely upon HIs sacrifice and wisdom and not upon our own goodness or wisdom (Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.). We must obey the many biblical commands to carefully vet our leaders, especially as regards their character, its strengths and weaknesses, and remove those who have fallen or are found to be corrupt. We must take very seriously the tendency of every man and woman to fall when tempted, and pray (as taught by the Lord) that He would, “Lead us not into temptation”, and then take measures to avoid it.

Our physical bodies are always, every minute, scanning themselves for aberrant cells and invaders, and removing them when found, then seeking to heal whatever damage was done. They do not dissolve into individual cells when attacked from within. Neither must we.