Pederasty rains its toxic stink on our Church

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/072318.cfm
MI 6:1-4, 6-8
MT 12:38-42

We shudder and shake with that awful mix of angered shame at our Church’s behavior. The Cardinal McCarrick tale of protected sexual perversion by authorities throughout the institution of the Catholic Church hurts not just because of this one rancid spoil of sin. McCarrick’s reign of terror and misery upon the vulnerable, covered up by so many, reveals the probability of more, many more others, who are like him.

The pre-repentant Ninevites have found a camaraderie of sinful compatriots. Can our Church leadership also be saved by the mercy of God? No one else will do it. Rather, it seems, the innocent need to escape from them in case God’s judgment resembles Sodom’s doom. 

McCarrick’s toxic spray has rained invisibly upon the entire Church for decades, an evil allowed by both collaborators and the fearful, to fuel perversion. The ilk of McCarrick surely exists elsewhere in our holiest of environs. Their drizzle of caustic sin permeates all of Christian leadership, like nuclear fallout. Amazing to me, I may not be exaggerating. The white ash of this one volcanic explosion floats in the clouds above us. The erupted and concealed sins of many like him by a host of failed shepherds now circles the earth. Grace from the blessings of our failed ordained, how many we cannot be sure, arrive tinged with disease. The deleterious effects of complicit protection of ravenous wolves, if unabated, will be fatal.

What are the laity to do? Prayer and pleading to God for intervention top the list, rather than the probable revolutionary responses that seem inevitable. How did God attend to the citizens of Nineveh? He sent a prophet.

Who is the Jonah for our Church today? Whom will God send to preach convincingly to our hierarchy that their failures bring deserved and horrible peril upon them. Ultimately, the laity, a partially innocent sheepfold, will be added to the damaged young men under the care of our seminaries and rectories. Repentance must be exacted from all who have participated, if it is not volunteered. We need a hesitant, yet belligerent and angry prophet, one willingly sacrificed into the belly of a whale, vomited back up, and then courageously sent to warn of the impending demise of clerical authority. Only repentance, the public bow for mercy, will save them and us. 

Hmmm. Wait a minute. Prophets have railed like this for decades. Haven’t there already been many of these, both laity and annointed ones who have warned the Church? 

Beginning 30 years ago journalists posted the possible upending of the clerical purity of the Catholic Church. Victims and activists — most who were prodded rather than volunteered — outlined the offenses. Granted, the lawsuits and feeding frenzy of the legal system quickly outpaced the reported feasting of the offenders. Appearances of ignominy from the Church aside, the Catholic wheels seemed to move forward even though plodding at arcane speeds. Reluctant, it still judiciously attended to the blanched reputation of its celibate clerics. “Whew,” we exhaled in relief. The Church might weather this major defeat of leadership, exhibited from a tiny number of damaged holy men. Our sinful clerics were awful, but only a nominal and comparative “normal” minority. They had secretly slithered into the church’s institutional ranks. In the cleanup calumny was avoided, but the practice of sinful, predatory priests would not abide.

And, then. And next, rather, a further serpent pit of slithering snakes revealed themselves still operative. Oh dear. Really? 

Not only was there another den, there are tunnels. Our beloved and recalcitrant authorities in the Church have been found out. While voicing dismayed chagrin, behind the curtain powerful people have been feeding and protecting imperial snakes in their ranks — for decades. Justifications of acceptable percentages no longer sound reasonable. The collateral damage seeps into the soiled shoes of every cleric. Apparently, bishops, archbishops and cardinals, along with corporal low-ranking priests, have waded complicit along the shores of an ocean of sin. So, rather than a few bad apples, a new level of sinfulness has infected the barrel of the ordained. Complicity includes everyone who has turned their head. Who remains untouched? Complacency, which seemed to pass by decades ago, simply turned into deceit. Complicit participation in covering up the sins of their peers merely shields the ordained like putting scarves on a pox. Who is innocent, we wonder? 

My own heart's dark places saddens me. Holiness has taken another hit. 

The shrugging and stammering of criminal activity under the flashlights of the hierarchy's own police condemns so many. The language coming out of the questioned bishops is rife with legaleeze and huffy surprise.

Lord Jesus, alarm our faithful priesthood. Not in defense, but in penance. We cannot abandon them. Have mercy!

None have yet to cover themselves in sackcloth and ashes. None admits their own corroborated sanctuary of the predators. We wait, biting our fingernails. Still, no one cries out in fear, calling out ashamedly to God.

Jonah warned the Ninevites they had only 40 days. Are our church’s authorities moving past 30 years now? Or has it been longer? How close towards a generous 40 years of warning have they come? And, were the many prophets of warning over these past 30 odd years just ignored and waved away? Will this latest lightening bolt portend proper fear of the oncoming storm? Our questions have no end.

The pain and shock from the betrayal by Catholic bishops and cardinals regarding their knowledge and protection of Cardinal McCarrick rattles both the best and worst of us. How could so many elevated clerics allow a serial pederast, a sexual predator of those in his care, to freely enjoy his perversions? Too many had to turn their eyes away. The rewards and ruling gavel given to McCarrick in the arena of pedaphelia and pederasty dissolve the compassionate restraints of everyone. Once concerned for the welfare of the clerical Church, we are now simply aghast.

Decades of reports and investigative confirmations clearly condemn McCarrick as a sexual exploiter of young men. Many other sexual offenses bend us over further in pain. The smallest windows of his innocence have been slammed shut. And now the fingers of dozens, likely hundreds, of bishops and cardinals are caught in the jams of the shuttered doors on any claims of ignorance and blamelessness. 

Jonah was sent to warn Nineva of it’s impending doom. It had only 40 days for the city of over 100,000 to repent. Were all of them guilty of high crimes? Or, were they all simply complicit. The sin? Rampant sexual perversion is the likely answer, akin to the failings of Sodom. Jonah believed his predicted destruction of Nineva and the warning of their downfall would be ignored. Who would listen to him? He expected their annihilation. 

Many commentators have imagined that even the rats abandoned Nineva. And then, Jonah’s preaching somehow succeeded. Jonah had been so sure of the Ninevite’s sinfulness that their full and complete repentance flew him into a rage. They deserved what was coming to them! Why did God save them?

Can we imagine such a scenario for our Church? Can we envision our Church rebooting into public purity after the lot of them, and us, fall to our knees? Many are enraged over the hierarchy, calling for the complete removal of bishops within earshot and zip codes of McCarrick and his crony crowd’s history of addresses. Even a worldwide repentance would not soothe their rage. I’m not sure how many of us will wear sackcloth to save our Church.

Our church documents describe this situation: “The Dogmatic Constitution on the Church states that ‘While Christ, “holy, blameless, unstained” (Heb. 7:26) knew no sin (see 2 Cor. 5:21), and came only to expiate the sins of the people (cf. Heb. 2:17), the Church, containing sinners in its own bosom, is at one and the same time holy and always in need of purification and it pursues unceasingly penance and renewal’ (LG §8). (Fourth Agreed Statement of the Disciples of Christ-Roman Catholic International Commission for Dialogue)

Some sincerely believe that this condemnation will pass and the faithful ranks of the pews will be unaffected. What about penance and renewal, though? The conclusion will be that the infected folks who both participated and turned a blind eye to McCarrick simply failed at their jobs. The sincerity of those who still imagine such a scenario forget the disgusting order-follower defenses at the Nazi trials. Germany still shivers at it’s own history.

Unfortunately, the den of snakes where McCarrick lived includes many other slithering sinners. In the midst of the past 30 years of policy and political uprooting sexual perversion has continued unabated. Sorry, but the prosecutors have already completed enough of their work to convince any jury. The defense of sin among these men will only contribute toward a more hurried rampant and unabashed complicit behavior toward furthering pederasty.

Regardless of homosexuality’s acquiescence and normalization in secular politics, and how we view that sinfulness against both scripture and documents, within the church the predatory harvesting of young seminarians into active homosexual lifestyles remains abhorrent sin. At the least, it is a horrifying abuse of power that has consequences. Even the lawyers are offended.

We know that the devil has significant domain in the weak hearts of all men and women. The weakness is ours. We daily, probably hourly, call upon the Holy Spirit to wed our wills to him. Our faithful family of believers, whom the Spirit joins us with in his gathering, ardently desires to assist us in rejecting sin. 

Among the holiest of religious men, the devil’s domain should not be allowed to prosper. Certainly. The unimaginable assistance, even if woefully delivered and hidden with disgust, describes an ugly reality. This is not the fault of the pew, or of the secular world. Until now. Now that we know the truth we must engage as companions to the holy men, and arrive with sackcloth and ashes to share. Until this viral, caustic moment we could have supposed only the fault of our institutional hall monitors and those who traffic there. 

What would God have us do now? Leave? Rail in protest? Cry? 

Again, we refer to the 2009 document on the Presence of Christ in the Church where the laity exercise “their priesthood through reception of the sacraments, prayers and thanksgiving, and lives of holiness, self-denial, and charity. On the other hand, the ministerial priesthood of the ordained is described as different from the common priesthood ‘in essence and not simply in degree’ because it ‘forms and governs the priestly people’ and ‘brings about the Eucharistic sacrifice’ (LG §10). It exists to foster and nourish the common priesthood of all of the baptized.

Our faith remains rich. Our doctrines remain true. Our Lord remains divine. Our institution, however, has been compromised. Our resolve in Christ's teachings have become inflamed, but our confidence in the Church has been frayed very close to nakedness. Pray.

The bright light of Jesus shines through the royal priesthood of the laity (1 Pet. 2:9). This awful rendering of our Church should not ruin our faith. Some unknown number of Jesus’ apostolic and anointed that exercise their priesthood faithfully must take the staff from the diseased. 

We pray and stay under the wings of the Holy Spirit as this turmoil rains upon us.