Seven Points of Light

Navigating the clergy sexual abuse crisis with the light of faith

08/19/2018

Ephesians 5:15-20 Brothers and sisters: Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not continue in ignorance, but try to understand what is the will of the Lord.  And do not get drunk on wine, in which lies debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and playing to the Lord in your hearts, giving thanks always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.

Every Sunday when we come to Mass we not only want spiritual food to sustain us for the journey (so we will not faint), we also long for the light of faith to guide our footsteps (so we will not fall). And our need for light grows in inverse proportion to the darkness of this dreary world. The darker outside, the more we need light inside. Pope Francis wrote an entire encyclical on the light of faith, called “Lumen fidei.” The pope begins his reflections saying: “In John’s Gospel, Christ says of himself: ‘I have come as light into the world, that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness’ (John 12:46)” (Lumen fidei, 1). The Catholic Church is facing some intensely dark days in the wake of the clergy sexual abuse scandal, with recent revelations from a Pennsylvania grand jury. The news has brought the ugly truth to light, but it has plunged many Catholics into the darkness of doubt and discouragement. We need the light of faith to shine now more brightly than ever.

Today’s homily will be a little different than the usual one. Instead of focusing exclusively on a single Scripture, I want to shed the light of faith on the clergy scandal. How should we wrestle with this as a people of faith? In particular I want to offer you seven points of light so that your faith might not be diminished but rather burn more brightly for the whole world to see. There’s no need to enumerate the details of the abuse scandal because the news coverage has been ubiquitous and unrelenting. Besides, it makes me physically sick to think about it; therefore, let’s focus on the light, not the darkness.

The first point of light is to face our feelings and validate them. We will never get to deeper faith without first facing our feelings, no matter how raw. It’s okay to feel angry, to express frustration, to be sad or even cry. We may pound our fist in rage, or want to blame someone, or demand justice and punishment for the perpetrators. Or, we may just feel numb, and nothing at all. I urge you to talk to a trusted friend or even a counselor to get your feelings out on the table, verbalize them and don’t keep them inside and allow them to fester like a wound turning gangrene. These feelings are natural because the Church as a community is grieving a loss; Catholics have lost implicit trust in church authority. From now on the laity and the clergy will relate to each other on new and different terms, and they will be better terms. Trust will have to be earned instead of expected. And that is a point of light.

The second point of light is our love for the Church, and a desire to defend her. Too often we conflate and confuse priests and the Church, as if they were interchangeable. But the Church is much larger than the clergy alone. There was a tendency in the past to put priests on a pedestal and see them as super-Catholics, while lay people were sort of second-class Catholics. But that is an unhealthy perspective and even an erroneous one. What makes someone a first-class Catholic in the Church is baptism; priesthood is a ministry of service to the whole Church. Priests are supposed to serve the laity; not the other way around. Simply being ordained a priest does not make a man more holy and the recent scandals have made that abundantly and embarrassingly obvious. But we do love and defend the Catholic Church, the Bride of Christ, for she is bigger and more beautiful than the clergy alone. You can still love Christ’s Church, and defend her, even if you are no longer enamored of Christ’s clergy, or feel you can defend them. And that is a point of light.

The third point of light is that every priest’s vocation is rooted in an irrevocable call from Christ. And Jesus does not make mistakes. Bishop Taylor points out in his pastoral letter that Jesus called Judas as one of the twelve apostles, even though Judas turned traitor. The failure of an apostle (or bishop) should not make us question or doubt the wisdom and love of the Lord who called him. Don’t misunderstand: Christ’s call grants no one blanket permission to practice ministry, and accused and convicted clergy should be removed immediately from active ministry. Nevertheless, it is going too far to say a particular priest should never have been called or that his ministry was absolutely fruitless. An ancient Latin maxim protects the people of God and ensures they receive the sacraments even at the hands of unworthy apostles, ex opere operato. That literally means “from the work worked,” put differently, the efficacy of the sacraments - their ability to give you grace - does not depend on the holiness of the priest, but rests entirely on the holiness of Christ. The Good Shepherd never ceases to feed, protect and enlighten his sheep. And that is a point of light.

The fourth point of light is that history is on the side of the Catholic Church. Jesus promised in Mt. 16:18 that the gates of hell would not prevail against his Church. And they have not. And they will not. When we focus too narrowly on the sex abuse scandal alone – forgetting the past two thousand years – we may think this is the end and we will never recover from this. And to be sure, this scandal is horrible! But that attitude would make us guilty of a sort of prejudice of the present. To think that no other time has been as good as the present, or to conclude that no other period has been as bad as the present is chronological snobbery. The truth is we are on a continuum of time, and God holds all time – past, present and future – in his loving hand. God has seen this scandal coming and he has also seen to its solution. The Church will survive long after this scandal has subsided. Jesus said so. And that is a point of light.

The fifth point of light is one of my absolute favorite Scripture passages, Romans 5:20. St. Paul – who caused plenty of scandal himself – said, “Where sin abounds there grace abounds all the more.” Have you experienced this? I have. When I commit some serious sin, I feel horrible. But when I go to confession, I feel twice as good! Salvation is always bigger than sin. In other words, sin and scandal, evil and error will never be the last words. Rather, love and mercy, justice and peace will be the last words, and they will be the loudest and loveliest words. Grace will always out-smart sin. And that is a point of light.

The sixth point of light is to ask what we can do to respond to this scandal. Today’s second reading gives a great answer: “Brothers and sisters: Watch carefully how you live, not as foolish persons but as wise, making the most of the opportunity, because the days are evil.” You cannot control what priests and bishops do, but you can control what you do. And you can try to be a saint every day. More saints is what the Church needs in 2018 and what she needs in every age. Scott Hahn wrote: “The crisis of the Church is not reducible to the lack of good catechists, liturgies, theologians and so forth. It’s a crisis of saints…So, with Pope John Paul II, I urge you, ‘Make yourselves saints, and do so quickly’” (A Father Who Keeps His Promises, 262). And a saint is a point of light.

And the seventh point of light is Randy Travis’ song simply called “Point of Light.” One verse is especially apropos to this scandal: “There is a darkness that everyone must face, / It wants to take what’s good and fair, / And lay it all to waste. / And that darkness / Covers everything in sight / Until it meets a single point of light.” That single point of light is ultimately Jesus Christ, and all the other points of light converge back into Christ, and find in him their source and summit. If you walk by the light of faith in the Savior, you will not stumble in the darkness in this scandal.

Praised be Jesus Christ!