Hierarchy and Lowerarchy

Learning how to love the sinner and hate the sin in this crisis

09/13/2018

Luke 6:27-38 Jesus said to his disciples: "To you who hear I say, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. To the person who strikes you on one cheek, offer the other one as well, and from the person who takes your cloak, do not withhold even your tunic. "Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven. Give and gifts will be given to you; a good measure, packed together, shaken down, and overflowing, will be poured into your lap. For the measure with which you measure will in return be measured out to you."

Last week a priest friend of mine made an astute observation about the clergy abuse scandal. He remarked that while the scandal in 2002 focused on the failure of priests in protecting minors, the present scandal zeros in on bishops and their blunders in both protecting children and punishing priests. You might say the bishops are the “hierarchy” while the priests are the “lowerarchy.” Both levels of church leadership have evinced egregious failures in governing the faithful. As you know, the suffix “archy” means to rule, to govern. Now, it is true that Christians are called to love the sinner even as we hate the sin, but in the case of clergy sexual abuse, I am afraid we have not hated the sin enough, and we have been too eager to love the sinner. Indeed, the ones we have failed to love the most are the victims who have suffered, and still do, in irremediable ways.

Many years ago I read an insightful essay by C. S. Lewis called “The Trouble with X.” He argued that while we work to correct other people’s faults, we not overlook our own. Our own sins are the ones we are in the best position to correct, and really the only ones we can correct. Lewis wrote: “That is the next step in wisdom – to realize that you also are just that sort of person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes and plans have shipwrecked on theirs.” When I read that line, we I felt exactly the same as I did at the end of the movie “Sixth Sense,” when Bruce Willis finally figures out he, too, is one of those dead people the little boy is seeing and helping. It was memorable moment of self-awareness. The one single person toward whom we find no difficulty at all in loving the sinner but hating the sin is the one staring back in the mirror, ourselves. And there, too, we fall woefully short of hating the sin enough - meaning we excuse ourselves too easily - just like with the clergy abuse crisis.

Jesus speaks categorically and clearly about not judging others in the gospel of Luke, but we should be careful not to take his words too far. Our Lord teaches: “Stop judging and you will not be judged. Stop condemning and you will not be condemned. Forgive and you will be forgiven.” But Jesus did not therefore mean, “live and let live,” or the trite slogan, “I’m okay, you’re okay.” Recall how relentlessly Jesus excoriated the Jewish leadership, both hierarchy and lowerarchy, Pharisees and scribes, calling them “white washed tombs filled with dead men’s bones” in Matthew 23. In other words, while Jesus loved the sinner – he cannot help himself since he is the love of the Father made flesh – he was nevertheless merciless on the sin itself. That delicate balance of both judgment and mercy, accountability and compassion, should govern our attitude in approaching the clergy sexual abuse crisis and in assessing our own personal sins and failures. Love the sinner, yes, but truly and tirelessly hate the sin, especially when we find sin in our own hearts.

May I ask you to pray for all the victims of this abuse crisis, those for whom we have lacked enough love to take their claims seriously? But I also beg your prayers for the whole Church, in particular for the priests and bishops, the lowerarchy and hierarchy, that we not love the sinner too much and hate the sin too little. We have been guilty of that lately. We are enduring a time of profound crisis, to be sure, but it also holds the hope of being a moment of great renewal. We are witnessing the dawning of the awareness that no one is above the law, not even those entrusted with administering the laws of God. Everyone is being held accountable in the court of public opinion, that is, in the social media and in the printed press.

But I would also suggest to you, like C. S. Lewis urged, even if we somehow eschew the court of public opinion, we still drag ourselves into the court of personal opinion. That we be our own toughest critic, our own judge, jury and executioner, and relentlessly hate our own sins while we love the sinner in the mirror. And that goes for the hierarchy and the lowerarchy, too.

Praised be Jesus Christ!