The recent events in the news have left us all a little shaken and perhaps more than a little discouraged. There is a particular kind of pain and sense of betrayal that we experience when our leaders in the church fail us so unbelievably. It’s hard for me not to feel immense shame and disappointment (not to mention rage) when I think of the conduct of some of my brother priests.
So now what are we to do? Sometimes the only good that can come from times such as these is that they can bring us back to some basic truths, like the truth that only God is God. Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Yet how easy is it for us to confuse God’s fidelity with that of His servants?
If these clergymen have failed us, then God has failed us too (or so we conclude). But we can never confuse the evils of men with the goodness of God. Priests are weak human beings. They are called to be in the person of Christ. But that doesn’t mean they are Christ. Only Christ is Christ; only God is God. No matter how disappointing it is when a priest falls (and it is), our faith was never meant to be in that priest. My faith is not in any priest (myself least of all); it is in the Priesthood of Jesus Christ. I am ashamed of my brother priests, and yet I remain proud to be a priest; because my priesthood is a sharing in the priesthood of Christ Himself, and that is always something to be proud of. The sins of priests don’t change the holiness of the priesthood, and the priesthood is holy because it belongs to Christ, not to any one of its sinful members.
The only advice I can give during these disturbing times is to keep your eyes on Christ (again, back to the basics). Unfaithful priests don’t change God’s faithfulness. He hasn’t given up on us; we cannot give up on Him. For myself, I can only ask God to make me worthy of His priesthood and to use my priesthood in any way He can to make reparation for the sins of my brother priests. Let us all keep our eyes on the High Priest, not on the low priests.
Pax Vobiscum
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