One of the great challenges for new Catholics and those coming back to the faith is the kind of cognitive dissonant tightrope one has to walk to reconcile seemingly disparagent elements of the faith. For the early Christians, especially during the Arian controversy, it was Christological: how can Christ be both man and God? In the post-Constantine era, it was "how are Christians to live as servants of God and subjects of the State?" In our present generation, the tension often comes down to the question of "how can the Church be called Holy when Her body is a rotting quagmire of corruption and filth?" Such a proposal is not only offensive for those who have been touched by the sullied cloth personally, but can often create a visceral gagging on the bone of hypocrisy.
Once when I was doing street evangelization, I encountered a man who held nothing but contempt for the fact that we were out there, trying to spread the Good News of the gospel. It wasn't the Good News, of course, but the fact that we were regarded as agents of the Church, peddling rotten sacks of potatoes as healthy nourishment. It became clear after a few minutes of vitirol that his objections to our being there (and the Church as a whole) were not objective or theoretical in nature, but deeply personal. Although he didn't state it outright, I would wager this was a man who was himself Catholic and who was deeply wounded and scandalized by the abuse crisis within the Church and could not reconcile the reality of this abuse with anything good coming from it. I would even wager he may have been a victim of abuse himself at the hands of the Church.
There is a saying that goes something like this, "Satan takes what is beautiful and tries to make it ugly. God takes what is ugly and makes it beautiful." I see so much beauty in the cleansing power of Christ to forgive sins, to restore our dignity as men, and to welcome us into his Kingdom. And yet, this often comes in the guise of having to look past the abject corruption oozing out of seemingly every pore in the Body of Christ, His Bride the Church here on earth.
This is one of those posts where I'm reticent to "go there," in bringing something to light that may be best hidden or unspoken. I hope to do so delicately, but I may fail in that to convey the point. And the point is this: the smoke of Satan which has infiltrated the Church over the last century has mingled with the filth of the world to the degree that even the most beautiful aspects of Her mission has the potential to be corrupted in the minds of the faithful. Perhaps this is just me, some psychological perversion that I would be wise to keep to myself. For the more innocent among us, it may scandalize. For that, I will apologize in advance and perhaps even warn you not to read further.
The thing people don't realize about the sins of the flesh beyond the obvious is that it perverts our vision of what is true, what is beautiful, and what is real even subconsciously. This is why it's hard to stomach what people like Joseph Sciambra try to convey in graphic detail about gayness--that beyond the Will & Grace persona, homosexuality is an ugly, painful, unnatural, and messy affair. It is also why, when I was evangelizing with him at the Pride festival in San Francisco a few years back, there was an overt religious ethos among the half-naked men gyrating on floats while wearing angel wings next to drag queens dressed as nuns (the so-called "Sisters Of Perpetual Indulgence"). Satan loves to take what is holy and beautiful and make it ugly and profane.
Because of the sexual abuse within the Church, and the atrocities commited by clergy in terms of pederasty and pedophilia, there has been a kind of spiritual and psychic-searing, the way one's eyelids may be fused shut if they get too close to an nine hundred degree oven. In those who have suffered such abuse at the hands of clergy, there is only one word that can qualify it: spiritual murder. It is the death of the soul, because it is a kind of death when one is raped or abused, but at the hands of clergy, it is not only a death but a deformation. How can anyone who has suffered like this be expected to show up for Mass next Sunday and sit through a homily by a man of the cloth without becoming physically ill (which is what Joseph has described experiencing).
This excerpt from Nikos Kazantzakis' Zorba the Greek has stayed with me after reading it decades ago, and may help illustrate this picture of deformation:
"I recalled one dawn when I had chanced upon a butterfly’s cocoon in a pine tree at the very moment when the husk was breaking and the inner soul was preparing to emerge. I kept waiting and waiting; it was slow and I was in a hurry. Leaning over it, I began to warm it with my breath. I kept warming it impatiently until the miracle commenced to unfold before my eyes at an unnatural speed. The husk opened completely; the butterfly came out. But never shall I forget my horror: its wings remained curled inward, not unfolded. The whole of its minuscule body shook as it struggled to spread the wings outward. But it could not. As for me, I struggled to aid it with my breath. In vain. What it needed was to ripen and unfold patiently in sunlight. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to emerge ahead of time, crumpled and premature. It came out undeveloped, shook desperately, and soon died in my palm.
This butterfly’s fluffy corpse is, I believe, the greatest weight I carry on my conscience. What I understood deeply on that day was this: to hasten eternal rules is a mortal sin. One’s duty is confidently to follow nature’s everlasting rhythm."
The sin here is not actually in forcing something to "emerge ahead of time," but that it should never have been forced at all. When innocence is stolen, it can never be brought back to life. It is eternally crippled, and can only be healed by the divine hand who created it in the first place. I don't think the weight of such sin can be overstated. It is why our Lord uses the imagery of a millstone. Millstones are giant. Were it to be tied around one's neck on their way to the bottom of the sea, it wouldn't just be a swift trip down. It would snap your neck like a twig in the first second due to the weight. And that quick death would be a merciful fate when compared to the judgement being rendered after death.
If the priesthood is the image of Christ as servant, it is to be holy. When it is not holy, not true to its calling, it perverts the image of Christ in the minds of the innocent. Such a weight of responsibility should make every man shudder, but especially God's chosen--his priests. The good ones recognize this, and in prayer and fasting, do their best to live out their calling in integrity. But like I said, Satan loves to make what is beautiful and holy, ugly and profane.
Which is why when I witness the humble beauty of the laying on of hands during an ordination, I want to see what is true, what is humbling, what is beautiful and full of grace. But there is also the fallen part of me, all too familiar with our fallen world and the perversity of the flesh, that experiences a flash of what the abuse within the Church has wrought.
Because that very act of the ancient rite of laying on of hands in consecration has been abused and perverted in the laying on of hands of young men and young women, of children by way of the most heinous act of sodomy, which cries to Heaven for vengence.
You don't have to be a father of young children as I am to be repulsed by even the thought of such abuse, whether it occurs in the sacristy, the confessional, or some sordid bath or beach house. And if I were a more innocent person--one who had never swam in the rank waters of pornographic websites and voluntarily viewed things I can never unsee--this kind of flash imagry might not come to mind. I take ownership of that sin, and write about it now not because of how uncommon or rare it is, but of how pervasive and commonplace, how pernicious and virulent. Were I a more innocent person, I may not be so uncomfortable when I see a young priest kneeling before a bishop as the elder lays his hands atop his head at waist level. Were I more ignorant of the sordid realities of what happens in some seminaries, in some chanceries, in some diocesan retreat houses, the thought might never cross my mind.
But I read. I read about the McCarricks--one among many who have taken the image of Christ the High Priest and desecrated it by their lurid acts of sacrilege. And maybe it's better I don't read, keep my head in the sand like an ostrich. So that when I see a laying on of hands in an ordination, I don't "go there," if even for a moment, in my imagination. Can I say there's no grounds for such imaginations? These wolves in sheeps clothing have not only made the unthinkable a reality, but they even deny that they have commited the worst sacrilege--spiritual murder--compounded by their seeming lack of repentence or compunction. They shift blame, or deflect to protect assets. When in reality, they are perverts no parent of good conscience would leave their children with for even a second.
I think it goes without saying that I am blessed to know many good priests, men of honor and integrity that would hold as abhorrent such stains upon the Church just as I do. And many of them know too that as priests, they have a target on their back--not by the culture, or the media, but by Satan himself. They realize that if they are not fortified in prayer and fasting, continually living lives of virtue and accountability, they too may find themselves compromised if not careful. The spiritual war being waged against priests by the agents of evil is a reality. Even good men fall, when they never thought they would. It is no joke. Listen to what Our Lady (of Good Success) warns:
"The devil will work to persecute the ministers of the Lord in every way, working with baneful cunning to destroy the spirit of their vocation and corrupting many. Those who will thus scandalize the Christian flock will bring upon all priests the hatred of bad Christians and the enemies of the One, Holy, Roman Catholic, and Apostolic Church. This apparent triumph of Satan will cause enormous suffering to the good pastors of the Church…and to the Supreme Pastor and Vicar of Christ on earth who, a prisoner in the Vatican, will shed secret and bitter tears in the presence of God Our Lord, asking for light, sanctity, and perfection for all the clergy of the world, to whom he is King and Father.”
“Unhappy times will come wherein those who should fearlessly defend the rights of the Church will instead, blinded despite the light, give their hand to the Church’s enemies and do their bidding. But when [evil] seems triumphant and when authority abuses its power, committing all manner of injustice and oppressing the weak, their ruin shall be near. They will fall and crash to the ground.
“In those times the atmosphere will be saturated with the spirit of impurity which, like a filthy sea, will engulf the streets and public places with incredible license.… Innocence will scarcely be found in children."
As a married man, every act of intimacy with my wife demands chastity of mind, body, and heart. To the extent I am running through fantasies in my mind with strangers, playing things out I have viewed online in the past, I am in sin and sinning against my own flesh--that is, my wife, whom I have vowed to be true and faithful to til death. As a married man, I am called to complete and total chastity. This conversion of heart and mind is hard, but it is not impossible. The Lord can heal our memories. He can keep us present in the marital act. We can cooperate with grace by the exercise of the will with regards to chastity.
For the priest, he must overcome not only his own sins, but must surpass the sins and failings of his predecessors. As the Lord says, "your righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees" (Mt 5:20). “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach" (Mt 23:2-3). "Woe to the world because of scandals. For it must needs be that scandals come: but nevertheless woe to that man by whom the scandal cometh" (Mt 18:7).
What does a good father say when his child is in danger. Don't you lay a hand on him! What does a good Father do when the Lord wishes to multiply his spiritual progeny? He lays hands on him in the rite. What does a spiritual and physical abuser, when he is a man of the cloth, do to corrupt a youth, an innocent. He does just that--lays hands on him. How confusing it must be, how much torment must that innocent endure, to try to reconcile these violations by consecrated hands to keep his spirit in tact! Truly, it is almost beyond one's strength, were it not for the potential for divine healing by the Man whose integrity was never in question--Christ himself--who can make all things new, heal the brokenhearted, and restore dignity to those who have been robbed of it.
Shame on this perverse generation. Shame on the men of God who have been corrupted by Satan and plundered the innocent. I pray they receive their due in God's just Judgement.
But shame on us men, too, who perpetuate this seemingly unending roll of digital film through secret indulgence, through hidden sin. There is no victimless crime, no untouched region of the mind and body when it comes to unchastity. We wonder why not only the world, but the Church is in the state it is in. The smoke of Satan has entered. The only antidote is complete and total chastity, and the development of an absolute abhorrence of sin, as St. Paul says, "let there not be even a HINT of sexual immorality among you" (Eph 5:3).
Heal our minds, Lord, and restore our innocence, so that we do not give what is holy to the dogs. Restore your priesthood, so that we see what is beautiful and holy for what it is, with innocence of heart. Restore our hearts and minds, rip up the soiled carpet of our hidden transgressions, so that we might repent of our misdeeds and perversity rather than burying them and buidling churches upon graveyard of inequity. Let our righteousness exceed those of the scribes and Pharisees, and may our penance atone for their sordid abominations, for the sake of our children, and our priests to come.
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