Priestly Bad Apples

It is an old saying that I have often reminded folks of in the past, that being "don't throw the baby out with the bath water." The meaning behind this simple old saying is that it is the baby which in the end is by far the most important, precious thing. It may be sitting in a pool of filth, scum, and slime. So what? Toss the water, keep the baby.

The same theory can be applied to many things in life, but most especially must always be remembered when dealing with the most important things. One of those most important things is your spiritual life. Christians throughout history have far too often thrown the baby, in this case the Church, out with whatever bath water was mucking things up at any particular time.

In the past, Christians have left the Church, the only one founded by Jesus Christ himself, because they didn't like things that were going on within the hierarchy, or because they didn't believe in some matter of doctrine, or because they had been let down or felt betrayed by some scandal. This is exactly how Protestantism and Orthodoxy began.

The splits, or schisms, within the Church have left many wounds unhealed after centuries, and have left hundreds of millions of true believers in Jesus Christ susceptible to heretical teachings and practices.
 The scars may never fully heal, and the Church may never be truly reunited, until the return of Christ himself in the final days.

There is a lesson to be learned here for Philadelphia-area Catholics in particular who are digesting and reacting to the news this past week of further revelations of sexual abuse of children at the hands of some in the Priesthood. Current priests Charles Englehardt and Edward Avery, former priest James Brennan, teacher Bernard Shero, and sex-abuse investigator Monsignor William Lynn were all charged in the latest chapter of the scandals.

The lesson is that these unholy and abusive actions by people who claimed, to quote the Rev. Joseph Garvin in his homily today at St. Christopher's Church in Somerton "to represent God but who in actuality represented Satan" were not representative of the Church, it's priests, it's teachers, or it's vision. Rather they are, as have been all abusers uncovered in recent years, criminals and deviants who used the Church to destroy Christian lives and fracture the Church itself, Satan's own avowed goal.

Priests, teachers, and other Church representatives who are the actual abusers need to continue to be weeded out and prosecuted. And it is not enough at the current time to simply fall back on the position, as Cardinal Justin Rigali has in his letter to parishioners this week that "..there is no admitted or established abuser in ministry." That is an obvious defensive copout at a time when the Church needs to go on the offensive against it's rogues.

The Catholic Church has promised to, as stated by David Clohessy in today's Philadelphia Inquirer, "remove credibly accused clerics." Clohessy is the executive director of the Chicago-based "SNAP" (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests", and he is absolutely correct when he calls on the Cardinal to identify and suspend accused priests in furtherance of the protection of our precious children.

We as Catholics have a role as elements of this long-standing scandal continue to unfold. We must continue to insist that Church hierarchy aggressively investigate any and all allegations of abuse, be they past or current. We must insist that the Church always err on the side of protecting children in every allegation case. We must also remember to hold ourselves accountable for our own conduct in representing our Church to outsiders as well as to other Catholics.

But perhaps most importantly we must remember to not "throw the baby out with the bath water" in this situation. The Church is still the family and faith founded by Jesus Christ, and as such it is the single most important institution in all of our lives, including our own families. We must stand by the Church, not flee from it. We must pray for and embrace the Church, not abandon it. We must strengthen the Church with our lives and our faith, not allow the devil to weaken it further.

Tough times don't last, tough people do. The Catholic Church has lasted for over two millenia because we are a tough people, that toughness forged on the cross by Christ himself in our name. For the steadfastness in suffering that he undertook for our sakes on that afternoon at Calvary, we must willingly suffer and boldly overcome today.

As of 1995 there were almost a billion Roman Catholics spread throughout the world. As of 2005 there were more than 400,000 Catholic priests serving them. There have been over 4,000 American Catholic priests accused of abuse over the past half century, just 4% of the more than 109,000 American priests serving during that time. There is no way that we are going to allow these Satanic priestly bad apples spoil our entire bushel of a beautiful Church.

It's the 'Hard' That Makes It Great

This past weekend, presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barrack Obama announced that Senator Joe Biden of Delaware would be his running mate. One of the things being touted about Biden is that he is Irish-Catholic. I don't know if this is a harking back to the good ol' JFK days for Dems, or if it is an attempt to paint the Obama-Biden ticket as more mainstream. But in any event, as most real Catholics know, there is a big difference between calling yourself something and actually being that which you label yourself. In recent decades the concept of the 'cafeteria catholic' has emerged. This means that you do some things, like attend Mass, take Communion, send your kids to Catholic schools, and so on, but that you don't follow Church teachings on certain issues. Those certain issues are different for each person, each gets to select whatever part of the faith they want, and discard whatever part of the faith that they do not want. Thus the idea of it being like a cafeteria, you get to pick and choose from available items, ideas, positions, rulings. Problem is, we as the faithful flock do not get to make or interpret Church doctrine or spiritual matters. In most instances, the Church Fathers, especially the Pope, rule on and interpret matters of the faith, and pass along how we should approach these situations. One of the strongest positions that the Church holds is that of being pro-life. For politicians who call themselves Catholic but who want to present themselves as politically liberal, this often means breaking from the Church on this issue, and publicly announcing that they are pro-choice, meaning that they support a woman's decision to pursue an abortion if she so wishes. This is, of course, the wrong position to take. All Catholic politicians should be taking positions such as that taken by Senator Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, who is liberal on most all issues, but who is pro-life in that area. Casey recognizes that this is not only a political litmus test, it is a true moral one as well, and one that he will not sacrifice on the political altar. Nor has he needed to, as he defeated a popular and seasoned opponent in Republican Rick Santorum to win election to the U.S. Senate last year despite being one of the few Democrats with the courage to take a pro-life position. Now the leading Dems are coming under fire from Church leaders for their public positions. The Archbishop of Washington D.C. has come out against Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who stated that the history of the Church does not show that it is always against abortion. Archbishop Donald Wuerl responds that the Church teaching has not changed in 2,000 years and that Pelosi is simply incorrect. The Dems then named Biden as their Veep nominee, a man who calls himself Catholic but who supports abortion and claims similarly that the Church position has changed over the millenia. Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, in whose city the Dems are hosting their nominating convention this week, in response stated: “I presume that his integrity will lead him to refrain from presenting himself for communion, if he supports a false ‘right’ to abortion.” The fact is that if you are going to call yourself Catholic, then you should try to follow the teachings of the Church as much as possible. You should certainly never bend your morals for political considerations, in effect selling out your soul for your elected position. If you don't want to obey the rules, then leave the Church. There is always some church out there that has similarly bent their morality to that which you are seeking. Being a Catholic isn't always easy. As Tom Hanks said in the film 'A League of Their Own' regarding baseball: "It's not supposed to be easy. If it was easy, everyone would do it. It's the 'hard' that makes it great."

Baptism 9-1-1

It's Sunday once again, so time for the weekly spirituality/religious topic. I hope that you got yourself to Church today. If not, if it's not too late, turn off your computer and get there. But that was last week's topic, let's move on to the new one. Not the usual subject of conversations, I have amazingly found myself for two straight days now among two different groups of people involved in conversations regarding 'emergency baptism', and these conversations have caused me to look into the facts behind my beliefs. I suppose those conversations were not too amazing, considering that my eldest daughter is about to give birth to my 2nd grandchild, and that one of my nieces gave birth last year and is about to have her child baptized. My first grandchild, my granddaughter Elysia, was not formally baptized in Church, despite my wife and I trying to encourage my daughter to do so. She simply feels that it is something that my granddaughter should seek for herself when she gets older, not something that should be 'forced on her' or 'decided for her'. We love our daughter, and have no choice but to simply agree to disagree. Well, that's really not the only choice. I had heard of 'emergency baptism', the idea that any Christian could baptize someone simply by blessing them with water and saying a prayer over them, as long as the person doing the baptizing was sincere in the danger to the soul of the baptized. That was how I felt on the day that I was alone with my granddaughter and simply took some tap water, made the sign of the cross on her head and said "I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit", held my hand on her head and said a prayer for her. But in the end, is she now baptized? The Roman Catechism defines baptism as 'the sacrament of regeneration by water in the word.' Pope Eugene IV is often seen as one of the best authorities on the subject within the Catholic Church, having said that "Baptism holds the first place among the sacraments, because it is the door of the spiritual life; for by it we are made members of Christ and incorporated with the Church." He goes on to say that "The effect of the sacrament is the remission of all sin, original and actual." Basically, the sacrament of Baptism is the formal acceptance into the Church and into a Christian life that wipes away the 'Original Sin' of Adam & Eve in the garden of Eden (a topic for another day.) Christ Himself instituted the sacrament by commanding his disciples to do it, and spoke in his own words of its importance: "Unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter into the Kingdom of God." The usual important matters concerning a legitimate baptism are what are known as its 'matter and form': what is used to perform the baptism, and how the baptism is performed. Water is the only legitimate liquid to be used by all accounts, and so it seems that I have done the right thing in satisfying matter. The requisite form is the words used by Christ Himself to baptize, the same words that I wrote earlier here that I spoke over Elysia as I baptized her. So it would seem that I satisfied form. It is written in New Advent, the online Catholic Encyclopedia, that 'if the proper matter and form be used and the one conferring the sacrament really intends to perform what the Church performs, the baptism is undoubtedly valid." With validity assured, I am happy to report that my granddaughter has indeed been baptized. Not only that, but she has been twice, since in one of the conversations that I had the past couple days my own father revealed that he had done the same thing with her. Lucky girl, having been baptized by her grandfather and great-grandfather. We now look forward to the birth of a new little miracle, and if necessary will again initiate that child's baptism. But perhaps this time we can nudge mom and dad into a more formal ceremony. Either way, within the Catholic Church, while it would be preferable to baptize a child formally within the Church, a 'conditional' or 'emergency baptism' is perfectly acceptable for the forgiveness of Original Sin and admittance to God's Kingdom. Have a great Lord's day, and as always, the title of this posting is a link to further information on the topic.