Various declarations of departure from the Catholic Church, especially because of the sexual abuse of children and accusations of cover-up, have come with strong moral arguments. Who wants to be part of....? I get that.
But sitting at Mass this morning, I had a perverse thought. In a very good sermon on Christ the King (would you believe it?), G.K. Chesterton was quoted: (appoximately) "Do people who deny original sin, believe in the universality of the Immaculate Conception."
In the vacant moments between the end of the sermon, the collection, and the offertory procession contemplating Chesterton's joke, I was confronted by a devilish question:
Did I think, she asked in a whispery voice, that American Catholics who are leaving the Church over child sexual abuse ought to leave the United States over the starvation of 85,000 Yemeni children? After all, she said, U.S. cooperation with the Saudi bombing of Yemen and the interdiction of humanitarian relief has led to those deaths. Why aren't American Catholics morally troubled by that? Why aren't they leaving for Canada?
What does that have to do with Original Sin? Chesterton also said (approximately) that original sin is a theological truth with reams of empirical evidence. True, in the United States as in the Catholic Church. What is the moral difference for those exiting the Church but not the U.S.?
The congregation was duly incensed, and I snapped back to attention.
I have always assumed that the underlying reason (perhaps "unconscious" or at least unarticulated) that people leave the Catholic Church over issues like the abuse crisis is a loss of belief that the claims the Catholic Church makes about itself are true. Could something like the abuse crisis happen in the "one true church" established by Christ, with a designated human representative of Christ on Earth (the pope) who is guided by the Holy Spirit and possesses infallibility in questions of faith and morals? Is the pope really the designated successor to Christ, and are the bishops successors to the apostles? If people answer those questions "yes," then I don't think they would leave the Church. My assumption is that the Catholics who leave are fundamentally disillusioned about the nature of the Church and would answer those kinds of questions "no."
ReplyDeleteIt is quite a different matter to leave the Church over the abuse crisis than to leave the United States over something like our government's support of the war in Yemen. We are not expected to agree with the US Government, nor do we look to it for moral guidance. One may even reasonably remain in the US (even as a citizen) while believing our form of government is terribly flawed and fundamentally unjust. Paying one's taxes, or even voting, is not considered to be actively supporting all the actions of the government.
As a kind of aside, the idea that original sin is somehow self-evident is only at all reasonable only insofar as human individuals are not morally perfect. The Catholic Church still clings to the idea that the explanation for this lack of perfection is that our two (literal) "first parents" committed some kind of sin, resulting in "the fall." That such is the reason human beings are not morally perfect is about as close to being impossible to believe as any Catholic teaching I can think of.
About the two literal "first parents", as I understand it, belief in that isn't obligatory, even though many Catholics do believe in a literal Genesis account. Many of us take the point of view that it is an allegory.
DeleteIsn't it, "one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church"? Where is the "true." History suggests that claims of "never makes mistakes," "never sins," "always does the right thing," are untrue. The human capacity for doing wrong lives in all institutions, civil and religious.
ReplyDeleteDavid: "One may even reasonably remain in the US (even as a citizen) while believing our form of government is terribly flawed and fundamentally unjust." Why wouldn't this apply to the Church as well?
I agree that "the human capacity for doing wrong lives in all institutions..." Where are we going to go to escape that?
DeleteWhy do people leave the Church? Why do they leave a marriage?
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that most people don't articulate it beyond thinking, it's boring, it's a bother, it's annoying, it's not making me happy, it's not living up to my expectations.
Leaving the Church is easier than divorce; don't have to pack up, move away, pay a fee or fine, or even explain yourself to anyone. At least not in this life.
Saying they're leaving because of the sex abuse scandal is a handy way of making dropping out look like a thoughtful moral choice.
I don't think most Americans make decisions based on moral convictions. They make decisions based on social norms. Certainly true for me most of the timetime, anyway.
Do people leave the United States? My wife has been threatening (in a joking way), since we were married in 1988 and probably before, to move to Canada whenever anything happens here that seems contrary to what we believe to be good and true. In recent years, I think the joke has become more strained.
ReplyDeleteYes, people leave the United States and move to Canada. Heard of a family that has--just the other evening. But they weren't Catholics so they didn't have to leave the church too.
ReplyDeleteI'm staying in the US and the Church in the very unlikely hope that I can change things for the better. Hier stehe ich. Besides, if I really need to get away from Americans, there are still places in America I can go to do that.
ReplyDeleteI can see leaving the Church, which claims to be God's authority on earth and offers the laity no say in its administration, than leaving the U.S., where we have some collective influence.
ReplyDeleteIn any case, I'm past the age where most countries will take me as a landed emigrant.
Isn't it, "one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church"? Where is the "true."
ReplyDeleteContrary to many unfounded interpretations, therefore, the change from “est” to “subsistit” does not signify that the Catholic Church has ceased to regard herself as the one true Church of Christ. Link
This foundation in Christ makes us sisters and brothers. It is the basis for being the one, true church of Christ, filled with love for the poor, the marginalized, trusting God and in the hope of his coming kingdom. Link
"The One True Church,” by Richard John Neuhaus
Lesson 12 — The Marks and Attributes of the Church [Baltimore Catechism]
152. Which is the one true Church established by Christ?
The one true Church established by Christ is the Catholic Church.
And other sheep I have that are not of this fold. Them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd. (John 10:16)
153. How do we know that the Catholic Church is the one true Church established by Christ?
We know that the Catholic Church is the one true Church established by Christ because it alone has the marks of the true Church.
Holy Father, keep in thy name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we also are. (John 17:11)
I'm grateful to David for the link to the Neuhaus essay. It's well worth reading. It may be worth recalling that Neuhaus was formerly a Lutheran pastor before becoming a Catholic priest, and after swimming the Tiber, gave the remainder of his life to ecumenism. I sense both realism and experience in his views in the essay.
DeleteI would say that the Baltimore Catechism Q&A is dated inasmuch as it was written before Vatican II with its emphasis on ecumenism, some of which Neuhaus highlights in his essay.
For purposes of this conversation, we might even ask whether Neuhaus and ecumenism is dated: we're discussing, not the historical separation of an entire 'ecclesial community' from the Catholic church, but rather a single individual like Henneberger who basically gives up on associating with the church as a social entity.
That problem apparently was not significant enough in the early 1960s to warrant much (or any?) of the Council's attention, but I'd argue that it ranks as one of the church's two or three greatest challenges today. It accounts for the decline in regular church attendance and the decline in the sacramental life, which from where I sit is catastrophic in scope.
My perception is that, by and large, people aren't leaving the Catholic church these days for other 'ecclesial communities'. They're leaving organized religion behind. Personally, I think this is very bad. I'd rather folks follow the footsteps of someone like Anne and join a different denomination than belong to nothing in particular. Much of Christian discipleship is a matter of routine, daily habits, and belonging to a church of fellow disciples helps to sustain those habits. This is the main reason that I worry about those who claim to be "spiritual but not religious", i.e. the "Nones". They've forsworn their spiritual support networks. My fear is that they are neither spiritual nor religious in any recognizable Christian sense.
Just a quick note about whether the phrase "one true church" is in some way dated. The first quote I reproduced above denying that the Catholic Church "has ceased to regard herself as the one true Church of Christ" was from a CDF document promulgated in 2007.
DeleteDavid: "One may even reasonably remain in the US (even as a citizen) while believing our form of government is terribly flawed and fundamentally unjust." Why wouldn't this apply to the Church as well?
ReplyDeleteIf a Catholic comes to the conclusion that the Church is "terribly flawed and fundamentally unjust" he or she would, in my view, also conclude that the claims the Church makes about it being founded by Christ and guided by the Holy Spirit must be untrue. It does not make sense, in my opinion, to believe the Church is so seriously wrong that a person must leave it and at the same time believe it is the Church Jesus founded and expected everyone to join. It is certainly possible to believe the Church is both human and divine, that the human part of the Church is fallible and possibly corrupt, and the divine aspect remains. But what I am saying is that I suspect people who leave the Church over something like the sex abuse crisis simply no longer believe (if they ever really believed) that the Church is what it claims to be.
With Humanae Vitae seriously restricting the sexual freedom of married adults, at the same time the "celibate" clergy are engaging in prohibited heterosexual and homosexual behavior, not to mention the abuse of minors, all the while the "vicar of Christ" and bishops (successors to the apostles) are handling matters so ineptly, it is not difficult for me to imagine that many Catholics can no longer believe the Church is all it claims to be.
Catholics who leave the Church and join another Christian denomination (it seems reasonable to me to assume) retain their faith in Jesus and Christianity, but reject the idea of the "one [true] holy catholic and apostolic church."
If one is going to leave the Church over her failure to reach standards she claims for herself, one is left with a bigger problem: Doesn't one also have to leave God, since he fails to measure up to the claims we make for him? He is good, of abiding mercy and believing in justice? Yet he allows cancer, mudslides, Holocausts and Trump! God's role in the mystery of evil is a bigger stumbling block than a Church that's no better morally than the local Kiwanis or Rotary, and maybe not as good. If you can't accept the Church as she is, how can you accept God as he is?
ReplyDeleteIn either case, a departing person is acting on the basis of expectations that are unsupported by any experience I've ever had. Experience has to have some control over expectations.
There's life as expected and life as experienced. Church as experienced. America as experienced. I'm 70 years old and taking care of a 94 year old parent. I just crunch on on all three fronts.
DeleteTom and Stanley, I hear you with regard to expectations vs experience. Experience trumps(no pun intended) expectations.
DeleteDoesn't that cut two ways? The Church, despite two thousand years of experience with humankind, clings to some impossible expectations of them.
DeleteJean, It clings, and it doesn't cling. Consider Peter's record. And consider how he gets treated by the Church with that record. The Church is consistently and persistently burying with full ecclesiastical honors people you and I would not sit down with for a beer. She says do as I say, but if you watch what she does, she doesn't do it.
DeleteTom, your response is too opaque for me.
DeleteThe Church is, to me, like an aged parent whose fallback response is always "no" without ever admitting mitigating circumstances, gray areas, or elements of human life it does not understand.
Priests can help you find loopholes like annulments, provisional absolution, the rule of double effect, etc. But all that moral slicing and dicing feels so legalistic and not what I think God is.
Great Scott, Jean!!! You are describing the Chancery Office, not the Church. Your church ladies are no measuring sticks. They might as well be monsignori with birettas. Don't judge by them.
DeleteI know you are too far out in the boonies, and maybe the only word that gets out there is No. But universally, the Church says more yesses than noes. Hardly anybody pays any attention to the noes anymore anyway.
Oh, it's not just the Church Ladies. I think the Catholics of Yes can't really sustain too liberal an approach to Church teaching and call yourself a faithful Catholic.
DeleteOne of the essayists in C'weal talked about feeling like he was in tension a lot of the time with Church teaching. He used the example of marriage--he felt that civil and church marriages should take different "forms," but that was not the USCCB position.
Just as there are layers of involvement in religious orders, I see layers of involvement in Catholicism. Raber is a gung-ho all-in Catholic. I am Catholic around the edges.
Jean, there are Catholics in good standing who would consider you more Catholic than the current pope. As James Joyce said, here comes everybody.
DeleteWow. Very fine, Tom: "As James Joyce said, here comes everybody." You're really good at coming up with quotes like this that help us out. Thanks.
DeleteLeaving the US and leaving the church are not comparable situations.
ReplyDeleteLeaving the church is as simple as walking out the door and not returning.
Moving to another country involves much more complex issues. Few countries will take people who are not refugees or asking for asylum without a few hoops that refugees and asylum seekers don't have to go through. They have their own challnging set of hoops.
First - there is the issue of being able to support oneself if not independently wealthy. Can you find someone to sponsor you for a job and who will try to prove to the government that a citizen would not qualify for the job? Do you speak the language? Do you plan to open a business that will employ locals (if so, you will find it much easier to get permanent residency and a work permit). What are your salary requirements? I worked with a Brit once who decided to return to England with his English wife because they were having a child and wanted to raise their family "at home". After 3 years they were back in the US. although he could get a similar job there, the salary was half and the cost of living was double. Just because you earn X salary in the US does not mean you will earn the same overseas. Even if you do, what is the cost of living there? Will the salary afford housing costs in London or Sydney, cities that can make New York city look like a bargain. How long can you support yourself with self-paid medical insurance before you live there long enough to qualify for the national health plan (if there is one, but most of the developed world has one)?
Going to a third world country would not necessarily involve all of this, but I don't know anything about their requirements. My son the-independent-TV-producer did several jobs in Africa. He had to get a temporary, short-stay work permit each time he went there to film. He also hired mostly locals for the production staff.
If you are retired, the job issue is not a problem, but you still have to prove that you can support yourself and can afford medical care.
Beyond the practical issues, there is also a vast difference between the two situations in that Catholics have zero voice in their church. They can't vote. They can't choose their pope, their bishops, or even their own parish priests. They do not define church teachings and cannot work to change teachings they find not only to be wrong in and of themselves (such as infallibility), but believe cause tangible harm to people. It wasn't my dissent from many Catholic teachings that drove me out the door, or the sex abuse scandal by itself, that drove me out the door. It was my belief that several Catholic teachings were causing harm - real, tragic harm - to millions. Since I have no way to work for change in those teachings, I could not stay.
As citizens people can at least work to change policy, They can support candidates who may support the preferred policies. They can vote. While it may seem a hopeless task to change policy about Yemen, theoretically at least, they may someday be able do it through voting in different politicians. Topple the existing regime and maybe something good would happen. Catholics can't topple the existing regime of the RCC.
p.s. Tom, I have finally had time to reply to you on the Slamming the Door thread.
I'll try to catch up with the Slamming Door comment over there, where I can have it in front of me.
DeleteDavid Nickol explains it quite well in his two comments.
ReplyDelete"As citizens people can at least...work to support candidates who may support the preferred policies."
ReplyDeleteIn theory. But, Anne, then tell me why I so often have to choose between the evils of two lessers and why so many races come down to Tweedledum vs Tweedlestupid. Is it because, possibly, my "work" is undone by the money of Swampland lobbyists?
Granted, it's very, very difficult to change countries. But people don't seem to be doing much to uphold their values if they boldly parade the values when the door is open but give their values a "never mind" when bureaucrats and old habits erect obstacles? A value ought to be something to do more about than walk through an open door.
For some reason, the old Paul Simon song, "Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover" springs to mind.
ReplyDeleteTom, sometimes the work is undone by the moneybag special interests. And sometimes it isn't. At the very least, we can try in the political realm. Not possible in the RCC.
ReplyDeleteIn northern California, young Josh Harder unseated a longtime GOP rep in a district that is mostly agricultural. Josh is among the 19% of evangelicals who are not Trumpists. He was strongly supported by friends of ours whose judgment I trust who are among the same 19%, so I started following the race. It was a stunning upset.
Several key GOP seats in Virginia were also flipped against the odds.
I also followed the Orange County CA races very closely. OC has long been an island of red surrounded by blue. It is also probably where we would move when frail enough to need to be near our kids. My mom lived in OC during the last 18 years of her life and we came to like the area. But I was concerned because it was known as being so uber-conservative and I would need a few neighbors who aren't Trumpists! (my mother was uber-conservative politically and in her Catholicism so she fit right in)
In this election, all the GOP seats in OC were flipped. The most dramatic was the unseating of Dana Rohrabacher, a very unsavory character who had been elected and re-elected 15 times! He's out because enough people didn't give up in despair. There is no way a Catholic can vote out Burke, or Vigano or even there own assistant pastor. No voice whatsoever.
The only way a Catholic can vote is with her/his feet or with the checkbook. They can leave, or they can stop the money flow to the PTB. Most start with the checkbook, as I did. Finally they leave the Catholic pews completely because unless a critical mass of people close the checkbooks, nothing will change. So far, too few Catholics have been willing to do that.
Tom: But people don't seem to be doing much to uphold their values if they boldly parade the values when the door is open but give their values a "never mind" when bureaucrats and old habits erect obstacles? A value ought to be something to do more about than walk through an open door.
I'm not clear on what you are trying to say here. Are you talking about the church? The country? Both?
On the last point, all I mean is that anybody can boldly march out the door with flags flying and kazoos tooting. It doesn't cost anything to uphold your values that way.
ReplyDeleteBut(here I think I am getting closer to Margaret's original point) if the values deserve all that celebration (of cheap grace?) maybe they are important enough to do something hard to uphold. Learn a new language? Jump through bureaucratic hoops to get a work permit? Take a pay cut? I dunno. It's one, bold think to bare one's breast to a goodbye wave and another to open up to a spear.
Tom: "if the values deserve all that celebration (of cheap grace?) maybe they are important enough to do something hard to uphold. Learn a new language? Jump through bureaucratic hoops to get a work permit? Take a pay cut? I dunno. It's one, bold think to bare one's breast to a goodbye wave and another to open up to a spear."
DeleteYes that is what was stirring the pot at Mass on Sunday. Surrounded as we are in Church and State by a such an amount of nonsense, moral dudgeon is often enough a sensible reaction (I have attacks five or six times a day). But Dudgeon isn't a genuine moral reaction, as I have discovered. A genuine moral reaction is hard to work through...and in the current discussion, there is little or no cost to leaving the Church, but there is to leaving the State. Hence the question: is Moral Dudgeon a good enough reaction?
(btw, I failed to mention that during the interim between sermon and incensing, I did stand with the crowd an recite the Creed, which never ceases to amaze me--Really...Yet).
Margaret, about the Creed, me too.
DeleteMargaret, Thanks for a very thoughtful comment.
DeleteTom, I am a bit dense at times. Still not quite sure what you are trying to say here, and I don't want to launch into a lengthy comment if I don't really understand what I'm responding to.
ReplyDeleteOn the other thread (the smashing plates on the way out thread), I mentioned that Commonweal now has a series of articles on why people join the RCC, leave the RCC, and stay in the RCC. Since not everyone is following that discussion any more, I thought I would mention it here too.
ReplyDeleteI read the one by Daniel Callahan, about how he came to leave, but his wife has stayed. That would be a really tough (and lonely) situation, but I admire them for sticking together through it.
ReplyDeleteWe just got our copy of the come, stay, leave issue of C'weal. It strikes me how tenuous faith can be, and that what makes it wax and wane is pretty random.
ReplyDeleteIt also struck me that everyone in the series was seriously engaged in the desire to live a "good" life, and for everyone, "goodness" involved a confrontation with what they honestly believed.
Please don't equate "faith" with denominational membership. Sometimes one's faith dictates a departure from the latter.
ReplyDeleteOh, no, I don't, but some of the folks in the C'weal profile are no longer believers, hence my observation.
DeleteMy son asked me the other day if I still believed in God because he read that people approaching The End often don't. I told him I wasn't THAT close to the end, but that I would keep him apprised.
I have no idea what other people might feel, but I do keep up certain pretenses because it seems to make Raber feel better. I'm not sure I would bother with Church attendance at all if he weren't here.
A dear friend and lifelong Catholic said a couple of days before she died that she would be happy if death was just an eternal sleep. She was very sick and had many worries. And I hope she is resting peacefully.
Appears to me that people pretty much die as they have lived. Though I have known an instance or two where a close brush with death concentrated their attention to spiritual matters.
DeleteYou're probably right. I noticed among all my dear departed a loosening of whatever rigidity of faith they had. Not to say they lost their faith.
DeleteJean: I do keep up certain pretenses because it seems to make Raber feel better. I'm not sure I would bother with Church attendance at all if he weren't here.
ReplyDeleteI go to church for my husband's sake also. I would be "SBNR" now except for that. Jim P expressed concern that people who leave church very often remain unchurched instead of joining another denomination. He seems to feel they will be lost spiritually without a formal community. Perhaps for some, but I think it matters far less for those of us who are older and have had lots of church and formal religion in our lives. I am content now to attend a centering prayer group to support my personal CP practice, to pray on my own, to do spiritual reading on my own. However, my husband has a need to go to church on Sunday, even though he does not participate with the community at all. No going to the coffee hour, no committees, no volunteering, etc. We go to church and then we come home. Sometimes I go separately if I want to hear the speaker at the Adult Forum, but he has no interest in that.
The issue of "Staying or Going" has churned up an interesting set of questions to be asked whether one is a stayer, goer, or standing in the doorway (liminal one might say).
ReplyDeleteThose who stay (more or less) must frequently grapple with dismal liturgical practice. How often is going to Mass a test of one's faith, rather than an affirmation? Too often!
Friends who have departed to the Episcopal community often cite a well-ordered and "well-performed" liturgy, including the music, the participation, and the sense of a community worshiping together. This, of course, happens in Catholic parishes, but at times I fear the general demoralization about so many other things, has affected the presiders, the musicians, and the people such that liturgies become a series of rote gestures. Is this a bigger scandal than all the others?
The other issue that has emerged in this conversation is the turn to the "spiritual" or finding refuge/solace in the "spiritual": centering prayer, devotional practices, practicing the corporal works of mercy, attending to the state of one's virtues--or lack there of, etc. Of course, the Catholic tradition is long and rich in discussions and examples of the "spiritual" life. Too often it appears to be submerged even buried in theological confrontation and ecclesiastical fist-e-cuffs. Spiritual practices and thought are both communal and personal; from the discussion here it seems that most of us must proceed on a personal basis because communal attention is lacking.
There are all kinds of spiritual practices, good, bad or indifferent, but I have never heard any one of them -- except the sacraments, of course -- explained from the pulpit or in any other parish-organized setting. In the course of reading weekly ramblings of various bishops over seven decades, I remember only one column on how to pray. (Heavy Ignatian influence in it.) It was good -- but the one and only case in which the average pew sitter may have come across How To Pray??!?
DeleteOne of my favorite go-to books is Aelred Squire, Asking the Fathers (and Mothers [my addition]). It is a compendium and analysis of various Fathers of the Church (including Teresa of Avila, Julian and others) on essential matters. Some of the chapter headings: In the image of God, In the land of unlikeness, The human situation, Doing and Seeing, Prayer, Approaches to Prayer, Conversion of heart....
DeleteApropos of "original sin," Squire has some remarkably sane and astute things to think about. That's in the chapter on "In the Land of Unlikeness."
One of his favorite locutions is: "In the undivided church," meaning many of these ideas are drawn when Eastern and Western Christianity were one.
Couldn't agree with you more: Aelred Squire's book is very fine. In case these two blurbs have any of you thinking, "Maybe I'll take a look at it," here you go:
Deletehttps://www.amazon.com/Asking-Fathers-Art-Meditation-Prayer/dp/B002AT3XEY
https://www.amazon.com/Asking-Fathers-Classics-Aelred-Squire/dp/0281062196
Gene and Margaret, many thanks - I'm definitely thinking, "Maybe Ill take a look at it". And Christmas is coming up :-)
Delete"Leaving the US and leaving the church are not comparable situations.
ReplyDeleteLeaving the church is as simple as walking out the door and not returning."
That is obviously true. It certainly seems to be a lot more work - and, at least in the short term, a good deal riskier - to leave the United States.
I probably contributed to this perception by wondering aloud if there are many Americans who uproot themselves and move to Canada or elsewhere.
I'd like to suggest, though, that just as Hemingway or Fitzgerald could live in Paris but remain Americans, a person can 'leave' the United States without physically relocating herself to the other side of the border.
This past summer, we looked at the profiles of five groups of voters who voted for Trump in the 2016 election - the racists, the religious right and so on. Among that set of five was a group which the author of the research dubbed "The Disengaged". As the name suggests, that group really isn't engaged in any meaningful sense in American civic life. The Disengaged happen to possess the status of American citizen (a precious gift which probably isn't fully appreciated by me and many others), they occupy jobs here, their children take advantage of the availability of our schools, presumably they dutifully pay their taxes, they consume stuff here, and they are culturally American in many ways, but they don't participate in American public life in any meaningful sense. For purposes of citizenship, they've largely checked out. One wonders if there is anything that would awaken them to any sense of obligation to the success of the American experiment beyond the bare minimum I've sketched out here.
I think this 'checking out' is comparable to becoming a "None" religiously.
Here is the post on the Five Trump Voters.
https://newgathering.blogspot.com/2018/07/who-are-trump-voters.html#more
I think the betrayal of Church leaders has, for me at least, more profound consequences than "Can I believe in this institution?" It's more like "Can I believe in God?"
ReplyDeleteI belong to that group of people who are religious but not spiritual. I believe in God and Jesus because the Catholic Church told me to. I like the idea of a leap of faith and trust that God has revealed himself to the world -even if not to me- and my faith in the Church is what allowed me to go along with it. If the betrayals and dishonesty are so profound and pervasive- which I think they are-then I can't believe anything the Catholic Church says about anything. And that takes God away from me. I'm in a bad place with this right now.
Yes...
DeleteBut.. when I fall into this state, I think well, other communities talk about God--not just the Catholic Church or other Christian communities. The Jews talk about God and they too have a big book. Naturally they don't agree among themselves, still another source to turn too. "The heavens proclaim the glory of God... ps.19A
All the important and central things about Catholic faith which I accept and believe - I don't believe any of them because a bishop or a pope said to. I believe them because parents, teachers and other mentors and role models whom I've loved and respected over the years have passed that faith along to me.
DeleteI'm extremely disappointed in the failures of leadership. But my faith doesn't hinge on their personal virtues.
I don't say this to disparage folks whom these scandals have plunged into a spiritual crisis. I empathize with Irene, Anne and others for whom this has been a source of pain. I'm just trying here to share how I came to believe what I believe.
Jim, I agree with you, my faith doesn't depend on the leadership's personal virtues either. If it did I'd be in a bad way. To your list of mentors and role models I'd add the religious sisters who were my teachers, a very long time ago. They were flawed human beings like the rest of us, but they dedicated their lives to the service of God. And they got no earthly reward for it; neither money nor position of authority in the church. I believe the people in my life who walked the walk; and there are a lot of thwm still walking.
DeleteIrene, I am sorry. I hope you will be able to wrestle your way out of that crisis of faith. I can only imagine the grief it brings to people who have loved God through the Church all their lives.
DeleteI wonder if any prayers of the faithful include some for those who are struggling in their faith because Church leaders have gone astray. I have heard none.