Is Faith enough when Scandals Confront our Church?

We were just attempting to get our lives together, after the horrible and agonizing death of our Savior, Jesus Christ.  It seemed like our community had just begun to accept the fact that now our leaders, Peter for one, were collecting the teachings of Jesus and reaching out to all of us.  Then the word came through an exchange of someone who knew things faster than most, that a scoundrel named Saul was coming to our town.  

This man, a Pharisee and a Roman Citizen who was on his way to Damascus appeared, so the story goes, and had an encounter with Jesus.  The story continues that Saul is being sent here, a  man of disrepute and perhaps this is all a plan to deceive us and maybe he’ll arrest us, as he was going to do in Damascus. 

The saga goes like this; “a Man named Ananias had a vision and the Lord told him to go to Straight Street and ask at the house of Judas for a man from Tarsus named Saul;.  He is there praying, and in a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come in and lay hands on him, that he may regain his sight, and become a chosen instrument to carry the name of Jesus to kings and Gentiles.”  (Acts 9: 11 ff).  Here, I interject the fact that this story, as unbelievable as it may seem, reached the people and they became very obstinate at the thought of Jesus choosing someone like this to spread His word to Gentiles.  A Scandal?  So it appears.  It isn’t as though the townspeople couldn’t believe it, but their effort of trying to get their spiritual lives together as new believers were now confronted with a challenge that placed a wedge of doubt and mistrust on their type of worship.

How many would be prepared to leave this New Way, as Jesus saw how those who were scandalized asking his disciples in John 6: 67 if they were going to leave, as well, over His teaching on eating His Body and drinking His Blood.  We can see how easily people hold on to scandals without ever getting all the facts.

When Peter met with Cornelius and at first was adamant about admitting Gentiles to the fold, had a vision of many different types of animals coming down from heaven and the Lord telling him to eat since nothing made by God was profane and he was not to be scandalized by such things.  (Acts 10: 11 ff).  

Perhaps the first Counsel of the Church (Counsel of Jerusalem) presented a startling scandal  over Circumcision and the entrance of Gentiles who were not circumcised did not need this practice.  Paul stuck to his guns and it was agreed he was correct.  Another scandal that was smoothed over with dialogue and compromise.  

This evening, as I was preparing to start a class one of my co-workers and I began talking about the merging of parishes into groupings and my question about her grouping and how she was coping stunned me.  Her response was “I don’t go to church anymore.”  Immediately my thoughts went back to a friend who said the same thing after the scathing report from the PA State Attorneys General brought out last month.  I cried then, because of what this scandal’s residue has done.  Tonight, I wanted to cry, and in my heart I could feel the emptiness of what is happening to my Church.  This woman went on to relate that her son was familiar with one priest named in the Attorney General’s report.  He was not molested and her son never spoke about this until many years later.  Since this woman was a member of that parish and discovered a friend’s son was molested by this same priest, she decided this was enough and thus her decision to leave.  Nothing I said would deter her choice.  Why some people, good spiritual people, seem to find a bad thing in life to enhance their anger and use it as an excuse to forgo what deep down they love, and discard it for a going nowhere scenario I can’t explain or understand.  Yet, this is what is occurring in our Church at this moment.  Good people being led away by the power of Satan who works hard to disrupt the Church.  Take notice; it is exactly what we are seeing with disgruntled parishioners choosing an easy way out of the pain that our Church must grow beyond, with Jesus Christ continuing to call us to reach beyond the smooth life that does not appear to be at our door each moment of life’s horrible attacks.     

My sister-in-law just informed us that two women who recently joined the Friday Women’s’ bible study group that she is part of, announced they were going to find another church.  I have seen this happening as well as other priests and deacons are also encountering this move.  This may become the greatest challenge to us to bring as many as possible back.      

The premise of this article centers on scandal and how it is affecting different people.   As in the other scandals above, or what appear as such, is often when any of us can not deal with or explain away difficulties in life, we look for someone or something to blame for what might be eating away at our feelings.  The people in Acts couldn’t fathom a scoundrel coming into their community, one who was against everything they had just learned from or about Jesus.  Peter was so certain that he had it all together because Jesus chose him as the leader of His new Church, that nothing was going to disrupt his authority,  Jesus took care of that.  Even the Church itself has seen centuries of Schisms and Heresies wherein Counsels were needed to suppress scandals that did arise and even today St. John XXIII opened the windows of the Church and Vatican II cleared away would be scandals or worn out provisions of “Going nowhere” attitudes that have allowed new life in God’s Church.

Our Church, right now, November 2018, as we will be entering the season of Advent with hope to a future of new life in a church with problems must not allow scandals, as horrible as this latest one is, to cripple our trust to the Holy Spirit’s guidance, our faith in a God who will never forget us, and the continued flow of God’s Grace to hold on to our faith and pray for each of these confused souls who believe there is something better for them away for the Catholic Church. 

Ralph B. Hathaway November 2018