(The following excerpt is Part II of a homily delivered by Archbishop Seán Patrick O'Malley, OFM Cap., at his Mass of Installation as the sixth Archbishop of Boston, July 30, 2003, at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross, Boston.)
“At the beginning of the new millennium, the Holy Father urged Catholics throughout the world to ask forgiveness for our sins and failings that have obscured the Church's mission and compromised our efforts to announce the Good News over the centuries.
I dare say, we of the Church in the United States could not have imagined just how important this gesture of asking forgiveness would be for us. Little did we realize the dimensions of the problems that beset us. As Catholics, each time we celebrate Mass we begin by asking forgiveness of our sins. We are sinners and we say that we are sorry. For us Catholics the third millennium has opened with a long penitential rite. And, at the beginning of this installation ceremony, I again ask forgiveness for all the harm done to young people by our clergy, religious or hierarchy.
The whole Catholic community is ashamed and anguished because of the pain and damage inflicted on so many young people and because of our inability and unwillingness to deal with the crime of sexual abuse of minors. To those victims and their families, we beg forgiveness and assure them that the Catholic Church is working to create a safe environment for young people in our Churches, schools and agencies. It must never be business as usual, but rather a firm commitment of every diocese, parish and school to do all we can to avoid the mistakes of the past and create safeguards for the future. Even now, an audit of the compliance of the Charter for the Protection of Children is being done in every diocese. Much has been done, much needs to be done.
Many Catholics feel that it is unfair that national concern on sexual abuse has focused so narrowly on the Catholic Church without a commensurate attempt to address the problem in our contemporary society at large. Yet we can only hope that the bitter medicine we have had to take to remedy our mismanagement of the problem of sexual abuse will prove beneficial to our whole country, making all of us more aware of the dreadful consequences of this crime and more vigilant and effective in eradicating this evil from our midst.
How we ultimately deal with the present crisis in our Church will do much to define us as Catholics of the future. If we do not flee from the cross of pain and humiliation, if we stand firm in who we are and what we stand for, if we work together, hierarchy, priests, religious and laity, to live our faith and fulfill our mission then, we will be a stronger and a holier Church.
This should be of some consolation to those victims who have opened old wounds in their own hearts by coming forward. Your pain will not be in vain if our Church and our nation become a safer place for children. I am pleased that so many victims have come to this installation Mass. The healing of our Church is inexorably bound up with your own healing. You are the wounds on the Body of Christ today. I am sure that many are skeptical and think that the Church leaders are like Simon the Cyrenean who carried the Cross only under duress and not from a genuine desire to help. Perhaps the journey began that way, but what we see in the community of faith is a spirit of repentance and a desire for healing. Despite the understandable anger, protests and litigation, we see you as our brothers and sisters who have been wronged. For this crisis has forced us to focus on what is essential, on Christ, on the saving power of the Cross and our call to follow in His mission to make the loving mercy of our Heavenly Father present in this world.
When our ancestors in the faith built this magnificent temple, they were despised for this religion, their accents, their rough ways. They were the object of ridicule and discrimination, the "Know-nothings" were burning their Churches and convents. They were very familiar with suffering, poverty, and hardship, and rightly named their Cathedral "“ our Cathedral "“ for the Lord's Cross. Today the Church of Boston gathers at the Cross, still stunned from the shame and pain of the Church's crisis. We come here to ask God to make our suffering redemptive.
We gather here with so many priests, so many good priests, struggling to make sense out of it all. But today I tell you Jesus never promised that nothing would ever go wrong, but yes, He promised to be with us in our darkest hours.
Each of us who are priests will recall that on our ordination day the ordaining Bishop presented us with the paten and chalice and told us: Accept from the holy people of God the gifts to be offered to him. Know what you are doing, and imitate the mysteries you celebrate: model your life on the mystery of the Lord's Cross.
This must be the program of our life and ministry at the service of God's holy people, imitating the mysteries we celebrate, imitating Christ's self-giving, modeling our life on the mystery of the Lord's Cross. This life of sacrificial love can be lived only if nurtured by fidelity to prayer and a priestly fraternity we build by dying to self and bearing one another's burdens. Our Catholic people love and support our faithful priests. Never forget that serving Christ and our people is worth suffering for. We are all so grateful to our Catholic laity who have been so supportive of their Church during these times of trouble. To those who have stepped away, I invite you to return to help rebuild our Church and carry on the mission Christ entrusted to us.
In Palm Beach, on the first Sunday of Lent, 500 new Catholics came with their sponsors to the Cathedral of Saint Ignatius Loyola for the Rite of Election, as they were joining the Catholic Church. It necessitated having two sessions to accommodate all the candidates and relatives and fellow parishioners who accompanied them. I was so moved that in the midst of the crisis, these men and women could still see something beautiful in the Catholic Church and that their spiritual lives were being nurtured in communities of faith that were helping them find the path to God. These new Catholics understood that despite the sins and failings of priests and bishops, the crimes of Catholics for 2000 years, Christ is with His Church. Jesus is the Bridegroom not the widow. Christ does not exist separate from His spouse, the Church. As Catholics, we place our faith in Him who died and rose to save us. Jesus came to call sinners and He has called us to do His work. It is humbling. And though we live through a sad chapter of the Church's History, we must recall that it is a chapter not the whole book.”
