Bud Macfarlane Jr. is the executive director of the Mary Foundation and CatholiCity.com. He has written three bestselling Catholic novels, available free of charge from Saint Jude Media. You can listen to free audio tapes featuring Bud, or subscribe to his online newsletter, the Weekly Message.
The youngster's tenderness struck the actor so powerfully that Guiness was prompted to investigate the Catholic faith, and eventually converted to Catholicism.
It is understandable that non-Catholics view the Catholic Church as a merely human institution. It is difficult for anyone who is not Catholic, even for our Protestant brothers, to understand the mystical nature of our beloved faith without the benefit of experiencing it firsthand. And because Catholicism is often the only voice that stands athwart the entire agenda of our godless age — the anti-family, anti-life, anti-baby materialist agenda that has led to the utter degradation of our culture — we have many enemies, and these enemies have taken out their sharp steel knives now that our soft underbelly has been exposed by the misdeeds, weakness, and miscalculations of some of our own bishops.
If you are a Catholic, you feel cut to the core by the recent scandals because you are a part of the Mystical Body of Christ. This is painful evidence for you that our Church is indeed the supernatural reality of One Body in Christ. Yes, every single human member of our Church commits sins, sometimes inexcusable sins, as recent headlines have hammered home so forcefully. Yet it is crucial to remind ourselves that the twin towers of Catholic supernatural life are the priesthood and the sacraments.
There is nothing wrong with loving, truthful criticism of our shepherds. Personally, I'm glad light has been shed on the inexcusable “reshuffling” of a small minority of abusive priests by certain bishops in recent decades. If public scandal was the only way to halt this kind of outrage, then bring on the truth. It is finally coming to light that devout candidates for the priesthood have likely been screened out for years by reformist powerbrokers in some dioceses in favor of seminarians with questionable sexual and psychological profiles. Recently I've wondered how this whole scenario would have played out if Cardinal Law, for example, had beaten the secular media to the punch with an announcement like, “I've made egregious mistakes and my decisions have harmed the most innocent members of my flock. We need a clean slate. Therefore, I am resigning, and humbly asking the Holy Father and my flock to forgive me and accept my replacement with someone who has no conflicts of interest in this archdiocese. Please, blame me, but do not blame the Catholic Church. If I had been true to the teachings of my own Church, none of this would have happened. Celibacy was not the problem. I was the problem.”
Maybe we'll hear something like this soon. It would mute the inane attacks on the priesthood itself by Catholic insurgents and non-Catholic malcontents who trash celibacy and the male priesthood in the media. These attacks are gravely unjust and tantamount to a frontal attack on the twin towers of our faith. That these malcontents are assaulting the priesthood during our time of weakness illustrates both their malice and ignorance of our Faith.
I get the impression that the call for female and married priests is a smokescreen, since both compromises are available in spades in thousands of man-made Christian denominations, all of which are united in their rejection of both the True Presence in Eucharist and sacramental Confession. What our enemies really mean is that there should be no Catholic priests. They correctly sense in their souls that the 42,000 American priests who have offered their lives for the faithful are the bedrock of our Catholic supernatural life. Priests, in short, are Christ among us. Priestly celibacy embodies Christ's total commitment. Priestly maleness is a flesh-and-blood witness to the unchanging reality of the Son of God's maleness. Every single priest is therefore a sign of contradiction, and his very presence scratches the anti-Jesus itch deep within our detractors' souls. When they behold a male, celebate priest, they, like us, cannot avoid on some level perceiving Jesus Himself. The presence of Jesus bothers them — so the presence of the good Father bothers them. They believe that if the priest just goes away, Jesus will go away, too.
Man or woman can preach and write about supernatural truths. Any person can study and expound on the Holy Scriptures. Any layman or laywoman can serve at a homeless shelter. But only a priest can bring Jesus Himself concretely into our lives through the sacraments. When we confess our sins to a priest, it is a supernatural whisper into the very ear of Christ. Our priests make it possible for us to literally consume Our Savior, body, blood, soul, and divinty.
Let us acknowledge that the overwhelming majority of Catholic priests live blameless and often heroic lives. Each one could have chosen another, easier path. There is an unavoidable cross of loneliness which every priest, especially a diocesan priest, carries for our sake. Many putting on the Roman collar this very day will endure withering glares from the public at large and even some of their own parishioners. The good priests are suffering right now, and doing so in silence, just as Our Lord suffered silently on the Cross.
If you love Christ, then you must take action. Make it your goal in the coming days, weeks, and months to help your priest feel good about his vocation. Call him. Write to him. Have your children write to him. Talk to him after Mass or make an appointment to see him. Let him know in no uncertain terms that you are thankful for the freely-given sacrifice of his life for you and your family; that your life is meaningless without him; that you are standing with him during these difficult times. Then, next week and next month, tell him again. Tell Father that you love him. Let him know how proud you are of the Roman collar he wears.
Tell Father that when you see him, you see Jesus.
