It would be the same if someone told me he was going to withhold financial support for diocesan activities.
It is true: We are not in normal times. A shake-up of the hierarchy may be necessary to regain the support of the ordinary Catholic and expressions of anger may be just what the doctor ordered to get it for us. Let them begin. But I have been discovering that some Catholics are thinking of taking more drastic steps.
I think my circle of friends and acquaintances is representative of the American Catholic mainstream. Yet I have been hearing grumblings that have set me on my heels, and from people who should know better — graduates of Catholic high schools, people who never miss Mass on Sunday, regular communicants. I have been hearing talk of leaving the Church; of joining “nice” local Protestant congregations.
Again: I understand the anger and disillusionment that motivates such thoughts. The case of Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland is just the latest outrage. Think back to how this man would excoriate various orthodox Catholic writers for being nasty, close-minded and intolerant. And no one was reporting the half of it; no one knew that this man was using diocesan funds to bribe his onetime homosexual lover into silence.
What are the reasons I am hearing for leaving the Church? Some protest that they do not want their dollars to go toward the multi-million dollar settlements with the victims of sexual abuse. And there are more of these settlements to come. No question: a reasonable concern.
Others protest that they must make a stand; that they think it sends the wrong message to their children to remain in a church that allowed such vile behavior to go on for so long; that this cannot be a case where we look the other way and make excuses for the perpetrators of the crime.
Still others argue that they cannot stomach the thought of remaining in an organization led by the collection of bishops they saw being interviewed in Dallas; that there is no room for compromise with pederast priests or those who covered up for them; that they no longer find it possible to respect such men or their claim to authority.
We could answer those who make these arguments in a variety of ways. We might stress that the number of priests involved in the scandals is very small and that they do not represent the typical priest in the United States. Most of us know that is the case, from our own experiences.
We could ask those thinking of leaving to consider all the good things the Church has done, and continues to do: the schools, hospitals, orphanages, the missions; to balance all these good things with the small number of sexual abusers in the clergy.
We could stress that the Church is bigger than this generation of priests and bishops; that Catholicism is Issac Jogues, Mother Teresa and Cardinal Newman, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and the Cure of Ars, more than it is a handful of predatory priests and the bishops who cared more about their fate than that of their victims. We could point out that joining a Protestant congregation will likely mean becoming part of a denomination where there are just as many sex abusing clerics; that the stories about pedophile Catholic priests are newsworthy because the Church is a big target and an organization where such behavior was unexpected up until now. It is a man-bites-dog story.
We might even scold those who are talking about leaving, chide them for overreacting – or, worse, for dishonestly using these scandals as the excuse they have been looking for to leave the Church because of its hard teachings on matters such as abortion and birth control, or because of the Church’s refusal to bend to politically correct views on questions such as divorce and women priests. (I must admit: I suspect that this could be the motive for many of the current threats to leave the Church; just as some people used the downgrading of Latin and the end of meatless Fridays to make a break back in the 1960s.)
But this is a misdirected line of argument. It misses the key point. No matter what these priests and bishops have done, to leave the Church is to leave the Church. You are not separating yourself from this generation of clergy and the hierarchy. You are separating yourself from the Apostolic Succession. You are saying that the Catholic Church is not the church founded by Jesus, that its authority has not only been misapplied by some misguided members of the clergy, but that it was never legitimate in the first place. There is no way to leave over these sex scandals without saying that. Who says A must say B.
If you leave the Church over this scandal, you are saying that Luther and Calvin were right; that the Catholic Church’s teachings should never have been heeded because they are invalid. You are leaving behind not only some double-talking homosexual priests and mealy-mouthed bishops, but also the Keys to the Kingdom, the teaching authority that gives us the Mass and the sacraments.
You say that you don’t want your children to be part of a Church that includes sexually abusing priests and double-talking bishops? That means you also don’t want them to be baptized, attend Mass, receive their First Communions, to be confirmed and married at a Nuptial Mass, to receive the Last Rites when the time comes. Leaving the Church means leaving all that behind.
Perhaps the anger that leads some to consider turning Protestant is a temporary anger that will pass. Perhaps saner heads will prevail. Let us hope so. But let us not forget that the priests and bishops who have angered and disappointed us violated the teachings of the Church. They betrayed the heritage of the Church. There is nothing in Catholicism that countenanced the way they acted.
We all know the cliches. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face. They apply here. The teachings of the Church provide the best method to keep the sins of these priests in perspective. There is nothing in Protestantism that offers greater consolation. Take a breath. Pray. Go to Mass. Receive Communion. This is a trying time to be a Catholic, but it will pass.
James Fitzpatrick's new novel, The Dead Sea Conspiracy: Teilhard de Chardin and the New American Church, can be ordered directly from Winepress Publishers — 1-877-421-READ (7323); $12.95, plus S&H. You can email Mr. Fitzpatrick at jkfitz42@aol.com.
(This article originally appeared in The Wanderer and is reprinted with permission. To subscribe call 651-224-5733.)
