Wednesday, April 10, 2002

A truth in the midst of Catholic scandal: Jesus will never betray you

By FATHER ROGER LANDRY

The headlines [have been] captured by the very sad news that perhaps up to 70 priests in the Archdiocese of Boston have abused young people whom they were consecrated to serve.

It's a huge scandal, one that many people who have long disliked the Church because of one of her moral or doctrinal teachings are using as an issue to attack the Church as a whole, trying to imply that they were right all along.

The first thing we need to do is to understand it from the point of view of our faith in the Lord. Before he chose his first disciples, Jesus went up the mountain all night to pray. He had at the time many followers. He talked to his Father in prayer about whom he would choose to be his 12 apostles, the 12 he would himself form intimately, the 12 whom he would send out to preach the Good News in His name.

He gave them power to cast out demons. He gave them power to cure the sick. They watched him work countless miracles. They themselves in His name worked countless others. Yet, despite all of that, one of them was a traitor.

One who had followed the Lord, who had had his feet washed by the Lord, who had seen him walk on water, raise people from the dead, forgive sinners, betrayed the Lord.

The Gospel tells us that he allowed Satan to enter into him and then he sold the Lord for 30 pieces of silver, handing him over by faking a gesture of love. "Judas," Jesus said to him in the garden of Gethsemane, "Would you betray the Son of Man with a kiss?"

Jesus didn't choose Judas to betray him. He chose him to be like all the others. But Judas was always free, and he used his freedom to allow Satan to enter into him, and by his betrayal, ended up getting Jesus crucified and executed.

So right from the first 12 that Jesus himself chose, one was a terrible traitor. Sometimes God's chosen ones betray Him. That's a fact that we have to confront. It's a fact that the early Church confronted.

If the scandal caused by Judas was all the members of the early Church focused on, the Church would have been finished before it even started to grow. Instead, the Church recognized that you don't judge something by those who don't live it, but by those who do.

Instead of focusing on the one who betrayed, they focused on the other 11, on account of whose work, preaching, miracles, love for Christ, we are here today. It's on account of the other 11, all of whom except St. John was martyred for Christ and for the Gospel they were willing to give their lives to proclaim to us, that we ever heard the saving word of God, that we ever received the sacraments of eternal life.

It's the same way today. We can focus on those who betrayed the Lord, those who abused rather than loved those whom they were called to serve. Or we can focus, like the early Church did, on the others, on those who have remained faithful, those priests who are still offering their lives to serve Christ and to serve you out of love. The media almost never focuses on the good "11," the ones whom Jesus has chosen who remain faithful, who live lives of quiet holiness. But we, the Church, must keep the terrible scandal that we've witnessed in its true and full perspective.

Scandal is unfortunately nothing new for the Church. There have been many times in the history of the Church when the Church was much worse off than it is now. The history of the Church is like a cosine curve, with ups and downs throughout the centuries. At each of the times when the Church hit its low point, God raised up tremendous saints to bring the Church back to its real mission. It's almost as if in those times of darkness, the Light of Christ shone ever more brightly.

The great St. Francis of Assisi lived in the 1200s, which was a time of terribly immorality in central Italy. Priests were setting terrible example. Lay immorality was even worse. St. Francis himself while a young man gave some scandal even to others, by his carefree ways. But eventually he was converted back to the Lord, founded the Franciscans, helped God rebuild his Church and became one of the great saints of all time. Once one of the brothers in the Franciscans asked him a question. The brother was very sensitive to scandals.

"Br. Francis," he said, "What would you do if you knew that the priest celebrating Mass had three concubines on the side?"

Francis, without missing a beat, said slowly, "When it came time for Holy Communion, I would go to receive the Sacred Body of my Lord from the priest's anointed hands."

What was Francis getting at? He was getting at a tremendous truth of the faith and a tremendous gift of the Lord. No matter how sinful a priest is, provided that he has the intention to do what the Church does at Mass, for example, to change bread and wine into Christ's body and blood, or in confession, no matter how sinful he is personally, to forgive the penitent's sins Christ himself acts through that minister in the sacraments.

Whether Pope John Paul II celebrates the Mass or whether a priest on death row for a felony celebrates Mass, it is Christ who himself acts and gives us His own body and blood.

So what Francis was saying in response to the question of his religious brother that he would receive the Sacred Body of His Lord from the priest's anointed hands is that he was not going to let the wickedness or immorality of the priest lead him to commit spiritual suicide.

Christ can still work and does still work even through the most sinful priest. And thank God! If we were always dependent on the priest's personal holiness, we'd be in trouble. Priests are chosen by God from among men, and they're tempted just like any human being and fall through sin as well.

But God knew that from the beginning. Eleven of the first 12 apostles scattered when Christ was arrested, but they came back. One of the 12 sinned in betraying the Lord and sadly never came back.

But God has essentially made the sacraments "priest-proof," in terms of their personal holiness. No matter how holy they are, or how wicked, provided they have the intention to do what the Church does, then Christ himself acts, just as he acted through Judas when Judas expelled demons and cured the sick.

And so, again, I ask, "What's should the response of the Church be to these deeds?"

The only adequate response to this terrible scandal, the only fully Catholic response to this scandal as St. Francis of Assisi recognized in the 1200s, as St. Francis de Sales recognized in the 1600s, and as countless other saints have recognized in every century is holiness!

Every crisis that the Church faces, every crisis that the world faces, is a crisis of saints. Holiness is crucial, because it is the real face of the Church.

There will doubtless be many people these days and you will probably meet them who will say, "Why should I practice the faith, why should I go to Church, since the Church can't be true if God's so-called chosen ones can do the types of things we've been reading about?" This scandal is a huge hanger on which some will try to hang their justification for not practicing the faith.

That's why holiness is so important. They need to find in all of us a reason for faith, a reason for hope, a reason for responding with love to the love of the Lord.

The beatitudes which we have in today's Gospel are a recipe for holiness. We all need to live them more. Do priests have to become holier? They sure do. Do religious brothers and sisters have to become holier and give ever-greater witness of God and heaven? Absolutely. But all people in the Church do, including lay people! We all have the vocation to be holy and this crisis is a wake-up call.

It's a tough time to be a priest today. It's a tough time to be a Catholic today. But it's also a great time to be a priest and a great time to be a Catholic. Jesus says in the beatitudes we heard today, "Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of slander against you falsely because of me. Be glad and rejoice, for your reward in heaven is great."

It takes a real man and a real woman to stand up now and swim against the current that is flowing against the Church. It takes a real man and a real woman to recognize that when swimming against the flood of criticism, you're safest when you stay attached to the Rock, on whom Christ built his Church. This is one of those times. It's a great time to be a Christian.

Some people are predicting that the Church in this area is in for a rough time, and maybe she is, but the Church will survive, because the Lord will make sure it survives.

Christ will never allow his Church to fail. He promised that the gates of hell wouldn't prevail against his Church, that the barque of Peter, the Church sailing through time to its eternal port in heaven, will never capsize, not because those in the boat won't do everything sinfully possible to turn it over, but because Christ, who is in the boat, will never allow it to happen. Christ is still in the boat and he'll never leave it.

The magnitude of this scandal might be such that you may find it difficult to trust priests in the same way you have in the past. That may be so, and that might not be completely a bad thing. But never lose trust in Him! It's His Church. Even if some of those he chose have betrayed him, he will call others who will be faithful, who will serve you with the love with which you deserve to be served, just like after Judas' death, the 11 apostles convened and allowed the Lord to choose someone to take Judas' place, and they chose the man who ended up becoming St. Matthias, who proclaimed the Gospel faithfully until his martyrdom.

This is a time in which all of us need to focus ever more on holiness. We're called to be saints and how much our society here needs to see this beautiful, radiant face of the Church. You're part of the solution, a crucial part of the solution.

Jesus is with us, as he promised, until the end of time. He's still in the boat. Just as out of Judas' betrayal, he converted that into the greatest good in world history, our salvation through his Cross, death and Resurrection, so out of this he may bring, and wants to bring, a new rebirth of holiness, a new Acts of the Apostles for the 21st century, with each of us and that includes YOU playing a starring role.

Now's the time for real men and women of the Church to stand up. Now's the time for saints. How do you respond?

[With the Church in Massachusetts still reeling from the impact of a scandal involving priestly pedophilia, this edited piece represents the pastoral reflections of a priest from the Fall River diocese, Father Roger Landry. This homily was delivered last month, as the scandal unfolded.]

Back to Opinion Home Page | Back to the top of the page