Living Water in an Empty Desert
April 17, 2010
http://livingwaterinanemptydesert.blogspot.com/2010/04/help-ive-fallen-and-i-cant-get-up.html
The Catholic Church is getting a lot of bad press these days, and many supporters of the Church are crying "anti-Catholic media consiracy." Spokesmen say: "Our pedophile percentages are no worse than secular institutions. Teachers do it - look at them!" or "Gosh, it's a homosexual problem, and somehow all those homosexuals got ordained without us noticing their sexuality."
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Guess what? I don't care about the excuses! Really, I don't care. Because for me, the sorrow that I am feeling as a Catholic, isn't about this or that priest committing pedophilia, leading a gay parade, getting a nun pregnant, or getting that nun an abortion when following the Church teaching on birth control ended in pregnancy....... The discomfort is, however, about my gut telling me that if the culture of the Church was holy, then the holy men and women would have stood up and condemned these outrages and done whatever they could have to prevent them!!!!
Did that happen? No! Instead the hierarchy was more concerned about "preventing scandal" (or maybe preventing empty collection baskets) than it was about "preventing hypocrisy" or preventing the "faith-death" of it's victims.
Seriously, the scandals have affected me, a heretofore faithful Catholic so badly, that I cannot even pray a rosary without me wondering if any ordained old-queens in fancy silken robes ever got into an argument about "Who's better, Mary, or Judy Garland?"
I don't think it's an "anti-Catholic media conspiracy." I think the media reflects that fact that deep down, no matter how enlightened, irreligious, or atheistic, we humans may think that we are, we long for there to be some place, some person, that is truly HOLY. And it is here, in the realm of holiness, dear Church, that you have let me, my fellow Catholics, and the world down. We are all left wondering if it was all "smoke and mirrors?"
In the words of Christ, "It is finished." Now if you'll excuse me, I've got to clear away some stumbling blocks.
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