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Pilgrim People, Part I As a church we are a pilgrim people making our way
together through history. Like Chaucer’s companions on the road to
Canterbury, we have a variety of tales to tell and not all are edifying. The
latest waves of the crisis of clerical sexual abuse of minors have made
Catholics keenly aware that even in high places we are a company of sinners
as well as saints, of fallible human beings as well as faithful followers of
Jesus—everyone in need of the forgiveness Jesus proclaimed that forgiveness
is one of the religious experiences that binds us to one another along our
pilgrim way. The rituals of confession and repentance remain among
the most identifiable practices of Catholic life. Their centrality to the
Catholic imagination has made the reluctance of the hierarchy to acknowledge
successive revelations of molestation all the more painful for us all. The
church’s identity as a community of forgiven sinners makes particularly
credible the demands by victims for public confession and open
reconciliation. Even the church’s most bitter critics have been unwitting
witnesses to that Christian duty. That same Catholic sensibility made the
recent encounter between Pope Benedict and the victims of abuse in Malta both
necessary and affecting. The church has known dark times: domination by
emperors, co-optation by feudal militarism and modern colonialism, gangland
struggles by Roman families for control of the papacy, coercion of heretics
and wars of religion. Still, we members of the church make pilgrimage
together in hope that the church may be the visible expression in history of
humanity’s new life in Christ. To us Jesus is the embodiment of fullest
humanity and the model of its most appealing morality. Pope Benedict’s
planned visit on July 4 to the tomb of St. Celestine V, a hermit who was
elected pope and then resigned the papacy, will hold up for view a penitent
form of Christian life marked by meekness, prayer and self-sacrifice, close
to the pattern of Jesus that Christians strive to imitate. One reason Catholics love the church is that it fosters
just that sort of holiness. Even as the secular world exposes the hypocrisy
of church officials, it acknowledges implicitly that the followers of Christ
hold themselves to a “higher law” and try to practice a more demanding love.
Some believe that calling is humanly impossible; others, even if they allow
the Gospel little direct claim on their own lives, are disappointed upon
failing to find holiness where they always presumed it might be found in a
moment of need. But Catholics love the church because here we have companions
who do strain, in their stumbling ways, to lead their lives by the light of
the Sermon on the Mount. We love the church because here we keep the company of
men and women who have lived the Gospel even as they challenged both secular
and religious rulers to reform. Among them are figures like Francis of
Assisi, Catherine of Siena, Thomas More, Ignatius Loyola, Mary McKillop, Mother Théodore Guérin, Dorothy Day, Franz Jägerstätter
and Oscar Romero. Their witness to the Gospel brought them into conflict with
the church authorities of their day. Yet attachment to the visible,
hierarchical church was intrinsic to their own path
to holiness. In an age that experiences mostly opportunistic, transitory
relationships, the church fosters high ideals and lifelong commitments. In a
culture deprived of depth and transcendence, it encourages searching
self-examination, ever more inclusive sympathies and attentive receptivity to
the mystery of God. Some of the pain of the present crisis comes from the
apparent loss of those practices and sensitivities when they were most needed
among those from whom they were most expected. We love the church, too, because, as can be seen in
local parishes everywhere, it embraces the full diversity of humanity: the
affluent and the poor, the native-born and the undocumented, conservatives
and liberals, the simple and the learned. We also love the church because in
every age, but particularly since the Second Vatican Council, it is dedicated
to the service of the poor and defense of their human rights. Even
non-Catholics see in the unselfish service of the poor the palpable holiness
of the church. Asked once how he went from being a promoter of the free
market to an advocate of the world’s poor, the
economist Jeffrey Sachs answered, “The sisters—who, in so many places, took
me to the back country to meet the very poor.” Chief among the inexhaustible reasons that lead us to
love the church is the Eucharist. For when we gather around the table of the
Lord, the whole body of Christ in which we partake is made real. We are
united with the risen Lord for whom we live, and with one another, not only
those around the table but also those around every altar in the world, along
with those who have preceded us in faith and those who will follow us, one
great communion prefiguring the unity of the one human family in God. The Editors, America, May 10, 2010 |