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Put your trust not in princes
Posted October 11, 2007 , By Joshua LeBlanc
Update: Ignatius Insight Scoop Provides some new information
The news for the past few days has been how the Archbishop of San Francisco communicated cross-dressing men who call themselves "Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence." The Archbishop of San Francisco has denied that he knew what was going on and has even said in his official press release that he "didn't notice any mock religious garb." Now there can only be two scenarios in this situation: 1) He knew what was going on and intentionally communicated them or 2) The Archbishop really had no clue what was going on.
Now let me say up front that I would be the first person to stand up and say this is objectively a grave sacrilege of the Eucharist to permit those who are in grave scandal to receive the Eucharist but in this situation I want to give the Archbishop the benefit of the doubt and believe he had no clue who and what they were. Honestly before I heard about this whole scandal I had no idea who these people were. If I would have been distributing communion I probably would have communicated them because I would have assumed they were just strangely dressed people who were guilty of nothing else than being weird. I truly hope this was a situation in which, even though the "nuns" had run-ins with the parish before, the Archbishop wasn't informed of what was going on.
Now there are many who are calling for his resignation and saying that the Pope needs to remove him from the Diocese. Those who advocate that do not understand the relationshio of the Pope to his brother Bishops - in this case the principle of first among equals seems to supercede all things. Assuming that the Archbishop really did communicate them knowing what was going on, it proves the point what we as Catholics believe. We don't put our stock in human persons. Imagine what the early church would have been like had Judas' betrayal caused a great rift. The truth is that no matter how frail and how incompetent the clergy or laity may be, it is our faith in Christ and His Church that sustains us. We know that the Church has always overcome situations like this and she will continue to. Some blogs have implied that individuals should jump ship because this isn't the Church that conservatives hoped it would be under Benedict XVI. The truth is that the Church doesn't belong to John Paul II, or Benedict XVI - they are the guardians of the Church. The Church belongs to all of us and we are called to be faithful just as the early disciples were faithful.
If Catholics didn't have the understanding of ecclesiology that we do then maybe at times we could be tempted to jump ship - we could be tempted to start our own denominations but in the end the Church still stands for Truth and it is still within this Church that our salvation is found. It is in this Church that we are fed with the Eucharist. We are constantly failed by people and I often tell people don't work for the Church and not expect to get hurt. The truth is that at time we don't all do our best and we all fail and fall short. Sometimes we don't do the best we can. Often Protestant churches fail because the congregation puts all their faith in their pastor who commits some egregious sin causing a rift in their ecclesial community - I've talked to many former Protestants who found the Catholic Church because of situations like this. Even though the Church's members has its faults, the Church will remain until the end of time and we are called to be faithful to Her!
Topics: Church Life |
October 12th, 2007 at 10:26 pm
On Protecting the Eucharist:
http://cantuar.blogspot.com/2007/10/pious-ushers-and-protecting-eucharist.html