I’ve had a number of conversations with Catholics
who are upset with one thing or another about the Church. My usual response is
to congratulate them. I’ve come to believe that if a Catholic is never troubled
by what the Church says or is doing, then he or she doesn’t take the Church
seriously enough.
The Church’s witness to the Gospel is bound to be a
challenge to our pride, greed, envy, lust, and more. The Church’s failure to live
up to the Gospel is bound to be unsettling and put our faith to the test.
The revered priest and spiritual writer Romano
Guardini noted in his book The Church of
the Lord that “everything in the
Church is so full of the human elements: commonplace,
ordinary, even wicked human elements.”
Social activist and convert to Catholicism Dorothy Day
was fond of saying, “The Church is the cross on which Christ is always
crucified” --a quote she attributed to Guardini.
Both of them recognized that "the Church as lived”
is not a perfect society, the same idea which prompted Pope Benedict XVI to
acknowledge that the Church has a “disfigured
face.”
Catholics confess that they believe in “one, holy,
catholic and apostolic Church” but experience on a daily basis a Church divided
and sinful.
They are told “Even in the liturgy the church does
not wish to impose a rigid uniformity in matters which do not affect the faith
or well-being of the entire community” (Sacrosanctum
concilium, 37) and yet an awkward English translation of the Roman Missal
is imposed for the sake of uniformity.
Catholics are invited to give their observations for
a synod about the challenges facing family life in today’s world, and yet the
questions posed for their consideration (“What
analytical tools are currently being used in these times of anthropological and
cultural change?” or “How do
Christian families bear witness, for succeeding generations, to the development
and growth of a life of sentiment?”) are more abstruse than the challenges
they are supposed to probe.
Parishioners are subject to the ideologies of their
pastors concerning the physical arrangements of their parish church. One pastor
persuades (convinces?) the congregation that the tabernacle should not be in
the sanctuary (behind the altar), but the next pastor insists there are good
reasons to restore the tabernacle to that very position.
Catholics are encouraged to pray for “more
vocations,” which generally means the hope that more young, unmarried men will come
forward for ordination to the priesthood, when in fact they believe there would
be plenty of priests if the discipline of celibacy were made optional.
Parishioners see family men in their own parish who could easily and with
dignity preside at the Eucharist.
They hear about Church leaders who complain that the
Church has been “feminized,” and at the same time see these same
prelates dressed and parading about in satin and lace and fur.
Ecclesia reformans et reformanda is a time-honored principle which acknowledges that the Church is
always in need of reform, a work in process. Each generation of believers must translate that
observation into the Church of its own time—a difficult and painful process.
The New Testament bears to witness to many quarrels and disputes: conflicts among Jesus’ apostles, disagreements about how Gentiles should be received into the community, squabbles among Christians in the Churches of Galatia and Corinth and
Thessalonica.
In some ways it is the human element of the Church
that is harder to accept than the divine. Our frustration that things are not
the way they should be makes us question whether God is really present after
all. And yet the Incarnation is where we meet the deep, puzzling mystery of the
human and divine met in the one person of Jesus Christ, who chose not to shy
away from but to enter into the brokenness of the human condition. God’s patience
and providence continue to surprise.
When he was asked about the newly formulated Constitution
for the United States, Benjamin Franklin replied, “I consent, sir, to this
constitution, because I expect no better, and because I am not sure that it is
not the best.” He did have some misgivings, but he proposed its acceptance. I
sometimes wonder if Jesus feels the same about his Church. If he accepts it in
its brokenness, who am I to reject it?
I can pray for its growth, work for its betterment,
but to abandon what Jesus purchased at so great a price is hardly thinkable. It
may not be what he had in mind, but he has not given up on it and neither
should we.
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