Some Thoughts for a Special Year - V
Strange Need
Our divine Lord said, “Woe to the world because of scandals! For it must
needs be that scandals come, but woe to that man through whom scandal does
come!” (Matthew 18:7). The reality of evil continues in our world even after
Jesus conquered wickedness, sin, and death by His own dying and
resurrection. Until Christ comes again at the end of time, for some
mysterious reason known in full only to God Himself, He permits evil and sin
to continue on earth, and allows the affliction of the human race by
temptations deriving from our fallen human nature, from the sinful aspects
of the world that surrounds us, as well as from the archenemy of our
happiness and salvation, that is, from Lucifer and his fallen angels, the
devils of hell. Our Savior never promised that by His coming “the gates of
hell” would be immediately exterminated, but only that they would not
ultimately prevail everywhere against the Catholic Church which He founded
(Matthew 16:18). Indeed, over the centuries they have prevailed, but only in
certain times and places on the earth. Christ’s promise and guarantee for
His Church, because He is a divine Person Who makes it, always abides.
The enemies of Christ and the enemies of His Church (actually always the
same) know quite well the old saying, that the only possible way to destroy
the Church would be to destroy the priesthood. Cardinal Suhard wrote, “There
has been nothing more belittled, nothing more misunderstood, nothing more
attacked in all history than the priesthood.” The attacks often come,
unfortunately, not exclusively from the fiendish devils and from people
outside the Church, but also occasionally from some of her own disloyal
children, including sometimes wicked priests themselves. Perhaps one of the
reasons why Jesus, Who conducted the most perfect priestly formation program
possible on earth, nevertheless permitted Himself to be betrayed by Judas
Iscariot, one of His own Apostles, was to keep us from being excessively
shocked by the (fortunately rare) scandalous behavior of some few priests,
which in our time is being endlessly screamed at us by the pagan and hostile
media. In this world why “it must needs be that scandals come” will probably
never be completely answered. That complete answer to the mystery of evil
and the reason for God’s permitting it will only be known to us in eternity.
Cardinal Suhard wrote, “Christ’s enemies well know that destroying the
priesthood is the only way to banish God’s Church forever from the world.
Until the end of time the priest then will be the most beloved and the most
hated of men, the most incarnate and the most transcendent, their dearest
brother and their archenemy. Priests know as they go to the altar that they
will be a sign of contradiction, a light for the children of light and
darkness for the sons of night.”
Pray for Priests
Saint Therese, the Little Flower, recalling her childhood pilgrimage to Rome
accompanied by a group of priests, wrote, “I came across many holy priests,
and I saw that their sublime dignity raised them above the angels, but that
they were nonetheless men, weak and fragile. If then, holy priests, whom
Jesus names in His Gospel as the salt of the earth, are in such need of
prayers, what must be thought of those who are tepid?” Cardinal Richard
Cushing wrote, “Catholics must beg God to shield their priests from every
danger, to drive far from them the onslaughts of the infernal enemy. They
should ask that each priest may daily increase in virtue and that his
imperfections be melted away in the heat of divine love. They should pray
that the way of the Lord may be made smooth for the blessed feet of those
who preach and bring the good news of peace.”
Boyd Barrett wrote, “Catholics should instinctively pray for their priest
that he might persevere to the end as their priest and shepherd. They know
the road before him can be steep and beset with danger. Their prayer should
be touched with pity and tenderness, for their priest belongs to them, and
they have a duty toward him. They pray because they know he needs the help
of prayer to fulfill his high vocation, and because they know that, even as
Saint Peter and Saint Thomas stumbled, he too could fail. And what if, after
some years of faithful service, he should fail? Will the prayers for him
then cease? Will pity and tenderness turn to ill will and hate? Should there
not be feelings of charity even for a stray shepherd?” The Epistle to the
Hebrews says (5:2-3), “He is able to have compassion for the ignorant and
erring because he himself is also beset with weakness, and by reason thereof
is obliged to offer for sins on behalf of the people so also for himself.”
Latin Saying
There is a Latin saying from the Middle Ages to the effect that the
corruption of the best always results in the worst (“corruptio optimi
pessima”). This certainly proves true especially for fallen priests. One
thinks of the incredible amount of damage done to Christendom, for instance,
by such ex-priests as Martin Luther, and how the scandalous sins of some
Catholics in his times had provided the tinder in which flames of his errors
could catch fire and spread.
Evidently, in the immediate past, not so much in the present or the remote
past, there have been acts of sexual misconduct by a relatively very small
number of priests, which can only be called heinous, vile, abominable,
abhorrent, and unspeakably evil. Next to the innocent victims those
detestable crimes have hurt, the Church herself and the reputation of the
overwhelming majority of priests, who are good, holy, pure, and selfless,
have been most harmed. Attempts, of course, must be made to provide
restitution and reparation for those crimes, although we realize that this
probably can never be adequately accomplished.
Also, it is important never to forget the vast number of priest-saints who
have in the past and continue in the present to embellish our lives and our
world, being channels of God’s grace, forgiveness, and joy to us all. In the
words of Father John O’Brien, “For centuries the ambassadors of Jesus
Christ, our priests, have marched in the vanguard of civilization. They have
made contributions to literature, science, medicine, art, sculpture, music,
and to all the cultures which enrich the mind of man and emancipate the
spirit from the thralldom of the material. They have fought for the poor and
downtrodden against the tyranny of kings. They have enriched the moral and
spiritual life of man and enshrined in the hearts of the masses a new and
deeper reverence for the sanctities of the spirit and the verities of the
Eternal. They have been sculptors of human character and the molders of the
ideals of the human race They have stood as a beacon on the mountain top,
proclaiming to humanity the supremacy of God and the nobility of the human
soul.” Pope Pius XI said, “A final tribute to the priesthood is given by the
enemies of the Church. They show that they fully appreciate the dignity and
importance of the Catholic priesthood by directing against it their first
and fiercest blows. The rabid enemies of the Catholic priesthood are today
the very enemies of God, a homage indeed to the priesthood!”