The only person in the world who feels a greater exasperation with the Church than the one who hates it is the one who loves it. Because the one who loves it feels something those who hate it do not feel: disappointment.
Again and again, particularly in Mark, Jesus expresses his exasperation with the disciples. “Do you still not understand?” he cries in frustration.
What he does not do, however, is give up on his disciples (which is to say, us and the people who drive us nuts. The great temptation is to buy the lie that the Church has simply failed too badly to redeem. But we are the Church. Reducing the Church simply to some remote bureaucracy is to radically misunderstand it. So is reducing it only to Those People Over There I Can’t Stand. The baptized are the Church. All of us. The clergy are to the Church as the skeleton is to the body. They play a vital role, but then so does every member of the Body. And Christ has (frustratingly but vitally) so ordered things that it is not possible to be his disciple while forsaking the Church. Doesn’t mean everything fellow Christians or clergy do is automatically from God (it was a bishop who oversaw the judicial murder of Joan of Arc, after all, and the chief persecutors of Christians on our soil in this hour are other Christians). But it does mean there is such a thing as the mystical Body of Christ and that we play the Lone Ranger only at the cost of directly ignoring Jesus while claiming to obey him. That way is guaranteed failure by Jesus himself.
The Church is the Body of Christ. To proclaim yourself too pure for the Church is to demand he reform it while cutting off his fingers. Stay and be the reform by the power of the Spirit. Yes, that means bearing his cross with him. What did you expect?
Something to chew on as a large portion of the US Church prepares to plunge itself even more deeply into sinful support for a dimestore antichrist we just inaugurated as Tyrant-in-Chief.
Advertisement
17 Responses
The whole business of Trump as “God’s Anointed” is bizarre. I can understand transactional support for him, such as the appointment of Republicans to the Supreme Court to overturn Roe to obtain votes, but the hero worship baffles me. The bumper stickers which read “Jesus is my Lord and Trump is my President” are borderline blasphemous.
Evangelicals and right wing Catholics have painted themselves into a corner with Trump. Their near messianic worship of him will not end well.
I’m sorry Mark, but I don’t think you would apply this standard to any other situation, human collective or even another religious denomination.
Would you tell the victim of domestic abuse that regardless of any physical, psychological and emotional abuse being heaped upon them and their children, that they must endure and remain in the marriage no matter what?
Would you insist that someone who has considered themselves a life-long Republican, but is currently disgusted with the current state of affairs, that they’re obligated to remain in the party to “make it better”?
Does that admonishment for people who “supposedly consider themselves to be “too pure” for their church, extend to Protestant Christian denominations as well? Or even any other faith tradition for that matter.
Honestly? I think that most human institutions, especially religions, are driven primarily by one thing: to preserve their continued existence. I don’t see anything that indicates that the Catholic Church is the exception, regardless of whether its divinely inspired or not.
You may not be aware of it, but on this instance, you’re speaking in the language and manner of abusers.
I like you Mark. I think you mean well and I often find your takes on various topics to be both interesting and insightful. But on this specific subject matter, I think you just have too much of a blind spot.
At the very least, if I’m going to be as charitable as possible, I would say that this idea that “you can never leave the Church no matter what”, needs to be better qualified and contextualized so that it doesn’t just become a mechanism of enabling the clergy to inflict all manner of abuses upon the laity, without any meaningful recourse or consequences.
If Mark – or I – considered the Catholic Church to be purely a human institution, of course your comments could indicate the necessity of leaving it. As you are well aware, we believe the Church to be of divine institution; to be, in fact, the fulness of Christ’s presence on earth – outside of which (allowing every sort of proper qualification of the word ‘outside’), we believe, there is no salvation.
“Then Jesus gave the Twelve their chance: “Do you also want to leave?” Peter replied, “Master, to whom would we go? You have the words of real life, eternal life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident that you are the Holy One of God.”
@John Thayer Jensen:
We’re going to have a fundamental disagreement on that front. But rather than discuss the merits, or lack thereof, of attributing such qualities to the Catholic Church, I would rather urge you to consider what this means for the abuse victims on a practical level.
Not many people have the knowledge, resources or resolve to “be the reform by the power of the Spirit”; nor should they. Its the same reason we don’t, as a society, blame or place the onus on the victims of a crime for not wanting to go up against powerful organizations or individuals, when doing so might put a target on their backs.
Perhaps, a more productive endeavor would be to examine what does it actually mean in practical terms, to actually “leave the Church”; and perhaps more importantly, what it does not. Maybe then, the prospect of “staying” in a Church that has facilitated and enabled grave abuse, does not come off as a tone-deaf and tacit approval of such behavior.
Of course you don’t think the Church is divine. My point is that your criticism of what Mark wrote only makes sense if you assume he thinks it is purely human – and you know he does not.
I don’t think you got what I was trying to say, especially since I made it a point of NOT argue about the premise regarding the Church’s divinity. However, divinely ordained or not, you can’t go around telling the laity that if the institutional Church acts in a abusive manner, its their fault for not fixing it.
So the point I’m trying to get at, is to ask: does “leaving” the Church have to be an all or nothing proposition? Are you obligated to go to confession with a priest that you have good reason to believe has either engaged in or covered up abuse? Do you really have to attend in-person, the homilies of a MAGA-loving priest?
I just think that starting point for this discussion should be centered around the needs of the victims and the people with the least amount of power in the Church, not the other way around.
OK, sorry, I didn’t understand; my fault. And, no, you certainly don’t need to go to Confession to just any priest – nor attend his homilies. “The Church” is, we think, more than a concept – but it is embodied in its members. And not all of the members are equally healthy.
Sorry, I rather over-reacted 🙂
Where did I say it is the fault of laity for not fixing the clergy? Where did I say that victims of abuse have to knuckle under to abuse? You are hearing things I never said.
@Mark Shea: You asked:
“Where did I say it is the fault of laity for not fixing the clergy? Where did I say that victims of abuse have to knuckle under to abuse? You are hearing things I never said.”
Well, if you’re going to say that the laity are obligated to remain in the Church no matter what, that they have no right to demand reform if they leave, and that they are supposed to “stay and be the reform” and “bear his cross with him”, then yes, you’re implying quite directly that they’re at fault for not fixing the clergy and that they have to knuckle under the abuse.
I think that if we were talking about any other collective, like for example, the Republican Party, you would see the implications quite clearly. Now, you might believe that the Catholic Church is a special case, in which such a demand is justified, but it doesn’t make the implications any less true.
Nevertheless, I understand that telling a Catholic who sincerely believes in the Church’s teachings to “just leave the Church”, is really no solution at all. But I am worried that your exhortation to “stay no matter what”, if taken at face value, might put people in harm’s way.
Hence my point about defining and contextualizing what does “leaving the Church” mean exactly, in practice.
For further context, I’ve come across stories about other Catholics who have either reduced their Church attendance or gone on to attend a another mass from a different denomination for various reasons. One case was about the person suffering from anxiety attacks brought about by past trauma. Another was about being repeatedly retaliated against after their child was abused. The other case was as a form of protest against what they saw as systemic institutional failures, in the only manner they thought they could exert pressure to effect any kind of reform.
In all these instances, the people in question still considered themselves to be Catholics and within the broader Church, even though people who are more strict about things like Church attendance would wholeheartedly disagree.
Are you emigrating or staying in the US and working to reform it? If the latter, I don’t see why you can’t appreciate analogous actions in people like me. And the US is not even established by Jesus Christ. It’s just a very good thing worth saving.
> Nevertheless, I understand that telling a Catholic who sincerely believes
> in the Church’s teachings to “just leave the Church”, is really no solution at all.
> But I am worried that your exhortation to “stay no matter what”, if taken
> at face value, might put people in harm’s way.
Yes, it may put people in harm’s way. It did put people in harm’s way. It led people to persecution by the Church since “they couldn’t leave well enough alone”. Mark mentions Joan d’Arc who was murdered by the Church because she wouldn’t abandon her cause.
Come to think of it, it goes back much further back. First Christians didn’t kowtow to worship the emperor. The Church didn’t tell them to lean in, while “remaining Christians in their hearts” and “not really worship the emperor, just pretend”. You could easily argue that the Church set them up for persecution and indeed, a lot of people do.
And I’m sure there were Christians who faltered and left the Church. Unsurprisingly, nobody remembers them, even if they ultimately were saved.
People are persecuted on this world, but endure with a promise of a much greater reward in the afterlife. And there are saints who were exonerated and their persecutors’ actions condemned. However belated, or even never to come, that rehabilitation may be, is meaningless for you gain so much more.
It’s not forced upon the victims to challenge their abusers and bring about change.
It’s absolutely a failure of the institution if it fails to protect them.
But I’m not sure what you’re expecting? To sing praises of those who decided to leave rather than endure?
@Mark Shea:
I don’t have the resources to emigrate out of the US, especially not to a place that is not at the mercy and whims of US foreign policy, so at best, it would be a “out of the frying pan, into the fire” situation. But if we’re going to talk about immigration, then what about all those people who do in fact leave their country to escape violence or disastrous social, economic and political conditions? Are they obligated to stay or go back to “save” their country of origin?
@A Guy:
A threat from the outside is categorically different from a threat that comes from within, which makes the whole thing an apples to oranges comparison. For example, for a marriage that is being pressured to dissolve by external factors, the couple can lean and rely on each other for support to withstand the storm. However, a marriage that is characterized by spousal abuse, is just broken, on a fundamental level. These situations are just not the same, at all.
But to the both of you I’ll reiterate this: I’m really trying to not get into the whole thing about about whether or not its okay to leave the Church, because that really just boils down to the fact that we see the Church in the same way.
So lets just take for a given, that Catholics are obligated to remain in the Church no matter what happens. Okay fine, but what does that mean in practice? What level of engagement or disengagement is acceptable? What do you think are the guiding principles for someone who feels they might need to take a step back from active participation?
I think this is something worth mulling over at least, because for the people directly affected, this is not some abstract doctrinal/theological discussion. And I think they’re going to need something more substantive than “just don’t leave the Church”.
“because that really just boils down to the fact that we see the Church in the same way.”
I meant to say that we “don’t” see the Church the same way. It really sucks that there’s no “edit” button.
While I can’t comment on the discussion above, I do want to thank you for the Hilaire Belloc quote which I now read every morning before I even have coffee. And the Dorothy Day quote also. Something I need to remember when patience fails me!
@3vilstriker:
‘…we “don’t” see the Church the same way.’
Yes, that is the point. Indeed, if I didn’t believe the Church is what it claims to be – the authoritative and complete voice of God in the world – I could not be a Catholic. Indeed, I doubt I could call myself a Christian. Some sort of theist, probably.
And you are correct, it depends on what is meant by ‘leave the Church.’ There is absolutely no requirement that any Catholic not resist the evils that exist in the Church. Indeed, every person, Catholic or not, has a duty not to cooperate with evil. What that means in practical terms is very much a practical question of the particular evil and circumstance. It may well mean leaving this or that particular activity or situation in the Church.
@3vilstriker: PS – and I agree that there is no “edit” function. And it’s annoying to have to stick HTML stuff in there to do simple stuff like italics 🙂
Hah! I wrote “that there is no” when I meant to write “it sucks that there is no!” Self-referential example!!