A Leaven In The World… Sin And Clericalism: Two Different Things
By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Often one points now to those outside of the visible confines of the Church to find persons who actually follow the teachings of the Church. Many Catholic schools have already commenced a compromise with the inevitable onslaught of child enrollments for families of same-sex parents. Give in on marriage redefinition and redefine the family as well.
The Christianophobic media have launched an attack on Second Lady Karen Pence because she, though not a Catholic and married to a former Catholic, has the unbridled temerity to work at a Christian school that actually lives by and enforces Christian teachings. These educators are bashed for banning “gay and transgender” students. One need only think through the consequences of accepting them, which means accepting their agenda of redefining God, creation, the world and humanity, to realize that banning them is the only option if one is to credibly remain a Christian in deed as well as in word.
Not so Catholic institutions, many of which are rotting from the inside out. One need think only of my alma mater, Fordham University, the Catholicity of which has been hollowed out by the enshrinement of a man who claims he is “married” to another man, ensconced in no less than the theology department. “Lay down your arms and surrender” is the clear message.
Catholic bishops have slowly but surely accepted the homosexualist agenda, or fatally ignored it, for years. Now they’re backed into a corner by the powerful lobby commanded by James Martin, SJ, from his throne at America Magazine within the Jesuit order.
Those “lobbyists” are dedicated to reimagining the Catholic faith. They work their charm among the well-heeled cocktail party crowd, who are petrified of being accused as haters and disinvited from the best social events. University professors and cardinals bowed to evil long ago by refusing to withhold blessing from same-sex couplings in using “marriage” to describe them and now the enemy cohort has breached the ramparts. Prelates went along with the lobbyists they hired to compromise on the “LGBT” label and messaging, infiltrating, and compromising diocesan bureaucracies, and now they’re in the tank for the behavior. Evil does not seek compromise with good. The Devil’s agenda is to destroy.
Karen Pence is still following the Christian worldview, the one we all agreed on back in the Middle Ages. The one the universal Church is still supposed to be teaching since it existed — unlike any other contemporary group that claims to be Christian — and taught such in the Middle Ages. People have always used children to gain sympathy for their pet causes. Same-sex couples are now doing the same. No one would dare mistreat a child. And no one should. Somebody should have seen this coming.
But back to the bishops. One euphemism leads to another, as compassion was used to excuse wholesale acceptance of the LGBT agenda, so now to protect it and the very large constituency that comes with it, the Pope has signaled that we will use the word “clericalism” to denote the cause of pedophilia while ignoring the real cause is same-sex attraction.
Ironic: The LGBT agenda that so many bishops either ignored out of distaste or neglect and that others courted or applauded has been the cause of the greatest persecution of the Church in this country since the Know-Nothing riots of the nineteenth century. Holiness will come from without as the world demands we follow the Gospel if we who claim to be on the inside refuse it. Since persecution is the true spur of holiness in the Church, perhaps we may soon see an outbreak of such so long needed in the Body of Christ.
Along with the truth about so many priests who were allowed to continue to prey on youth and other vulnerable victims come the lies, stereotypes, and half-truths about the Church and the faith that add to the already-great scandal which wounds the Body of Christ and jeopardizes souls.
The real “clericalism” which is compounding the Church’s woes isn’t the sins of the clergy, whether natural or unnatural. Homosexual activity is not clericalism, it is a sin, no matter who engages in it. Pedophilia is not clericalism, it is a sin and a crime, no matter who engages in it.
It is, rather, the expectation on the part of clerics that their sins should be treated differently than those of the lay members of the Body of Christ, and the enabling of such attitudes, that makes up true clericalism. Any Catholic who sins must repent, confess, and be absolved, thus returning to a state of grace and able to receive the Eucharist. Any Christian who is to persevere in repentance for sin and salvation must avoid the near occasions of sin with God’s help.
This includes priests and bishops. When bishops or priests gave in to confusion that their public role was more important than their salvation, and that it must be preserved no matter how doing such endangers the Church and other souls, then the smoke of Satan truly seeped into the sanctuary of God through some crack — as Paul VI warned.
The only indispensable Person in the lives of each one of us is Christ. Better to resign and retire than cause scandal. When we forget we are not placed in Church office for a career of personal advancement above other considerations, we jeopardize our salvation. When we hold office in the Church and forget such, we jeopardize not only our own eternal life but also potentially that of countless others through painful and avoidable scandal.
No priest who ever sexually molested a child was necessary to the Church as a priest. Better he be laicized and seek help to include total separation from access to youth than to risk his salvation or the safety and security of others. This truth was often forgotten or rejected in an age that had become unmoored from the prayer of the liturgy and the profession of truth in other ways.
Bishops and other officeholders in the Church have averted their eyes from sins on the part of other bishops and priests, who then became cardinals and thus widened the scope of their evildoing or cover-up with the aid of increased influence. Thus, as Archbishop Carlo Viganò attests, generations of priests and seminarians were corrupted.
Viganò’s most recent letter calls on McCarrick to repent lest he lose his eternal soul. Perhaps, praise God, he has already begun to repent with the help of a priest — as we all must do. The public nature of his crimes calls also for a public renunciation and apology.
One cardinal may walk away from the smoldering ecclesial ruins in his wake with his red hat still perched atop his pate; the other, by the time you read this, perhaps already reduced to the lay state. The rest of us will be left to pick up the pieces.
Thank you for reading and praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever.
@MCITLFrAphorism
