Voice for the Faithful Catholic Laity
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SUE
Strengthening
Faith in a Time of Crisis
A crisis that strikes so centrally at the integrity of the Church necessitates a
response from each one us. There must be general reform in the Church, but I’d
like to explore how each one of us can respond to the Church’s crisis with a
commitment to stronger faith and personal reform. In focusing on this personal
response, I am by no means equating personal sin with the deep corruption we
are discovering, nor seeking to take focus away from needed calls for practical
change. The crisis to which I am responding, however, goes beyond the recent
scandals to the underlying crisis of faith that has weakened the Church as a
whole. Although the main thrust of this reflection predated the recent
scandals, and comes from a talk I gave in the spring, I offer it now in hopes
that it may help focus us on our response to them.
We must decide how we will respond to the storm.
Jesus looks at each one of us as we are rocked by the waves. There is no one to
grab onto, the wind is whipping up, and we are beginning to sink with
discouragement. Do we keep our eyes on Jesus or do we focus on the storm
surrounding us? Right now, many of us are drowning in the confusion and scandal
caused by leaders of the Church. Does Jesus need to tell us, like Peter: “You
of little faith, why so afraid”? The devil uses real problems in the Church to
tempt us to sin against faith. If we take our eyes off of the Lord, we could be
tempted to think that our faith is based upon the human dimension of the
Church. There are so many reasons to be discouraged, but we are called to a
supernatural response to God’s plan.
There can be no doubt that the Church is facing a
general crisis. It’s not hard to find statistics of the precipitous decline in
Church attendance as well as the reception of the sacraments, and there’s no
need to repeat them here. Even many Catholics who come to Church do not fully
profess faith in the Church’s teaching and may receive the Eucharist unprepared
and in a state of sin. We now see that our leadership has been compromised in
fundamental ways. And yet, the Church always faces some form of serious crisis.
It is built into the nature of the Church as a mystical association of
believers, to receive God’s sanctifying grace while remaining weak and sinful
human beings. The Church contains both sinners who are experiencing lifelong
conversion and hypocrites who reject God’s grace but remain within the Church
and even hold positions of authority.
Recognizing the never-ending crisis in the Church
does not distract from the need for real reform and for holding people
accountable. But it does point us to the heart of Jesus’s call to faith and
trust in his providence. God wills the Church to be weak and to suffer. That
may sound nice in theory, but the self-inflicted nature of this suffering is
particularly hard to bear. Pope Benedict XVI has often pointed this out: “The
suffering of the church comes from inside the church, from sin that exists
inside the church.” It is tempting to evaluate this statement only from the
viewpoint of the clergy, particularly in light of grievous scandals, but the
laity, too, must recognize that we are part of the problem. We are also a large
part of the solution, if we cooperate with God’s grace. Looking to the saints,
the great reformers, we must dedicate ourselves to reform, embracing the Lord’s
call to conversion and holiness so that we can play our own part in the
Church’s mission with renewed faith and strength.
Nature of the Crisis
There are three major fronts to the
crisis facing the Church: doctrine, corruption, and secularization. We could
describe these points further as not teaching and adhering fully to divine
revelation and dogma; abandoning the call to holiness and the moral demands of
God’s commandments; and a breakdown of Catholic culture and the Christian way
of life. A fundamental crisis of faith underlies all three points: namely, not
adhering to the faith and not living it out personally and socially.
It is true that the Church constantly faces
challenges to faith and the moral life, but secularization offers a new and
unique challenge. Never before have Christians lived within a secular culture,
which pushes God to the sidelines of society, living life as if he did not
exist. This secularization has brought unprecedented challenges to the Church
and society, as we have called even the fundamental realities of life into
question: marriage, the nature of man and woman, and the dignity of human life
itself. Secularization is a challenge to the Church because it influences her
members in fundamental ways that impede the life of faith, sapping the dynamism
of their spiritual lives.
We cannot turn to the Church as a safe haven from
our culture, because the Church lives in the world and a crisis of culture
always enters into the Church. Catholics bring their struggles with them into
the pews, because we live within and are shaped by the culture itself.
Confusion and dissent on fundamental points of belief and morality have entered
the Church. Despite the heroic witness of some, Catholics as a whole are
responsible for the Church’s crisis:
Both the clergy and laity have not been true to the
faith.
§ Clergy have not insisted on its integrity and have
not taught it fully and faithfully.
§ The laity have rejected large portions of it and
have fallen into relativism.
Both the clergy and laity have not lived the faith
and kept true to the moral law.
§ Many members of the clergy have not been faithful
to demands of celibacy or have fallen into spiritual mediocrity.
§ A large percentage of the laity contracepts, has
gotten divorced, and has abandoned the practice of the faith.
Is there a connection between the overarching
failings of the clergy and the laity? Absolutely, as neither has kept the other
accountable, in large part due to their own failings.
Why the Lord Allows the Church to
Suffer
The Church’s crisis of faith creates
scandal particularly by fostering discouragement. As it appears that the Church
lacks faith and holiness, many begin to question if they are real and possible.
To fight against discouragement, it is important to reflect on why the Lord
allows weakness and sin to remain within his Church. Paul described this by
saying that “we have this treasure in earthen vessels, to show that the
transcendent power belongs to God and not to us” (2 Cor. 4:7). God wants the
Church to be weak so that he can tell us with Paul: “My grace is sufficient for
you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9). The Lord
desires to work through the ministry of sinners so that we realize that he
alone is the source of grace and truth. The perpetual crisis of the Church
continues when her members become self-referential, pointing to themselves
above Christ and using the Church for self-serving ends.
Fr. Thomas Weinandy pointed to this
reality at the heart of the Church’s crisis: “I have often asked myself: ‘Why
has Jesus let all of this happen?’ The only answer that comes to mind is that
Jesus wants to manifest just how weak is the faith of many within the Church,
even among too many of her bishops.” Ironically then, the Lord may allow the
crisis we face to strengthen our faith in him. He helps us to realize time and
time again that we can do nothing without him. The constant need for conversion
entails turning from ourselves to Christ for our salvation. The woundedness of
the Church continues the scandal of the Cross. Just as the Jews and Greeks
objected to salvation through the Resurrection of one Jewish man, acknowledged
to be the Son of God, so the world understandably bulks at this salvation
coming to it through the ministry of sinful Christians.
The Church must guard against complacency to the
sin of her members, however. Otherwise, Catholics, whether the clergy or laity,
can become like the unfaithful servant in Christ’s parable, who says: “‘My
master is delayed in coming,’ and begins to beat the menservants and the
maidservants, and to eat and drink and get drunk, the master of that servant
will come on a day when he does not expect him and at an hour he does not know,
and will punish him, and put him with the unfaithful” (Luke 12:45). We must
constantly realize that we are sinners representing and serving God, who must
seek ever-greater conformity to the Master. Otherwise, he will disown and
punish us.
Never-Ending Reform
Lack of faith and the betrayal of sin
have been a constant problem throughout history. Tracing the weakness of the
Church—of God’s people—is not just a matter of history, but also a matter of
listening to divine revelation. We can see how even our father in faith,
Abraham, sought to force God’s promise by taking a concubine, how Israel
rejected God in the desert after seeing his wonders, and how idolatry remained
a constant struggle in the promised land. Most poignantly, we can see how the
king after God’s own heart, David, responded to God’s promise that his throne
would endure forever (2 Sam. 7), by committing the sins of adultery and murder
(2 Sam. 11). Furthermore, his son Solomon, who received extraordinary blessings
from God, fell into idolatry, only a minority of David’s descendants were
faithful, and the promised line of kings ended in exile.
The Apostles weren’t much different. Jesus made
another extraordinary promise to Peter only to call him “satan” five verses
later for seeking to impede God’s plan (Matt. 16:18, 23). The same rock denies
Jesus three times as all the apostles disperse, and one of them betrays his own
master. Later, Paul had to correct Peter over his hypocrisy toward the
Gentiles. Nothing could show us more directly how God works through weakness
than how he established his Church upon the weakness of our humanity to
manifest the power of his divinity. God gave us a clear sign to expect human
weakness in our leaders, even as he showed us the transformation he could enact
when the Holy Spirit acts through this weakness, such as at Pentecost.
The Church has faced many serious crises in
history: severe persecution, which included not only the faithfulness of the
martyrs but also many who betrayed the faith; heresies which overwhelmed a
great number of bishops, especially Arianism; the destruction of images of
Christ through the East in the iconoclast controversies; the external threat of
Islam which overwhelmed the Christian heartland; the ignorance of priests and
the corruption of the hierarchy in the Middle Ages; schisms in both East and
West; the Protestant heresy which split Christendom in half; modern revolutions
which nearly extinguished the priesthood and sacraments in entire nations;
confusion in the Church’s liturgy and doctrine; and the secularism which has
overwhelmed Western Civilization.
And what of the successors of St. Peter? We see
both the power of God’s promise to make Peter the rock for the preservation of
faith and the weakness and corruption of many popes who needed to be rebuked as
satan for impeding the will of God. The laity has intervened at crucial moments
in favor of reform. Even the monastic movement began largely as a lay response
of personal conversion and reform, gaining popularity once the threat of Roman
persecution waned and the Church entered mainstream society. The first
ecumenical councils arose at the initiative of the Roman emperors. Similarly,
early Germanic emperors intervened to depose some of the most corrupt popes in
history in the tenth century. Nonetheless, the intervention of secular rulers
would plague the Church as well, with Byzantine emperors seeking to impose
heresy and Holy Roman Emperors and later monarchs attempting to control bishops
(and many times succeeding).
Every crisis, however, brings forth a new champion
of the faith, such as Athanasius who stood against the world in the Arian
crisis. Merely human responses will not succeed and will introduce new
problems. We cannot focus only on exterior solutions and policies without insisting
on interior conversion. We can remove corrupt leaders, but who will replace
them? The saints model the authentic reform that begins with oneself. St.
Charles Borromeo led the true Reformation by modeling reform himself, which
then inspired institutional reform. Holiness—expressed in prayer, penance, and
virtue—must be the center of any true reform.
Strengthening Faith
As I’ve already noted, a crisis
creates discouragement, but it can also inspire reform. If we are not simply
ignorant of what’s happening, we face four possible responses:
1.
Giving up by abandoning the Church.
2.
Complacency in simply accepting things as they are for better
or worse.
3.
Corruption in resisting reform and remaining in sinful
practices.
4.
Reform by seeking holiness above all else for
oneself and others.
Option four will require us to ask with Chesterton,
“What’s wrong with the world?” including the Church, and also to answer with
him: “me.” This answer does not deny the faults and corruption of others, or
turn a blind eye to the need for accountability, but recognizes that my sins
are part of the problem. In fact, they are central for each of us, because they
are the part of the problem for which we bear direct responsibility. For reform
to succeed, stronger faith, repentance, and the will to change must flow from
many Catholics. Only in following my “yes” to personal reform, can I be a part
of the broader solution by allowing Christ to act through me.
Trials in the Church invite us to strengthen our
faith. They invite us to examine the source of our faith. Why do we believe?
Because we grew up Catholic, have been inspired by a particular priest or
fellow Catholic, have enjoyed coming to Church (as unlikely as that might be),
or have been encouraged or comforted by being Catholic? These things may have a
role to play, but our faith must be rooted more deeply. Do we believe that
Jesus is the Christ who has come into the world for our salvation? We must remind
ourselves that we believe in God, not in human beings. In response to the
crisis of the Church, I affirm my faith in God and the trust I have in him,
recognizing that he is the source of my confidence, not myself or any other
human being.
I put forward the following points as my own
response to the crisis of faith:
1.
I believe that Jesus is the Son of
God become man to reveal the truth of God and to lead us to salvation.
2.
I believe that Jesus founded the
Church to communicate his truth and transmit his grace in the sacraments.
3.
I believe that Jesus chose to work
through flawed and sinful human beings, including his own disciples, despite
the scandal that this involves.
4.
I believe that Jesus will preserve
the Church from definitively teaching errors in faith and morals, even though
Christians will fail in their own roles to teach and witness the faith.
5.
I believe that God’s providence will
continue to guide the Church through history to the second coming, that the
gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church, and that God will use our
weakness for his greater glory.
6.
I believe that God is calling me to
holiness despite all the obstacles in my own life, the Church, and society. I
know that I am a sinner and that the Lord calls me now to a deeper conversion
and relationship with him.
As we renew our faith, we must also reform our
lives so that they embody what we believe. This will require an increase in
humility, recognizing our own weakness and absolute dependence on God. We must
also increase our life of prayer, seeking the one thing necessary and
recognizing that all good comes from prayer. In addition, we must practice
mortification and penance to reach true conversion of life and to make
reparation for our sins and those of the Church. We will have to hold fast to
the truth in love and patience, witnessing to and serving others. Ultimately,
we must form a Christian culture (or way of life) in our family, work, and in
all that we do, recreating the necessary soil for renewal.
Genuine faith leads us to hope, especially in the
midst of difficulties, which in turn leads to a greater love for God and
neighbor, completing our response to the crisis. If we truly trust in Jesus, we
can say with St. Catherine of Siena:
This desire was great and continuous, but grew much
more, when the First Truth showed her the neediness of the world, and in what a
tempest of offense against God it lay. And she had understood this the better
from a letter, which she had received from the spiritual Father of her soul, in
which he explained to her the penalties and intolerable dolor caused by
offenses against God, and the loss of souls, and the persecutions of Holy
Church.
All this lighted the fire of her holy desire with
grief for the offenses, and with the joy of the lively hope, with which she
waited for God to provide against such great evils. And, since the soul seems,
in such communion, sweetly to bind herself fast within herself and with God,
and knows better his truth, inasmuch as the soul is then in God, and God in the
soul, as the fish is in the sea, and the sea in the fish.
