Catholics, Church and the Constitution

I woke up this morning and found myself musing over the recent revelations involving the Missouri bishop charged with failing to report to authorities what he knew: that one of the priests in his Diocese had, over a long period of time, engaged in habitual acts of child-abuse of a sexual nature.

Several things struck me as I lay there in the dark. First, it struck me with a sudden force that I was really, really angry. Angry at the bishop. Angry at the church. How strange. What about the priest? One might wonder why my ire was not directed in greater measure toward the wicked man who actually abused the innocent children. And so indeed I did begin to wonder.

What I came to realize is that I expect there to be wicked people in the world, and even in lower levels of church leadership. That certain men will, given the opportunity, use children for sexual pleasure surprises me none. It's part of the mix here on broken planet Earth.

What sets my blood boiling is the thought of people in higher (sometimes much higher) levels of church leadership failing to call others in the church to account -- or, in this case, even complying with good and just civil laws designed to protect children from dangerous sexual predators.

So I lay there in a sudden seizure of mental paralysis. Which is worse? And more fundamentally, is either deed really any worse than the other? To sexually abuse a child is an awful thing. To lay children down before the pagan altar of "protecting" the reputation of the church (I guess that one didn't work out so well) is no less awful.

I should hate both sins. And I need to love both sinners. And I should expect failures in church leadership to also be part of the mix here on broken planet Earth.

But I have not been feeling much love or compassion for the Missouri bishop. And I still cling to silly notions that here on broken planet Earth failures such as seen in this Missouri bishop should not happen.

Why?

Perhaps it's because of the abuse I have received at the hands of self-protecting church leaders that I have such a visceral (dare I say?) hatred for the church leaders. I've never been sexually abused by anyone in the church before. My gut reacts to sins I know well enough from the victim's perspective. I am a victim several times over of abuse by turf-protecting, reputation-protecting and self-protecting church leaders. An area of unforgiveness in me is revealed.

But then my thoughts moved on to the next puzzling thing. Yes, both sorts of sins are to be expected in the church. Sexual predators and organizational Machiavellis.

What happens when they collide?

I was struck by the thought that the writers of the Constitution knew something about this. They split the executive branch from the legislative branch. And they further split law-writers from the law enforcers. What have we, in the church, done to address this need? The writers of the constitution understood human nature well enough. Should not the church understand it even better?

Clearly the Missouri bishop had more than a little too much of the executive branch and the judicial branch wrapped into one under his hat. If in the church the executive and judicial branches were more distinct, we'd not (one would hope) have been so likely to see someone in the "executive wing" of the church so blatantly and awfully protected by such utter moral failure on the part of the "judicial wing" of the church.

But we don't. Not in the Catholic church. I see that in the news. And not in the Protestant church. I experienced that in person. In my Protestant church the break-down seems not to be in the ideal set-up, nor even in the legal set-up. In my experience the local executive branch (pastor/priest) was beholden in some way to the judicial branch (vestry/leadership committee). But only on paper. In practice I found, to my great distress and personal pain, that the priest rules and the vestry obeys. I guess some sort of similar process fails in the Catholic church too.

Lord Jesus, have mercy on us, your church. And have mercy on me. I am part of it, and I am obliged to remain in it. I am reminded of an old quote which seems sometimes to be attributed to Augustine and other times not...

"The church is a whore. But she is my mother."

Lessons From A Hamster

At least twice in recent months I dreamed I was holding a struggling hamster in my hands. In both dreams I struggled to accomplish two rather incompatible goals. One the one hand, I didn't want to hurt the tiny creature I had in my strong hands. On the other, I didn't want the hamster to escape my grasp and fall to the floor.

Injury and/or death awaited the hamster if it fell from my hands, but the very same fate lay in store for the hamster if I held it too tightly. And the problem was this: the hamster, in both dreams, was in full panic mode.

We have two hamsters in our home, so I can attest to the fact that hamsters do panic – and when they do, the floor is the next stop if you're not watching them closely. They'll jump to their death, given the opportunity. When they've decided to panic, that is.

So... why the dream? I'm not sure, but I have some guesses. I tell guests in our home regularly that I love to think of the hamsters as reminders for humans of how God thinks about us. We're dumb as a box of rocks (with all the smart ones taken out) and yet he absolutely adores us. We cannot do one blasted useful thing for him, but he's just tickled pink to watch us just to see what we'll do next. He even delights in watching us sleep. Obviously the illustration should not be taken too far, but I still find it helpful.

But what does God do with us when we're panicking? Here I may be reaching too far to interact with a dream that has more to do with last night's pizza than with instruction from on high. But I had the dream twice, so it must have significance in my own thoughts, if not God's.

In the dream I found myself both times coming to the same conclusion. The safest place for the struggling hamster was a cage. I wanted to hold and caress the hamster, but it was squirming like a banshee and to keep it from escaping my hand (and falling to the floor) I had to squeeze it too hard. In the cage I would not have to hold the hamster. It'd be a restricted world for the hamster, but it'd be a safe one.

When in life I find myself feeling caged in, perhaps the time has come to reflect on whether I would be willing to rest (without struggling) in my Father's hands. The sense of imprisonment might just recede if I could.