The Church is Not Its Own Infection

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

You don’t have to look far to find news of a scandal in the Catholic Church. Sexual exploitation and abuse are a relentless theme in such stories and those of us who care to see this trend interrupted feel somewhat helpless to do anything about it.

Part of what is preventing us from doing so is that unsympathetic voices are often the first and loudest to tell us what to think about these events and when they do so, it isn’t out of concern for the good of Catholics or the Church. And that influence is distorting our perception and that’s a problem because it is Catholics who will either fix the problem or continue to feel helpless.

To try to address the problem fairly, It might help if we start with an analogy that removes the Church from the equation and our excessive sympathies or hostilities with it. Let’s talk about the education system for a second, because this is, obviously, something that happens at schools as well.

Most of us can admit that a system of education is a good thing but there are also those who see it as something to exploit for their own selfish ends – even going so far as to abuse their students. Does this mean that there is something wrong with the aims of education? No, it means there is something wrong with those who seek to exploit it and, in turn, corrupt its institutions.

So, in that case, the solution isn’t to lay the blame for abusive teachers at the feet of the aims education. It is to try to keep those who would corrupt its institutions by their presence, far away, and that is inevitably, a perpetual, multifaceted struggle.

Likewise, what is the Church? The Church is the faithful, the people of God whether they be lay, religious, or clergy who follow Jesus – who believe in his teachings and put them into practice. These are people who are morally flawed like anyone else, but are always striving to repent and correct those flaws.

But a person who deliberately aims to groom, manipulate, and eventually abuse the most vulnerable within a community, is not a person who is guilty of a mere moral flaw. This is not someone doing their best to follow Jesus or the Church’s teachings and getting a few things wrong.

This is a person whose affiliation within the Church is treated as an opportunity to satisfy their most corrupt instincts and I would, certainly, not categorize them among the faithful followers of Jesus – that is, they aren’t indicative of what the Church or her beliefs and practices are.

They are more like an infection in the body.

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