Humbling yet enriching

IN an earlier article, I mentioned that I recently gave a class on Church history to a group of young professional men. Well, I’d like to say that I came out of that class both humbled and enriched.

Humbled, because the history of the Church is filled with all sorts of sins
and malice committed even by high Church officials. These sins were ugly, really unspeakably ugly.

For sure, there were many good things that happened. Otherwise, the Church would not have survived. But many of these things must have remained undetected or unrecognized by historians.

In this regard, I would like to pay tribute to the many men and women, mostly hidden through the ages, who persevered in doing good quietly and who must have allowed God’s grace to bear its wonderful fruit in its most mysterious ways. These were the real heroes and saints.

But especially in the early and medieval ages, I must say that at least from the human point of view, evil far overshadowed the good.

There was rampant immorality in high places, involving popes and bishops. Imagine popes having children! And the children becoming popes later on. There were popes and anti-popes fighting each other.

The clergy at one point were immersed in concubinage and simony. There was burning hatred and envy among them. Dirty politicking was the order of the day.

There was bigotry, the vice of triumphalism, self-righteousness, deception, evil schemings and calculations, and a long, if not endless etcetera.

Truly, what we suffered a few years ago involving very embarrassing clerical scandals are nothing compared to what happened in the past. The worst priest-pedophile today is a saint compared to many priests of the Church’s dark age!

Still the Church is the family I belong to, and in spite of her dark past, I will continue to belong to her and to defend her, if need be.

I just would have to accept her the way she is, warts and all—founded by
Christ and therefore holy and invincible, but entrusted to us for her growth and development, and therefore subject to our human weakness and folly.

It would be stupid of me to think of debunking her just because of the scandals, and to erect a new family, supposedly one for the saintly and the pure, since that would not change the truth.

Thus, even if one’s mother were a prostitute, or his father a criminal, or his siblings the ‘scum of the earth,’ if he is a true Christian he would still stand by them to the end, helping them in whatever moral way he could.

I believe this is what is called loyalty, which is not a mindless, fanatic or stupid support for someone. It’s rather the flowering of charity, willing to suffer and share the situation of others, an unwavering charity regardless of circumstances.

This is one of the reasons why I deem my Church’s dark past as very enriching also, precisely because it humbles and sobers me. Humility is a basic, indispensable and hard virtue. And it’s learned more when one is humbled than when he humbles himself.

Besides, the ugly history only confirms the obvious that we are just human beings, with all our weakness and failings, but who are given a very noble, supernatural goal.

We just have to learn how to handle this responsibility through a lot or hardships and trial and error. The road to the glorious end is fraught
with
difficulties.

So without condoning the sins and other evil that happened, we should neither be surprised if these stupid things come out. That’s just how we are.

But we cannot deny that through this hard and difficult road, often marked by violence and blood, a certain maturation and purification of the Church
and of all of us is achieved. Some precious lessons are learned the hard way.

That’s why I like so much that practice of the late Pope John Paul II of asking forgiveness for the misdeeds done by some Church officials in the name of the Church. This practice should be made more common.

We can start it in a personal way, by regularly making examinations of conscience, acts of contrition, then to confession, if need be. This attitude of asking forgiveness and also of being merciful and forgiving will purify and rectify the past and set us in a better way toward our
future.