WITH new
scandals assailing parts of the Church today
(mainly in the US), we are reminded that we are into
another round of
crucifixion time for our Mother, the Church. We should
not be
surprised anymore by this development. But we should be
prepared to
handle this predicament properly and learn some precious
lessons.
The life of the
Church cannot help but reflect the life,
passion, death and resurrection of Christ, its founder
and its body
into which we, Christian believers, are incorporated.
Yes, we cannot
escape the curse of sin in our life as well as in the
life of the
Church as a whole.
Like Christ,
the Church has to bear all the sins of men,
including those committed by its temporal leaders. Christ
did all he
could to sanctify us. He preached, performed miracles,
instituted the
sacraments and founded the Church, etc. But in the end,
due to our
hard-headedness and all kinds of weaknesses, he just had
to offer his
life to save us. The Church cannot do no less. She has to
suffer the
same fate.
It is, of
course, painful to experience all these
scandals, but we should not over-react to the point of
making things
worse. These scandals, a consequence of human weaknesses
that can
afflict even our Church leaders, are actually a call for
another
conversion, which is something that is meant to be a
continuing,
life-long process for each one of us. Something very good
can be
derived from these scandals.
We just have to
focus more on what we can gain from these
scandals in terms of what can favor another conversion
rather than on
getting hooked on their purely negative aspects. Of
course, there will
be elements that will rub it in on us. Some sectors of
the media will
have a field day in this. But this should also be
expected.
We just have to
be ready to react to all this properly, as
shown by Christ himself. And that is simply to suffer
together with
Christ—a suffering that is in accordance to the will of
the Father. In
a sense, the suffering caused by the scandals is another
concrete way
of identifying ourselves more intimately with Christ. In
a way, it is
a welcome development.
In the
meantime, we have to do the continuing task of
cleaning up our own selves and the Church as an
institution. We cannot
deny that weaknesses, temptations and sins will always
hound us. We
have to identify more clearly the deficiencies in
Christian life that
give rise to these scandals and come up with the
appropriate measures
to address them.
Offhand, we can
take another review of how the formation
of priests and seminarians is done. What improvement can
be made in
that department? How should priests be more effectively
accompanied in
their ministry so that their spiritual life would remain
healthy as
they carry out their heavy responsibilities?
And since
transparency is also a goal to be pursued, how
should this be done without compromising the basic human
rights of all
the parties involved? How should Church authorities
handle cases where
the legal rights of persons are involved? Justice,
charity and mercy
should go hand in hand.
These, I
suppose, are some of the things that have to be
looked into if only to minimize the cases of scandals
that can
unnecessarily disturb the people in general. It cannot be
denied that
the Church authorities have to install appropriate means
and
structures to be in step with the rightful expectations
of the world.
It’s about time
for the Church authorities to air out the
hidden dirty closets. Transparency and accountability
should be lived
strictly. It certainly will be a very painful and
unpleasant task, but
it will definitely be for the common good, and will give
due glory to
God!
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