Faith of My Fathers

…in which Uncle Duke weighs in on Catholicity.

I was born Catholic. Raised Catholic. It was the faith of my parents and their parents before them. They carried it with them like the family name---with pride and singular devotion. I in turn took it as my own. I memorized the Catechism, learned Latin, served Masses. I marched in innumerable grade school processions, went on retreats, bought Pagan babies and sang hymns poorly. My family feasted at parish picnics, fasted during Lent, ate fish sticks on Fridays. We said the Rosary every night and went to Confession every Saturday. In short, I believed and worshipped the Catholic God. My Catholic credentials are in order.

But over time, I began to see cracks in the Roman Foundation. It seemed to me that the Church, like all other religions, was less an institution founded and directed by God than an organization, a corporation, founded and directed by Men. Which was not necessarily a bad thing. It just wasn’t what It purported to be. So we divorced. Though it was an amicable divorce. We’re still friends.

Although I no longer practice the religion, in all likelihood I will die a Catholic. It is like your native tongue. You can learn to speak other languages. But the original lilts and nuances and the inflections of your parents’ language are always there. You may say you’re no longer Catholic, but the ritual and the ceremony, the celebration and the music of the Church are forever part of you.

It is an impressive organization, the Church. It has persevered for over 2000 years, through profound political and sociological tumult. For all its faults, St. Peter's Rock has proven to be deep and strong and broad based.

From a secular perspective, a worldwide religion is a very labor-intensive business. It is not unlike a military organization. It requires dedicated, lifelong servants. It requires people one can send out into the field and trust to carry out The Mission, intelligent people with imagination and independence, guided by Faith. The Catholic Church has always relied upon individuals who are willing to devote their lives to Its service.

I was taught by a succession of such people---men and women in black and white. Dominicans, Xaverians, Jesuits, Franciscans They gave up the popular plumage and a more mainstream life for a Higher Cause. Draped in cassocks and habits and cinched with rosary beads, they guided and befriended and instructed me well. It was an education that was less about doctrine and theology than method and thought. By turn they were stern and demanding, gentle and understanding. They were dedicated teachers and selfless ministers to whom I am deeply indebted. I have not one unfortunate tale to tell. My feeling is that I am in the majority, that millions of people have been served in the spirit of the Faith and the letter of Canon Law. We have been privileged by their administration.

The clergy indeed has always offered a noble mission. In generations passed, it was considered “The Call”. A Vocation meant a Religious Vocation. In the Catholic community, all others were just jobs, ways of supporting a family, making a living. Entering the priesthood in particular was the mark of being hand picked by God to do His earthly work. They did not choose Him. He chose them---to lead the flock, to minister to the congregation. The Call carried with it the respect and admiration of people in and out of the Catholic Church.

Priests and religious have historically been our holy shadows, rebuking temptations and fencing with evil and all its manifestations at every turn. The Roman Collar itself was kind of like Superman’s cape. It was bulletproof. No Devil’s work could continue for long around it. It was impregnable to the forces of evil, even human ones. Friends of mine doing social work in the hellhole slums of the 60's wore The Collar to avoid the hassles and mayhem they would have normally encountered. It was a white flag in a war zone and engendered universal respect.

In our own community, we elevated the Clergy to saintly levels. Being somehow nearer to God, they were believed privy to Divine interpretations of things temporal. After all, praying was their job. They talked to God for a living. He was, like, their Boss.

The Catholic religious life has always entailed the emotional sacrifice of wife, children, even family. It requires the ultimate cultural and social sacrifice---the denial of mates and lovers, of intimacy itself. It is the denunciation of an entire dimension of human existence, a dimension many of us consider primary. From an efficiency standpoint, it makes perfect policy sense. All that time normally devoted to wives and kids and the pressures of making a living can now be transferred to the care and nurturing of congregations, a broader family for whom the Priest is the spiritual Father. There are immense benefits. But there are also inevitable costs. There is a potential price to be paid for such personal detachment.

Now it appears that there are those who have violated that trust, who in the most egregious manner used inherited power and respect for their own purposes. It is a sin of unspeakable magnitude. It is a crime which has disfigured and disabled innumerable blameless souls. If one combines the sexual victim, the victim’s family, the years of suppression, and in some cases the subsequent victims of these victims, it just becomes incomprehensibly sad. For everyone involved. And even those uninvolved---that large majority of priests and religious who served so well, whose reputations have been besmirched by association. And those parishioner and students whose perception is now clouded by doubt. The sadness is immense and overwhelming.

But it does not end there. Even without the victims themselves, there is a world of pain here. I can imagine the immense guilt and the sense of unforgivable sin carried around in the person of men respected and trusted and loved. They had taken vows of chastity and obedience and had promised to dedicate their lives to the service of the Lord and His people. And in my mind, these were sincere and honest vows. They had hoped to suppress these unconscionable urges within the religious life. But these were men with powerful, all-encompassing desires and, finally, unfortunate opportunity. These were terribly conflicted men with ghastly dark sides and unspeakable secrets.

In the current Church, forgiveness and compassion outrank vengeance and punishment. Ours is mostly a New Testament God. He is not about smiting and casting out into the Wilderness. Given this commitment to amnesty, it does not surprise me that the Church forgave, rehabbed and reassigned. More aware than most of the nature of sin, they were reluctant to cast the first stone. But this is an ignominious and persistent illness. Unfortunately, they didn't understand the Nature of this Beast.

Throughout the Ages, we have traditionally endowed our clergy with strengths and wisdom beyond our own. But it is apparent that the extent to which we as a Culture are flawed is by and large the extent to which the Clergy will be flawed. With the same extremes. And History has proven this so. The Ecclesiastical Record is rife with these excesses and enigmas---holy, devoted men and saintly women with huge, gaping blind spots and brilliant, charismatic Popes with very big axes to grind. We forget that training and title do not necessarily translate into virtue. Neither a prefix nor a suffix is an assurance of character or self-restraint. We fail to remember that respect and prestige, in the wrong hands, can be a dangerous opportunity. Even a Roman collar is no guarantee against frailty. What we ignore, at our own peril, is the primary rule of humanity---that we are in fact all most blessedly and fatally human.