October_30

Reading I
Mal 1:14b-2:2b, 8-10
A great King am I, says the LORD of hosts, and my name will be feared among the nations. And now, O priests, this commandment is for you: If you do not listen, if you do not lay it to heart, to give glory to my name, says the LORD of hosts, I will send a curse upon you and of your blessing I will make a curse. You have turned aside from the way, and have caused many to falter by your instruction; you have made void the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts. I, therefore, have made you contemptible and base before all the people, since you do not keep my ways, but show partiality in your decisions. Have we not all the one father? Has not the one God created us? Why then do we break faith with one another, violating the covenant of our fathers?

If you listen to the Scriptures, to Malachi and the Gospel, you can tell they were directed mostly at priests and religious leaders. Malachi wrote in about the year 440 BC. He was the last of what is known as the Minor Prophets. He wrote at a time not long after the Jews had returned from captivity in Babylon. We know about that period of captivity, that 50 years plus, that they were miserable in Babylon. They had to adopt the ways of the pagan, they lost their temple, and they weren’t able to worship God in spirit and in truth that they wished to according to Jewish custom, according to the scriptures. They longed to return to the land of Jerusalem, the land of their fathers. Of course, they did return. God heard their prayers and freed them from Babylon, and they returned to Jerusalem and re-initiated temple worship. However, they were doing a very poor job at it. Very quickly they fell into their old patterns. They were not worshiping God in spirit and truth; they still carried on ways of the pagans. Malachi criticized them for their marriages. The marriages were not according to the way of the Jews, the way of the Scripture. But Malachi singled out specifically the priests, and he goes after them without any disguise of kindness. He blames the priests primarily for what has happened. He says that you have not passed on the good ways of God to the people. You have polluted temple worship. The priests were doing things they shouldn't have. As an example, when someone offered an animal for sacrifice, if it was a good animal, they would keep it for themselves and they would substitute a poor animal for it. They were making profits from sacrifice. They were also becoming rich at the expense of the people. Again, they were polluting the worship. Malachi criticized them. He says that your blessings are cursed. Those are pretty harsh words.

After Malachi, there was a major reform in Judaism known as the Ezra Nehemiah reform. Perhaps Malachi had a lot to do with that reform, or at least God had a lot to do with that reform using Malachi as his voice.

Well, 440 years later, Jesus speaks to the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Scribes with harsh words as well and with the same problem. They were misleading the people in worship. Notice, he doesn’t criticize what the Pharisees and Scribes are teaching; he says they sit on the throne of Moses and they were speaking for God, and you can do whatever they say--just don’t follow their example because the religious leaders are hypocrites. They proclaim to live a certain creed with their mouths, but with their lives, they lead another kind of life entirely. So, from 440 BC, there were some reforms. Then some 4 ½ centuries later, Jesus is saying pretty much the same thing as Malachi, and again, singling out the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Scribes and the priests.

Now, fast-forward 2000 years. What’s changed?   Would Jesus fault our lives today as Christians if he came down and met with us this morning? How are we doing? Are we worshiping God in Spirit? Are we? and I don’t mean in the mass, the mass is one hour a week that leads to the other 167. We are supposed to leave here sent out, nourished by the Body and Blood of Christ, enlightened with the word of God, and we are supposed to live holy lives in the family and in the community. He might have a few criticisms of us. What would Jesus say to his priests about our performance in the last 10 or 20 or 30 years? I wouldn’t want to be in that room, but I will be one day.

We all have been battered by the clergy’s sexual abuse scandal and the criminal cover-up by the leaders of our church. Is there anyone here who has not been hurt by this? I hope not. As a matter of fact, today, there are still some empty seats. People sat in those seats 20 years ago. They have left because of what the clergy have done in the Catholic Church. Particularly, in this country, in the United States. I don’t blame them. I don’t agree with them, but I don’t blame them. I told many of them who are thinking of coming back, that I’d have left too if this was anything but the Body of Christ, this church. If this is any organization other than the church that I love, I’d have been long gone, because it hasn’t been led well, has it?

There is more to come. There is a lot behind us, if you read about the District Attorney findings in Philadelphia that were recently published. I spent a few hours online the other day just reading the findings of the cover-up of this scandal in Philadelphia. It was just amazing. Incident after incident after incident where the Bishop, the Cardinal knew, and this guy was just moved around, playing musical chairs with children’s lives. I have the feeling that Los Angeles will be far worse. There will be tremendous disclosures in years to come in Los Angeles. It has already started. No one, I hope, who knows anything about this, can deny it is the responsibility of the Bishop and the Priest. It is not a problem of the media. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for the media, we’d still be in the midst of this scandal. They would still be perpetrating these crimes on children. It was the media that shook the church up. We owe a debt of gratitude to the media. Some blame the lawyers. All the lawyers did was articulate what the victims had to say. They weren’t strong enough in many cases, but the lawyers helped them. No, it is the fault of the leadership of the church. Those who are ordained, especially as Bishops and as Priests.

Have we made progress? Yes. We certainly have. We have procedures now in place for any allegation. They are looked at immediately and openly. Our candidates for priesthood are much better vetted than they have been in the past, and they are better trained. New offenses against children are very few, but not few enough. There is no question that the leadership is attuned with this question, but there is more to do. Some dioceses, perhaps the majority, continue to be cute with the law and the media. They only tell what they are forced to tell. It is a game of lawyers, back and forth. They just avoid full disclosure as if it was some kind of plague. I believe, and I think you agree, that only after full disclosure will we be able to forgive what happened. How can you forget what happened when you don’t know what happened? And we still don’t know the whole story.

I found myself in absolute agreement with a recent editorial in the National Catholic Reporter. I don’t always agree with that paper. Here’s what they said, and I agree. “In every diocese where such a history exists, the Bishops ought to invite a panel of respected Catholics, give them full access to all of the Priest’s files, and charge them with constructing a detailed narrative without violating confidences or naming priests who have been falsely accused, of what occurred in each local dioceses. Then the community will know what to forgive. Catholics want their leader’s back, whole and unafraid of what might leak out, or what a prosecutor might force them to let out.”

You know that there is a saying that history repeats itself. There is a saying in Eccleastasises that “There is nothing new under the sun.” And in the history of our church, we have seen scandal after scandal after scandal. There have been many, many reformations in the church. Bernard of Clarivoux in the 12th Century, reformed monasticism that had grown sick. St. Francis of Assisi, we know his story so well, in the 13th Century, was told by Christ to rebuild my church--for similar reasons that we are seeing today. Catherine of Sienna, in the 14th century helped save the papacy. St. Teresa of Avila was a tremendous reformer in the 16th Century. St. Charles Borromeo, after Trent, set up a system of seminaries to give priests some kind of formation.

The question though, is how would Jesus judge the priests today? What advise might he give us?   I think he’d tell it like this. He’d say to practice what you preach. Lighten the burdens of your people with words of comfort and help. He would say avoid places and titles of honor, these things can corrupt you. That is very true. Some year’s back, I went to a Bishop’s conference back east. I couldn’t believe it. I thought I was in a room of 100 princes from England. So, be nice to us, but don’t be too nice. Some of you are taking care of that already. Jesus would tell us do not be called master, you have but one master, the greatest among you must be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, but whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

I don’t have the answer.   I know we are in a reform now. I know we’ve got the message. I know we are going to address this problem, but the underlying problem of the quality of priests and their motivation must be addressed.

I’ve read all sorts of reports and programs and ideas of how to revitalize the priesthood. One of the best articles I read was very simple. It was written, in a priest magazine, by Fr. Mark Guntner, who is a priest in Fort Wayne/ South Bend. In an article entitled “What a Young Priest Hopes for the Future of the Priesthood,” he said these four things. First, priests must be more grounded in prayer. You know what happens with us, we get so busy. There are 1150 families in this parish. Trinity on the Hill has about 250 or 300 and there is one priest here. We get so busy that we slip in our prayers when we can. That is backward. We have to pray first, and then work and not just slip in our prayers when we have time. Because if our lives as priests are not connected in prayer with Jesus Christ, we’re nothing. We’re bogus. We’re nothing but little social workers. We must pray and every priest knows we must pray one hour in addition to our other prayers and responsibilities. We need to spend an hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. It wouldn’t hurt you either. We need to spend an hour in silent prayer or meditation before the Blessed Sacrament each day. I can’t imagine a priest going wrong who does this.

Secondly, Father Mark said that we must be set apart. He doesn’t mean set above, that’s what got us where we are. He means that people must see in the Priest a sense of joy and hope that is not based on worldly values. He must not be ambitious, a lover of material things, a lover of wealth and money, a lover of pleasure, but he must somehow be motivated by this hope and love and trust in Jesus Christ.

Thirdly, he must be as a child. I love that because most articles I read on priests say that we must be more professional. Take more courses, go to more workshops.  Fr. Mark says, no, we need to be more like children. Let me read to you what he said.