There's been a lot of negative publicity about the Catholic hierarchy recently: financial problems with the Vatican Bank, leaking of confidential information linked to accusations of a power struggle and corruption among leaders of the Church, a well-founded perception of sexism in the appointment of an Archbishop to take charge of the Leadership Council of Women Religious (the umbrella group for most orders of nuns) in America, which seemed to be a grab for control of their activities and finances.
Parishes and schools are being closed in some major cities in the north-east and a three month-long trial of a senior pastor in Philadelphia on charges of covering-up child abuse by priests over several decades is ending. Here the jury must assign the responsibility to the priest or to his boss, the now deceased Cardinal-Archbishop.
All of this is nasty news and it has damaged the image and the credibility of the Catholic Church immensely. Even though most of it is occurring far from Orlando, it still deeply concerns most Catholics. The Church is not just the
hierarchy or the priests and religious. The Church is all of us and that means that 90-95% of the Church members are laymen and laywomen. While the clergy and religious are the public face of Catholicism, the Church's reputation affects all of us.
When bishops speak, they speak not just for themselves but for all of us. The role of the bishop is service to the Church not dictation. A bishop should serve as spiritual guide to his people, as shepherd and leader of the flock, as our spokesman, one who provides moral principles for us to follow, not one who micromanages or makes our decisions for us.
We are blessed in having such a bishop in Orlando and when he joins with the local leaders of other Christian communities to challenge efforts by the civil authorities to limit our constitutional freedom to conduct our lives according to our religious principles we must take them seriously.
To get the full impact of the message go to:
No comments:
Post a Comment