The
church is strict about respect for life at any stage. What about the way Bishops
excused priests for ruining the life of just one child through sexual abuse?
How is that showing respect for life? Isn’t
that a contradiction and cop out by the Church?
 hoever causes one of these little
ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great
millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea
(Matthew 18:6).
We need no more than these words
of Christ to address the problem of child abuse
at the hands of priests—or by anyone else, for that matter.
Now, if the bishops of the United
States had seriously considered these words when priests were shown to have
been guilty (not merely accused) of sexual abuse, the Church wouldn’t
be in such a mess. But, instead of trusting fully in God’s justice and
turning to Christ’s direction to do what is right regardless of how
“foolish” it might seem, some bishops in the past tried to solve the
problem—especially that of homosexuality—with their own efforts;
that is, they called in the devil to hide the problem. And now that the devil
has played his tricks and had his laugh, the Church has to suffer for it.
Considering all this, then, just
as there is a difference between social satisfaction and real justice, there
is also a difference between psychological therapy and spiritual
healing.
The psychological work of overcoming
a trauma involves several different elements.
It is necessary to go over the facts of what happened until you can accept
them without hiding from them. It is necessary to learn to recognize your
emotional reactions to all those facts. It is necessary to learn how your
emotional experiences in the present are unconsciously tied to experiences
of the past, especially those of the trauma. And it is necessary to keep
working at all this until it diffuses across all the various parts of your
personality.
One key psychological experience
in all this is the feeling of frustration that what happened to you isn’t fair, and
that other persons are escaping blame for your suffering. This is a valid
feeling, for, indeed, all feelings are valid.
 But
spiritual healing requires you to take a step beyond
finger pointing, blame, and revenge. It requires
you to go beyond what is natural, or common, in the world of
ordinary human behavior. It requires you to accept
the commands of Christ to love others and pray for their
repentance no matter what they do to you.
For the whole point of spiritual healing is to purge your heart of ordinary
human behavior—or sin—and to live within
Christ himself, fully trusting in divine mercy.
So even though you may feel frustrated
that what others do is not fair, as you bring that feeling into full consciousness
it will be necessary to realize that in Christ everything will be accounted for. No
sin will escape divine justice. Your task is to get out of the way by not dwelling in
hatred and not insisting on taking revenge into your
own hands. Remember the old saying that when you point your finger at someone, three
fingers point back to you; to seek revenge at your own hands will bring you into judgment
right along with the one you accuse.
Furthermore, those who begrudge the
mercy that God offers to anyone in exchange for
repentance will, like
Jonah, have a hard lesson to learn about the true
nature of God’s love.
Therefore, once you have done
the psychological work of seeing the world for what it
is,[1]
and seeing yourself for what you are, you can then cast off the way of the
flesh and put on the way of the
spirit:[2]
As your hearts
have been disposed to stray from God
turn now ten times the more to seek Him;
For He who has brought disaster upon you
will, in saving you, bring you back enduring
joy. |
—Baruch 4:28–29 |
Notes
1. Or, as Christ told His disciples, “Be
as shrewd as serpents . . . ” (Matthew 10:16).
2. Or, as Christ told His disciples,
“. . . and simple as doves” (Matthew 10:16).
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