Your Tripod: “Seek the Lost” by Colleen O’Sullivan

“Seek the Lost” by Colleen O’Sullivan

Memorial of the Queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Thus, says the Lord God: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep? You have fed off their milk, worn their wool, and slaughtered the fatlings, but the sheep you have not pastured. You did not strengthen the weak nor heal the sick nor bind up the injured. You did not bring back the strayed nor seek the lost, but you lorded it over them harshly and brutally. Thus, says the Lord God: I swear I am coming against these shepherds. I will claim my sheep from them and put a stop to their shepherding my sheep so that they may no longer pasture themselves. I will save my sheep, that they may no longer be food for their mouths. (Ezekiel 34:2b-4, 10)

Piety

Lord, help us to find the way forward. Give us the courage to act decisively to protect your sheep from this point on and with compassion toward those already wounded.

Study

What can I say?

One day last week I was quietly savoring and thanking the Lord for the graces received on a recent retreat when up popped a message on my cell phone. A grand jury report from Pennsylvania had been released, detailing reports of clergy sexual abuse from six dioceses in the state. It didn’t matter that much of it happened some time ago or that many of the perpetrators have already died. My day was wrecked. For an instant, I was back in the theater watching the end of “Spotlight,” horror-stricken as screen after screen rolled by listing all the places in the world where sexual abuses by Catholic clergy had been reported. I was hearing the anguish of my dentist of many years as he poured out to me his anger and hurt at having been molested by a priest when he was young. I was back in my mom’s parish more than a decade ago as her pastor was applauded at Mass for taking a stance different from the bishop’s, speaking before the state legislature about the need to increase the amount of time victims have to step forward and report the crimes against them. I was back on my sister’s deck a few weeks ago, talking to her and my niece and wondering what was wrong with me, because I had always liked former-Cardinal McCarrick. “Auntie,” came the gentle response. “That’s how con-artists and predators work. They are nice on the outside to attract and lure their victims. There’s nothing wrong with you. There was something very wrong with him.”

Abuse of positions of power is nothing new. Look at today’s first reading. Living Space, an Irish Jesuit site where commentaries on the daily Scripture readings can be found, says about today’s reading:

The image of the king-shepherd is deeply rooted in Eastern literary tradition. Jeremiah used it of the kings of Israel to rebuke their slackness in office and to proclaim that God would give his people new shepherds who would pasture them with integrity and from these shepherds would come a ‘Branch’, i.e., the Messiah. Ezekiel takes up the theme from Jeremiah, later to be resumed in Zechariah. For their wickedness, he rebukes the shepherds, here the kings and lay leaders of the people. Yahweh will take from them the flock they have ill-treated and himself become the shepherd of his people.

Shepherds, whether in Jeremiah’s, Ezekiel’s or Zechariah’s time or today, are supposed to care for and tend their sheep. Instead, we find them, as the prophet says, pasturing themselves. That’s the problem with power; it can corrupt. Instead of being used to help those for whose well-being we are responsible, it becomes a vehicle to feather our own nests.

I am writing this on Monday night. Today Pope Francis released a letter in which he condemned priestly sexual abuse and the cover-ups that have gone on for years as well as the clerical culture that fostered an atmosphere where it was permissible to care more about your own reputation than about the wounded souls entrusted to your care. It’s a start, but only a start. Every one of us sitting in the pews has the responsibility to demand more, to demand that concrete steps, set down in black and white, be put in place to make certain that this cannot happen again. The steps need to include oversight by the laity of whatever process is put in place. I’ve read and heard people say that the bishops were protecting the Church. Sending known predators from one parish to another was a foolproof recipe for more disaster. No, they weren’t and aren’t protecting the Church, because the Church isn’t just the clergy and hierarchy. We are ALL the Church. We are ALL members of the Body of Christ.

Action

There is much fodder for prayer in all of this. First of all, pray for the victims of clerical sexual abuse. Healing often can be a painful, life-long process. Pray for all the priests who are prayerfully living out their vocations as God intends. They can all too easily become victims of angry backlash. Pray for all of us in the Church that we can put into place guidelines or steps for ensuring that cover-ups and sweeping things under the rug never happen again.

Beyond prayer, you can write to our Bishop with any thoughts you have on next steps:

Bishop Michael F. Burbidge