The Crisis in the Catholic Church

I’ve been following it closely over the past week; really, since the McCarrick story broke last month. I avoid mainstream media sources on the stories, though. I assume they will be slanted in a protect-Francis mode, since the media largely agree with his liberal progressive agenda (global warming, pro-LGBT, watering down Catholic tradition) and do not want to cast homosexuality in any bad light (81 percent of the victims are teen-age males). Instead, I think the best coverage is to be found in the articles by Rod Dreher over at www.theamericanconservative.com. The articles at www.onepeterfive.com are also informative and enlightening. The news aggregator website www.canon212.com is another good resource, though it tends to highlight the incendiary. Which, in the mood I’m in right now, is not a bad thing.

I used to think of myself as, well, if not devout, then a serious Catholic. Now I’m not so sure. I still believe wholly and completely in Jesus Christ, His Person and His teaching. But not the Catholic Church, in its current form and its form dating back to the Vatican II council, 1962-1965. I consider the Novus Ordo mass, instituted in 1970, a watered-down joke of the true worship due Our Lord and Savior. None of that has or will change.

No priest ever, through his preaching, brought me closer to God. True, those three weeks I spent in the hospital in 2009 renewed my faith, and I was visited by two of my parish priests. Their words and the sacrament of Anointing of the Sick comforted me and, for all I know, brought me through to health. But one of them has now been placed on leave pending an investigation into a claim of sexual harassment in his past with another seminarian. When I got out of the hospital and went to my first mass, this priest came up to me and hugged me. Now I am creeped out.

I went to a Catholic High School run by the Jesuits. None of them, thank God, took an interest in me. I used to feel sorry for myself that none did, in an innocent looking-for-a-mentor way, but now I am thankful. There were rumors of one of the brothers taking an “interest” in my fellow students, including a story where he brought a few guys up to his room and shared some beers. I don’t know whether that’s true or not, but in light of the recent allegations – and, think about it, nothing has really changed since 2002 when the dam first broke – in light of what we know of McCarrick and countless other buckets of sleaze, I have to give it some credence.

So I say let the whole thing burn down. Let the Church become poorer, smaller. Let schism come, if these demonic clerics refuse to step down. We don’t need bishops. We need honest priests. Priest who honor their vows. These fat, gay, predatory, comfort-laden bishops, in their million dollar apartments with their servants and drivers and whatnot, get out of my Church! Repent and lead a life of penance worthy of St. Anthony the Great – or get the hell out!

Yes I am angry. And yes, I have not given a penny to the Church in the past two months. Just a drop in a vast sea to them, but I am at peace with my conscience. Yes, my bishop, Tobin, or anyone on his staff, has not responded to my letter last month. Tobin has been implicated in the letter by Archbishop Vigano last week. He is also the one of the infamous, “Nighty-night Baby” mistaken tweet. Two weeks ago I sent the letter via email to two directors of fundraising at the archdiocese. I received a generic, “we received your email and will forward it per policy” response, but nothing else. I guess Tobin has a lot more on his plate right now, like assassinating the character of Vigano instead of addressing the archbishop’s accusations point by point.

The Church will prevail elsewhere. Africa, I understand, despite Islamic persecution, is flourishing. As is the underground Church in China, despite Francis’s efforts to sell it down the river to the Chicom government. And in the United States, we just need to keep our heads down, protect our children, and stay as close as possible to Christ.

How to do the latter? Well, as I said, a priest’s words never brought me closer to Christ, save when uttering the sacraments, such as Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick. No small measures, those. So we need to find faithful priests for the sacraments. Find a priest in a parish that holds a regular Latin Mass. Find an SSPX or an FSSP church and attend. There the odds are much, much greater the hands that give you the Eucharist will not have sinned with another man the night before.

What brought me to Christ? I returned in 1992. I quit my sinful lifestyle – drinking, drugging, smoking. Hanging with the wrong crowd. Quit it all, abruptly. Read some self-help books, but found them all unfulfilling until, in February of that year, I started to read the Bible. Began at Genesis, chapter one, verse one. Two months later I finished. That was Easter Sunday, April 1992. Don’t know exactly what happened, but it felt like a heavy lead vest, like the kind the dentist puts on you when you’re x-rayed, it felt like Someone had lifted that lead vest off of my chest, my shoulders, my head. I felt free, lighter, calmer, less anxious, less nervous, less fearful. Didn’t last long as I immediately resumed sinning (asking a girlfriend to move in with me two months later, for example), but it never quite went away.

I suggest a careful reading of the Bible. Cover to cover, slowly. It’s not a race. Pray. Fast. We don’t do that in consumerist America. I’ve fasted perhaps a dozen times over the years. I think I should do more. Also, learn about the faith. Read the Saints, particularly pre-Vatican II saints. The exception to this is Padre Pio. Read of his life. A holy card of his appeared in one of my hospital rooms those many years ago, and I took it for a sign.

Hopefully more accusations will come forth. This boil needs to be lanced. The pus needs to flow out for true healing to begin. Bergoglio – be gone! McCarrick, Wuerl, Cupich, Tobin, McElroy, Zubick, O’Malley, Martin – be gone, all of you! All of you infesting the Vatican – leave! There desperately needs to be a #Metoo movement in the Catholic Church. Good priests need to tell their stories, and name names. Be gone, all of you, and repent … or be very aware of Luke 17:2 –

It would be better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the sea, than that he should scandalize one of these little ones