Holy Family

Today is the Feast of the Holy Family, and we hear about finding Christ in the temple, we hear that He went home and was obedient to his parents, Mary and Joseph. It is the beginning of the hidden life of the Holy Family, and during the homily we usually we hear about the importance of family in our society.

Indeed, this Feast falls immediately after Christmas for good reason, and isn't it even more meaningful in this time  when we are spending extra time with our own families?  Especially given the fact that the experience isn't usually, well...very idyllic?  It is important for us to recognize that the Holy Family suffered hardships as well.

I have to ask, though:   while we consider our biological families, have we given any thought to our spiritual family? More specifically, have we given any thought or prayer to our spiritual fathers, both those who bring us to Christ and bring Christ to us, and those who SHOULD be doing so but are under lock and key living a persecution many refuse to acknowledge?

Today, I bring you an important article from Charlene C. Duline, published in, of all places, the National Catholic Reporter in 2007:

Throwaway priests


Dishonored and disgraced for their crimes, fallen priests deserve our sympathy


By CHARLENE C. DULINE


Does the Catholic Church remember its fallen priests, the priests who molested children and are now serving time in prisons? Who among us has asked for blessings for them as they serve their time behind bars? The hands that once consecrated the host that became the body of Christ now reek of ammonia from cleaning toilets.


Amid the flurry of accusations, trials, more accusations, payoffs, and dioceses declaring bankruptcy, I began to wonder about the treatment of priests in prison. I wondered how their fellow inmates treated them. Were they revered as men of the cloth or debased as child molesters? 

To abuse a child is a horrific act. I know because I was an abused child. Some might find it astonishing that I, the victim of such abuse many years ago, could feel sorry for these fallen priests. Despite the desire for revenge that still burns deep in my heart, something in me wanted to reach out to these men who had served God despite their failings. I wondered if our church ministered to them in any form.


Through the Internet I was able to get information on the accused priests, their sentences and where they were serving their time. I wrote to some of them. I also posted my desire to hear from them on Web sites sympathetic to the defrocked men. Some of their responses astounded me. They all asked to remain anonymous. Most of the priests I heard from indicated that they had no access to Catholic chaplains or materials, including retirement monies they thought they had a right to. It seems that the church that once embraced them and covered up their crimes has abandoned them. They have been defrocked or laicized and are now treated as pariahs. Their situation in prison is not pleasant.


One priest, now 79 years old, wrote, “Mistreatment by the young inmates is continually horrendous. Insults, curses, spitting and assaults are daily. From one attack I received 42 bruises.”


During the 11 years this priest has been in prison, several close family members, including his mother, have died. Other family members do not communicate with him because he “embarrassed the family.” He believes that he will die a lonely death in prison. He’s probably right.

Read the rest.

Whether they are guilty or innocent, whether they have been dispensed or not, they remain our spiritual fathers, a part of our family. Neither we nor they can undo what God has done. Canonical privileges can be removed, but the indelible mark upon their souls cannot be undone.

I, for one, am grateful for our spiritual fathers, and while I do not condone or support criminal activity, I also abhor how these men have been treated. Having worked with sex offenders in an adolescent treatment facility years ago, I can testify that those kids and even their own abusers have been treated far better than the Church, the Mother of Mercy, has treated her beloved but disgraced Sons. It's absolutely scandalous.

Are we a Church of mercy or are we not? 

The point is not that we deny what has been done and  most certainly we do not deny the reality suffered by the victims.  What we are saying is that justice has its place, and without forgiveness, justice is not done in ANY corner.  There is no mercy without justice, and there is no justice if it is not tempered by mercy.

Yet when we look at imprisoned priests, we see that there is no mercy for them; not from us, their family, not from anyone.

What of the Innocent Priests, Unjustly Imprisoned without their right to Due Process both through our legal system AND through the Church?  

We know of those cases, such as that of Fr. Gordon MacRae, unjustly imprisoned, suffering a purgatory for sins he did not commit, offering those days for we who live in freedom, which we so often take as a "right" to live in ways that are a direct affront to God Himself.

What a disgrace!

Sadly, we don't, in our time, seem to know the first thing about family. We first deny the need for it, we do all we can politically to disrupt it (same-sex "marriage", contraception, abortion, divorce, etc.), and we do all we can to disgrace it.  So it comes as no surprise that we treat our spiritual family with even less regard, especially our spiritual fathers, many of whom are rotting away, forgotten, perhaps forgiven by God but shunned by the rest of us.

Forgiveness does not mean acceptance of sin, it does not mean endorsement of illegal activity. But it DOES require charity, it DOES require remembering that we are all in need of forgiveness, that each life is willed by God, and loved by God.  Those we shun are STILL loved by God, and when they are left in desolation, it is WE who sin...not they.

Today, as we celebrate the Holy Family, recall to mind not just your own family, but your spiritual family, the entire Mystical Body of Christ and most especially those who have been willfully forgotten, willfully shunned, willfully ignored.

My prayers today go out to all priests and religious, throughout the world, who are imprisoned for any reason,  justly or unjustly. They, like we all, are children of God, willed by God, loved by God....and forgotten by the rest of us.

Please join your prayers with mine.

Right now, in this moment, as I write this, Fr. MacRae is offering Mass from his prison cell. If you read this, please unite yourself spiritually to Our Lord in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and remember whose hands bring Heaven and Earth together in this moment.

In this moment, the Suffering Church, the Church Militant, is united with the Church Triumphant....

Forgiveness and Acceptance

Fr. Gordon MacRae, has written again from his unjust imprisonment, and I found myself in tears as I read of his friend Joseph, a man looking for redemption and forgiveness but certain his past has condemned him completely.

Oh, can I ever relate!

Please read his post in its entirety, but know that I focus this post and my own comment to him on the first part, directing it towards the subject of Joseph. Here is what I said in response:

Father,

The first part of this post was really the one that got to me the most, because it’s a problem I have, too. I have a past. Maybe it doesn’t involve guns and violence, but constantly I’m amazed that anyone who knows what I used to be would ever want to know me now. I have a couple friends who are priests, and they know my history, at least by my allusions to it. And still…they WANT to be my friend. It nearly scandalizes me.

Father if I sat down in front of you right now and told you my history, my past, and even my present, I would look at you in the same way as your friend Joseph; I’d be looking askance, looking for that same horror, wondering when you would shut the door on me. I really admire Joseph, for it seems he had the courage I don’t. I’ve never gone to my friends for Confession; what they know they learned outside of the Sacrament.

Yet I’ve never had the courage to ask them what I wonder so deeply: “Why do you want to be my friend?”. Most people I know don’t know the depths to which I’ve descended, and I am sure that if some of them, family especially, did know…I’d be cut off forever.

While in this comment I referred specifically to my priest friends, I did that given the venue, but in honesty have to say I wonder about my other non-clergy friends as well.  How could they WANT to be friends with me, given what they know about my past? About who I am now?  I am not now without sin, and in fact, there are some sins that even now force me to frequent Confession as I try to overcome them. Sins that might be shocking to some, but seem like mere gnats to another.

I don't want to read of the combox commentary on God's mercy...I know all about it.

In fact, I can lecture on it and I HAVE.

Please,  I am asking all of you, my readers,  to look into YOURSELVES and your own nakedness in your sin and recognize that YOU, too, know the same shame.

 I'm talking about the raw human reality that ALL of us experience, something platitudes cannot cover, cannot stop, cannot deny...that raw reality that when we are stripped down naked before God, we know we have sinned, we know what we deserve, and it's NATURAL to cringe in our concupiscence.

It is FITTING!

We all cringe in knowledge of our sin. We all fear rejection of others BECAUSE of our sin. As a priest I know (not a friend, just a lecturer I heard) observed, "People don't want to be known in their sin."

He was right. Yet...through different venues, in person, blogging, via email, my sin is known to my friends, and still, they are my friends. They WANT to be my friends, and looking at them in the same way, had they confessed the same things...it wouldn't affect my love for THEM.

We all struggle with this.  We all ask for forgiveness, and we all need acceptance. And yet, when the latter happens...if we say we don't question it, we are lying.

My hope is that Fr. MacRae can convey this to his fellow prisoners, so that they will know they are not alone in the sense that they have a past that is known...but doesn't define them. That God's mercy is infinite, that they CAN change, and that they will not forever be judged according to what they have done in the past.

It is possible to be a New Creation, through God's Grace. It is possible to move on. It is possible to experience God's mercy expressed through the friendship of those who know us...who we were, who we are...and who we may be one day.

Myself...I pray for the grace to accept that reality, for I continue to cringe in shame, much like Joseph, Fr. MacRae's friend, who expects to see an expression of horror only to look up and recognize the significance of  friendship and mercy.

God grant me the humility to accept that same mercy. Amen.
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Spiritual Battle

I just finished watching "The Exorcism of Emily Rose".

This movie wasn't what I expected. I've had my own history involving the occult, involving evil. I have written of my own outright faceoff with Satan himself, although I've kept many of these battles to myself.

I have often though that if I revealed them, others would think me crazy. I did once tell me story to a Theology on Tap group, and had the distinct sense that the priest present thought I was nuts. Around that same time, I told that story to a priest at my parish, and his response was, "I believe that YOU believe it was real..."

I couldn't convince him that the reality of evil wasn't fiction or my subjective experience, but REAL, although what I experienced was beyond the norm, only because I willingly and willfully placed myself in that spot.

That conversation with that priest however, has made me more reluctant to speak to others of what I lived. The story is met with incredulity, and here I am, unscathed...who am I to speak of such evil, yet not have the scars to prove it?

Scars aren't always physical. And I wonder from time to time...are they really scars, or does the invitation that took place then go on now as oppression?

I sometimes wake up at night, terrified, my hair on end, having no memory of a dream, only a recognition of the need to flee or to fight an enemy I usually can't see..but at times....I have seen.

My imagination can't conjure such images, and I've never seen them in movies, for neither can the worst of the horror writers describe what was come at me in the darkness and solitude of night. Nor can anyone prove or disprove some of the marks they have left upon me.

Do not take this to mean that I believe myself possessed...I don't. I am certain that I am NOT possessed, although I do believe it possible that I am oppressed by the Enemy...through my own invitation.

That is a different matter. We all open that door, and to different results. Only God knows why and when and what.

Prison

This movie, though, The Exorcism of Emily Rose, did not make me mostly see my own experience, but something larger. I already believe in this evil; I wasn't shocked by her life, suffering, and death. I wasn't shocked by her choice. I wasn't shocked by Father's choice. For once you see...you can't unsee. You have to make a decision, and when it goes that far, that decision leaves no room to waver.

The world saw it as a decision for death. In reality, it was a decision for life and eternity.

I watched the scenes in prison where the Attorney, Ms. Bruner met with Fr. Moore as he laid in his prison cell, hands behind his head. He was already resigned to his fate and in so doing, was very direct with his potential attorney.

It brought to my mind an image of Fr. MacRae, lying in his own cell, clad in orange instead of clerics, revealing his own mistrust and disdain of the very same legal system.

I looked at the cement stone walls of his cell, comparing them with those of Emily Rose in her dorm, and the walls I remember when I fought my own first recognizable battle with Satan.

In Emily Rose, I saw Fr. MacRae himself, and every priest he represents, those crucified without proper trial, those attacked by the enemy without jury, imprisoned...but no justice.

Suffering for Christ means there will never be any retribution, for those who accept that cross take that retribution to themselves and live it in every bloody step, every choking breath, every faltering heartbeat.

It hit me then: Fr. MacRae is not imprisoned because of any political climate, but because of the sprititual one. We as the Catholic Church in America, are under serious spiritual attack, and our attitude of secularism has massively undermined our defense.

Because of the 1% (less, actually) of offending priests, 100% are judged as being untrustworthy. Because the secular and even "Catholic" press spends so much time attacking the priesthood, very few "Catholics" know who to believe in this world of increasing incredulity. Because so few actually faithful Catholics are praying, the attack is that much greater, and because so many Catholic are killing their unborn children through contraception and abortion...there are fewer souls to pray.

We ARE the remnant. Look around you. How many who attend your parish are actually INVOLVED in some way, and by that, I don't mean "doing stuff."

I mean...interiorly. How many people around you who CLAIM to be Catholic are even living the basic tenants? Do they attend Mass every Sunday, or do they consider it to be "optional"? How long has it been since they've been to Confession? YEARS? Do they receive the Sacrament of Holy Communion once or twice per year meeting that tenant...but failing to actually consider whether they SHOULD given that it's been YEARS since their last Confession and by the way they live their lives they make it very clear that they should NOT be receiving?

How many professed Catholics actually live what they say the believe, how many can actually articulate the faith they claim to follow and uphold?

Not many, I'm afraid. Poll an average parish. The average person claiming to be Catholic in an anti-Catholic culture such as ours could NEVER be convicted of the crime of meeting even the minimal tenants of our belief, and they would CERTAINLY never step up and be willing to DIE for those beliefs.

Are You Willing to Die for Your Faith?

Most of us (my readers), most of you, would say YES! but your actions would betray you. Mine do every day. I'm asked to make a choice and I do so for comfort and convenience, not for obedience and faithfulness.

If any of us say otherwise, we are lying.

We need Grace in order to make our intentions real. On our own, we are nothing but betrayers.

It Becomes Obvious

...then, that there are those who are truly giving of themselves, whether they ever wanted to be so or not. I look at Emily Rose, and I look at Fr. MacRae, and I see the same prison walls, I see the cinderblock dorm walls, and I realize the battle is the same although it takes place in different venues.

Our country is under attack, our Church is under attack, and most of us claiming the title of "Catholic" are asleep at the switch. We don't care, we don't notice, and most of us don't have even the remotest idea of what is going on in the Church today.

How can we pray for and defend Fr. MacRae if we don't even know we are called to be Holy?

How can we know that Fr. MacRae and those like him are not alone in their false imprisonment if we don't even realize our OWN imprisonment to sin?

How can we be credible witnesses to the power of the Enemy if we can't be bothered to even TRY to live in a state of Grace?

Our Battle is Spiritual before it is Civil; and in our current culture it is lost before it can even be tried before a jury.

Much has to be done. We need to wake up, enter the battle, recognize the Enemy and know that our greatest warriors, our priests, have been hobbled and with our outright permission and support.

The 3:00 Hour

In the Exorcism of Emily Rose, Father Moore speaks of the 3:00 hour as being the "witching" hour, the hour that mocks Our Lord who died on the Cross, and the power of prayer of the faithful in honor of His life and death, the Hour of Mercy in that same hour.

I was made aware of my own failings in prayer as I often wake up at that time. Even I, who have sat across from the Adversary, have chosen to fall asleep rather than to pray!

As Catholics, our battle is not political, but spiritual, but too many have forgotten the spiritual side. We have been lost to popular culture, we have become ashamed of our beliefs, and in so doing, have left them open to superstition and ridicule.

We have no one to blame but ourselves.

The victims, the current manifestation of Christ in His Passion, can be found in our own neighborhood prisons; Priests wrongfully accused and convicted on heresay alone, abandoned by their own brothers, by their own Fathers, the Bishops.

Let us help those who are rotting away in the American prison system know that they are not unforgotten carcasses of a fallen Catholic world, but truly the spark that ignites the real life of the Faithful.

As Catholics, we know the value of sacrifice, and we know that sacrifice means something beyond what we can see. Let us in turn see the reality of those who suffer for us in ways that we cannot. Let us help those who suffer for Truth know that they are not alone in their suffering, so that they will both have the strength to persevere and to CHOOSE to offer their suffering in union with Our Lord who offered all...for we who deserve less than nothing.

The Battle we face is not political, but spiritual, and it's happening where most of the world is unwilling to see...are WE willing to look? Are we willing to partake? If we partake of the Sacrament, we agree to spend ourselves beyond the surface, seeking the darkness where the real redemptive suffering takes place.

Emily Rose knew this, and Fr. MacRae awaits solidarity for he lives it now.....

Are you willing to enter this battle or will you turn away and reject the face of Our Lord imprisoned?

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