Monday, September 3, 2018

How the Sheep Smell Right Now

One of Pope Francis' most memorable phrases is that priests ought to take on the smell of the sheep. Most priests live in the midst of their people. They don't spend a lot of time being advised by lawyers, diplomats, or public relations specialists, unless those persons also happen to be our parishioners. I spend almost all of my day in contact with regular people. As a college chaplain, I hang out with young people, eat with them, pray with them, and evangelize with them. Parish priests see the sheep every day. They meet them at daily Mass, at wakes, in the coffee shop, at the dinner table, in the confessional, and in a million other locations.

The sheep are angry right now. They're disgusted, sorrowed, confused, and bewildered. The sheep are looking for answers. More often than not, the place they come to for answers is their shepherds, their priests. Only the worst kind of priest would want to encourage their sheep towards greater anger or deeper alienation. Good priests--most priests--want to explain things. Most priests want to show the flock that things are more complicated than they sometimes appear. Most priests do not want to add fuel to the fire, but want to put things into context. Most Catholics are not looking for blood. They are not looking for widespread resignations and executions of bishops etc. Certainly if things are egregious enough they might want resignations, but most Catholics just want to hear the plain truth. That's what they want their priests to tell them. 

Priests are out in the field with the sheep. We have the Gospel, but we don't have answers to the questions people are asking about McCarrick, Vigano, and the Pope. The sheep are asking their shepherds, but we don't know the answers. Right now priests feel as though we are in the field fighting off the wolves and mending the wounded sheep, and then, just when we think the pasture is secure and the sheep safe, another attack comes. Sometimes this attack is from those who purposefully try to stir the sheep up and frighten them with half truths or sensationalized rumors. Other times, however, these attacks come from above. They come in the form of Tweets and statements from high ranking priests, bishops, and cardinals. It does not comfort the sheep who feel the gaze of the wolf upon them when an advisor to the Pope tweets out that "the Pope draws energy from conflict." The sheep do not draw energy from this conflict. The sheep are wounded by this conflict. They do not want to hear that the Pope is energized by it. Similarly, Catholic social media personalities who lay claim to the title of defenders of the purity of the Church and then resort to uncharitable, calumnious, or rash judgments about their opponents, are also inflicting injuries upon the sheep. 

Many of the sheep feel as though men who should be their shepherds are in league with the wolves. Bishops and priests in power have insulted them, dismissed them, and abandoned them. The sheep--the ones who come each week to our churches longing to feed on solid doctrine and the Eucharist, the ones who come to confession and bring their children to Mass, the ones who have suffered for the Faith, the ones who are entering the seminaries and religious life, the ones who contribute to the works of the Church and who sacrifice for the Church, the ones who come to Adoration, defend the doctrines, and who evangelize---these sheep, many of them feel as though they've become the enemy of those who exercise power from various offices of the Church. And, with each dismissive and insulting tweet or statement, their confidence in the Church weakens.  They feel abandoned.

I hope that those who seemingly find glee in perpetuating this crisis (those who throw bombs from both sides) know that they are damaging the flock. I know from personal experience that they are hurting the flock. They are wounding the sheep of His pasture. The Pope and the bishops should speak, not because they are being pressured from external forces, but because their sheep are in danger. I'm telling you, the sheep are in real danger. I know this because I--like most regular priests--are among the sheep. We're doing our best, but the attacks keep coming. The snarky tweets, carefully crafted statements, and dismissive silences are leaving the shepherds in the field in a precarious situation. 

If shepherds should take on the odor of the sheep, then the priests of today smell like blood because Christ's sheep are wounded. 

10 comments:

  1. Thank you Father.....praying for you.

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  2. To me, silence is best when you're not sure of the facts. We are so use to our president's immediate knee-jerk tweets that we expect answers, yesterday. The pope was bind sided by the press on an airplane. How would you respond? Take into consideration that the pope is elderly. He had just completed a trip to Ireland. And he knows whatever he says will be misconstrued, misquoted, and incomplete. Best to say nothing. BTW, the pope didn't say, "No, that's all I have to say." That's what the press chose to cherry pick. If you read this article you'll read a story that shows why the pope wasn't ready to commit himself to condemning people. Why didn't the press tell us the story? I guess whipping the sheep into a frenzy sells better. https://www.mercatornet.com/mobile/view/lets-all-take-a-chill-pill

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  3. Thank you Father and God bless you.

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  4. I'm barely hanging on to my catholic faith right now. I appreciate that sheep dont want blood or to fuel the fire, but we want answers and truth. And after that truth comes out? We want reconciliation, change, and healing. I appreciated our church's homily two weeks ago about all that was happening. But just the next week, it was back to 'normal'. While I appreciate that we don't want to perseverate week after week, one homily doesn't somehow resolve the issues or sufficiently communicate the message. I'm raising two young children in the church. We're there every week. My daughter is training to become an alter server. But over the past couple weeks, I have struggled with that decision.

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    1. May our Lord bless you and your children. Keep the faith; you are the primary educator of your children of the faith - also the one who teaches by doing. We belong to the church because of our belief in God, and His truth - not the hierarchy. If you recall, one of the apostles was Judas, who betrayed Him. We will always have wolves around; it is perhaps the best opportunity to learn your faith - teaching your children is the best way. We each make part of the Church, and we need to be strong and faithful - to God. The Church has gone through turmoils before; The truth will prevail. Blessings to you and your family - Kathy

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  5. I am SO angry. I had to walk out of Mass during the homily on Sunday when the priest starting reading a quote from "Pope Francis: A Man of His Word." And the "one homily about the crisis" deal is not working for me either. We need to be hearing homilies about how to be Catholic when the pope has been outed as protecting child rapists. Why we should stay in what appears to be a cesspool. (I have MY answer in the Eucharist, but I am hearing it from a lot of my friends. (And my lapsed Catholic friends are doing the "told you so" dance.) How about a homily on "the gates of hell will not prevail." We need to hear THAT right now, because the gates of hell are clearly in the lead. I could go on. But business as usual is making me want to throw things at the priests.

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    1. I don't understand why you think "the pope has been outed as protecting child rapists." Archishop ViganĂ² said he lifted some vaguely defined sanctions against Abp. McCarrick. At the time he supposedly did so, McCarrick hadn't been accused of child rape. The archdiocese of New York found that there was a credible accusation a couple of months ago. There is no way Pope Francis could have known years ago that McCarrick was a child abuser when he lifted the sanctions.

      One part of our dealing with the crisis has to be knowing the timeline. Most of the abuse happened n the 1960's and 70's. In the 80's the bishops began to clear things up and abuse incidents went down. Since the Dallas Charter of 2002, there have been almost none. In other words, the bishops haven't been publicizing the history of abuse that happened, but they have basically stopped it — which in my opinion is more important than letting everybody know the sordid details of what happened decades ago. But now they do need to come clean with the details. Who were the criminals, who responded well, and who responded poorly?And there need to be consequences for anybody who didn't try to stop it.

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    2. I don't understand why you think "the pope has been outed as protecting child rapists." Archishop ViganĂ² said he lifted some vaguely defined sanctions against Abp. McCarrick. At the time he supposedly did so, McCarrick hadn't been accused of child rape. The archdiocese of New York found that there was a credible accusation a couple of months ago. There is no way Pope Francis could have known years ago that McCarrick was a child abuser when he lifted the sanctions.

      One part of our dealing with the crisis has to be knowing the timeline. Most of the abuse happened n the 1960's and 70's. In the 80's the bishops began to clear things up and abuse incidents went down. Since the Dallas Charter of 2002, there have been almost none. In other words, the bishops haven't been publicizing the history of abuse that happened, but they have basically stopped it — which in my opinion is more important than letting everybody know the sordid details of what happened decades ago. But now they do need to come clean with the details. Who were the criminals, who responded well, and who responded poorly?And there need to be consequences for anybody who didn't try to stop it.

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  6. I think many, not most, priests are good men. The church has cultivated an atmosphere of superiority, as if priests we're better and more important than the rest of us regular Catholics. Unlike Jesus, they are not the servants. It's this unrepentant attitude of self importance that has created a cancer in the priesthood. The old men ruling the Catholic church need to wise up and change. We need married priests, we need women priests, involve everyone at God's table.

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  7. I would have to disagree, I do want to see our 'House' get a good cleaning. There is no other way to stop this. It's like a cancer, if you don't find it and eliminate it there is no doubt that it will continue to grow. I will never leave Jesus' church because of morally reprehensible men and since the hierarchy of the church has failed to curtail these abuses, it is time to gather together faithful members of the laity to do just that. And soon.

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