Why I Stopped Talking About Money During Mass

There are many topics I like to talk about at Mass. I do not mind taking on the list of forbidden topics (abortion, artificial birth control, marriage, and so on).  There are two topics, though, I do not talk about.  One is politics.  My reason for this is that I have a I have general disdain for politics and resent how they hijack moral issues and turn them into political issues…which form 99% of the so called forbidden list.  I will talk about God’s law which is eternal as opposed to man’s law which changes on societal whims.  I would sooner wade into the cesspool that is politics before I talk about money.

                I have several reasons for this.  First, I am not running a business.  I will grant that being pastor of a parish has businesslike elements to it: payroll, taxes, budgets, and bills.  That said, what we offer in a parish isn’t goods and services.  It isn’t any more like a business than a family is.  A family also had financial aspects to it, especially as it grows, but it is not a business. No good parish is set up like a business franchise in order to sell holy stuff.  A parish that shoots for such is doomed.  When this happens, a parish is continually chasing the consumer demands.  It ceases forming those in its care, but gets formed by those with interest that may or may not have the primary goal of the proclamation of the Gospel.

                Second, while having a sense of business management is helpful, a parish can have all the money in the world and be dead.  One can be wealthy, but be an homage to lukewarmness.  Wealth is not the goal of a parish.  In fact, true wealth is not measured in dollars and cents.  Jesus tells us to store up wealth in heaven.  That wealth is the byproduct of the proclamation of the Kingdom.  That is my focus and the focus of any stable parish.

                I will talk about stewardship instead.  Stewardship is a different concept altogether.  Stewardship is understanding of taking care of what God has given.  Stewardship is expressed in our active care of and for parish and those the parish serves. 

                In the Old Testament, there were two types of offerings: the sin/peace offering and the thanksgiving offering.  The sin/peace offering was the sacrifice of one’s prize animal because one had sinned.  The animal took the punishment due to the person who sinned.  In our Catholic faith, we believe that this sacrifice is done in the Sacrifice of the Mass.  In the Mass, we directly participate in the one sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the Cross.   This is why animal sacrifices no longer happen in Christianity.  However, the second sacrifice, the thanksgiving sacrifice is not suppressed.  That thanksgiving sacrifice is also called the tithe.

                In the Old Testament, the thanksgiving sacrifice was the first fruits of one’s labor.  It was a thanksgiving to God made as a thank you to God for all the blessings He had given.  To commandeer the thanksgiving sacrifice for one’s own use, God tells the prophet Malachi, was theft from God.  It was the act of a spoiled and entitled child.  The sacrifice was to be used to two ends.  First, it was to be used to the help the livelihood of those who served God.  Priests and Levites were to not own farms or businesses so that they might be dedicated completely to the service of God and His people.  Part of the thanksgiving sacrifice to be distributed to those who were in need.  These are still in effect.

                My task as a priest is the same.  As a priest, I am prohibited from owning a business, having an outside job, or living in grandeur.  Canon Law says we priests should live simply and be dedicated 24/7 to the service of God and His people.  In the same vein, most parishes have staff, clerical, educational, administrative, maintenance, and such who assist the pastor in executing the ministries of the parish and see to the good and upkeep of the property.  Part of the thanksgiving offering goes to helping these things happen and pays for the material necessities (utilities, insurance,   for example) to keep parish programs and building going strong.  When the thanksgiving sacrifice is withheld and when first fruits turn to scraps, the ability of a parish to fully do its mission is truncated.  Stewardship is all about making sure that these things are done and done well.  Part of the thanksgiving offering is to go to the help of the needy. 

                My task in the stewardship is twofold.  First, I too must give a thanksgiving offering.   Second, as pastor, I am directly answerable to God for how I use that offering.  If I misuse the funds to own personal gain, I stand answerable to God for having stolen what was given and dereliction of duty.   My job isn’t to tell you what to give.  I do not look at giving records.  I do not make it my business.  What is given is between the giver and God.  I am answerable to God for what I gave and you are answerable for what you give. 

                Stewardship, though, is measured in more than dollars and cents.  Stewardship is also measured in the participation we give in the mission of the parish.  Many believe that my only obligation to the parish is to show up for Mass.  Oftentimes the collection becomes a cash register: we pay for the services we use.  This is horrible understanding of what being a part of the Body of Christ means.  Our giving of time, energy, and resources should be measured in what is the needs of the Body of Christ in my parish.   What a parish can do is expanded or contracted and even negated by what time, energy, and monies are given or not given.  If we want a lively and holy parish, our stewardship is the fuel we put into the tank.  God puts in His grace and we put in our thanksgiving.

                    Monies are always needed as our creditors will not take, “I’ll pray for you’ in lieu of a cash.  The members of our staff, paid much less than those in the same field in the private sector, have a right for a just wage for their jobs.  Buildings and properties need constant upkeep.  We have a mission to get to.  Our thanksgiving sacrifice fuels these things.  When we give God our scraps and not our first fruits, we tell God two things:  I do not trust Him to provide for me nor do I care about the mission of His Church enough to throw my lot in with it.

                How much a parish succeed or fails is wholly dependent upon the stewardship each parishioner gives.  The collection is not a cash register to pay for services rendered, but part of the thanksgiving sacrifice we make to God.  If we want our mission to expand and grow deeper, we must invest ourselves.  We must invest our time, energy, and treasure to the good of the mission of Christ.  That comes in the form of prayer, of volunteering, and of treasure. AS God is to never be outdone in generosity, the proper giving of the thanksgiving sacrifice reaps what it sows.  Sow sparingly and one will only reap sparingly.

                When it comes to finance, I can tell you the following in how I see my job as pastor.  First, I do not like debt.  I am a big believer in staying on top of our bills and putting money away to make sure that future capital improvements can be done on schedule.  I am a fiscal hawk.  I do not throwing money away or spending money twice because corners were cut.  I believe I am totally answerable to God for every cent you all give.  I am answerable for how the time and energy you give is appreciated and used.  It is unbecoming of a pastor to take advantage of the good will or be thankless for their generosity. In other words, I will use wisely what you give, but I can only use that which you give.  I can only invest the principle you give me to invest.

Why Mass matters

As we come up to the start of the new school year, perhaps it is a good time to revisit why Sunday Mass is more than merely important.  It is necessary.  It is the heart of the lived Roman Catholic life.  The Church refers to the Mass as the source and summit of our faith.  So central to the lived experience and growth of the faith, that it is one of the precepts of the Church.  For a Roman Catholic to be considered a Catholic in good standing, Mass attendance is required.  There are exceptions made for those who are ill or tending to an ill person.  There are those who health prevents them from coming.  These account for very few Catholics overall.  Some have jobs that make Mass attendance difficult. The Church understands this.

               Most don’t come because they do not see a necessity for it.  It comes from decades of low understanding of the faith, experimentation done during Mass that went awry, and an overall lowballing of expectations that fell from a call to holiness to a call to being good.  The average percentage of Catholics who regularly attend Mass is a definitive minority. Most do not.  I would argue that a large part of the reason Catholic influence has nosedived, why vocations have fallen, and why Catholics are not substantially different from non-Catholics in their attitudes towards moral issues starts with the spiritual starvation that comes from skipping Mass.  If just the Catholics who are on parish rolls came to Mass on a regular basis, most churches would have to add multiple Mass times.

               Many remain on rolls because they want to be buried in the cemetery or want their children to be able to go to the parish school at no or reduced tuition.  In the latter case, the good will of the parish is being taken advantage of in a rather reprehensible way. Parish schools exist to do more than provide an education.  They are an investment, a large investment, on the parishes’ part to training our youth to be educated, forthright, and holy Catholic leaders.  This investment is cut at the knees when Mass is left out of the equation.  Weekday Masses do not replace the Sunday Mass.  When Sunday Mass is left out of the equation, the time, energy, and monies spent are wasted to the end for which they were given.

               The Sunday Mass (Saturday PM counts to this) is about the keeping holy of the Sabbath.  Because Jesus rose from the dead on the first day of the week (Sunday) the commitment to the Sabbath was moved from the Jewish Sabbath of Sunday to the day of the Resurrection.  Every Sunday is a celebration of Easter.  The Resurrection changes everything.  It validates the eternal sacrifice of the Cross we share in every time we come to Mass.  It points us to a destination far beyond the temporal plain.  At Mass, God punches through our time and space to bring us into His.  Hence there are two sides to what is going on.

               First, we come to glorify God.  Many will say that I glorify God, theoretically, from the comfort of my own home, or a fishing boat, or a deer stand, or a winding trail.  Sure.  Pronouns matter.   Notice I said we and not I.  Through baptism, we are brought into the Body of Christ.  Our relationship with Christ is intertwined with our relationship with each other.  WE worship.  WE, the Body of Christ present in this locale, worship as an assembly (ekklesia in Greek…Church is English).  WE come together in the common purpose of worship.  What is worship?  It is not entertainment.  Mass is not a movie, TV show, ballgame, or play.  It is not something we merely sit in an auditorium to watch as spectators to cheer of jeer the entertainers.  Worship is an act issuing FROM us, not to us.  The ‘us’ in question is not merely the people who happen to be in the room at the same time, but we are connected to every other member of the Body of Christ throughout the world, in time and eternity.

               We call the Mass, the Eucharist.  The word ‘Eucharist’ comes from the Greek word for ‘thanksgiving.’ We gather as members of a single Body to give thanks to God.  We also give Him adoration.   Mass is first and foremost, from our part, what we give to God. In that giving, we are united to the Body of Christ throughout the world.  To willingly and slothfully separate ourselves from this assembly of the Body of Christ is to diminish the centrality of Christ in our life.

               The second side to this equation is what God does for us in response to our worship.  If we come into Mass to concretely tell God of our active love for Him and each other, His response is to make us holy.  We should never lose sight that the call of a Catholic is not to mere goodness, but to holiness. Holiness is a much higher and well-spelled out calling than the ambiguity of ‘being good.’  Holiness, which is the calling card of a son or daughter of God, can only be done through the grace of God.  It can only be done in union with God.  God’s response to our intentional and right worship of Him is to give us the grace of the Body and Blood of His Son that we might grow as individuals and as a people in our faith and witness.

               Without this infusion of God’s grace, we spiritually starve ourselves.  The reception of the Body and Blood of Christ is necessary, as Christ Himself told us, “Unless you eat my Flesh and drink my Blood, you have no life within you.” (John 6:53)  If we do not have the life of Christ within us, then we willingly shut ourselves out of the Kingdom of Heaven.  The reception of the Eucharist does require three things: presence, belief, and a state of grace.  It makes sense that we need to be physically present.  In the case of our shut-ins, we bring Communion to them.  Presence, though, is NOT enough.  We cannot be merely physically present in a building where Mass is taking place.  Second, we must believe that what is being given to us is truly the Body and Blood of Christ.  Without belief, the reception of Christ’s Body and Blood becomes an act of blasphemy.  Finally, our souls must be in a state of grace to receive.  This means we cannot be in a state of mortal sin at the time of reception.  If we are, we truncate the ability of God’s grace to change and strengthen us and the act of receiving Communion becomes an act of sacrilege.   It is why the sacrament of Reconciliation is so important, for in this sacrament the soul is cleansed of that which blocks the grace of the Eucharist from taking hold in our lives.

It is the Body and Blood of Christ that bond us together as the Body of Christ.  It is in this union that we receive the benefits, both temporal and eternal, of being a member of the Body of Christ.  We cannot expect the benefits without that consistent membership.  Whether that benefit comes in the use of parochial and diocesan programs and assistance, education, and ministries or in the eternal life of heaven, our faithful and faith-filled reception of the Eucharist at Mass matters greatly.  It is my duty to remind those of my flock of this central belief and hold it up as the base standard of our faith.  To allow the giving of the benefits of the Body of Christ while a person willfully absents themselves from the Mass is a gross dereliction of duty on my part.   Because I care about the temporal needs of those assigned to my pastoral care and even more so to the eternal fate of my flock, it is my task to point to the greater and more challenging.  I point out it is my calling to be faithful, not popular.  That I set this standard is towards the ends of the holiness to which each of us is called.   

              

Gentlemen: A Call to Arms

The following is a pastoral letter to the men of my parishes.  
 
I write this letter to the men of this parish, not to the exclusion of the women of this parish, but to clearly spell out what The Church and the Scriptures see as your role within this parish, your family, and our society.

I write this knowing that lay men have been long ignored.  It isn’t that some are not in positions of service with the parish.  Some are on the various committees, fundraisers, and other activities within the parish.  Some help with the various ministries within the Mass.  This is all good.  For too long, though, men have remained unchallenged and oft complained about.  Certainly our society takes a very dim view of men.  When no competing message comes from their parish, it is easy to presume that their parish thinks the same way about them as does society.

This is not the case within the church.  Sacred Scripture reminds us that the husband is the spiritual head of the home.  It says ‘is’, not ‘should be’, not ‘could be’, but ‘is’.  Every study I have ever seen on the religious practice of children finds the largest, by far, indicator of the faith of children to be the faith of the father.  If dad is disengaged from faith, the likelihood the child will follow suit is overwhelming.  Even if mom is fully engaged, the children will overwhelmingly fall away from the faith.  So, men, you are that central and important.  Your role cannot be shoved off on your wife who already has other roles to play within the faith development of the children.

Society has done a complete job of emasculating the role of men.  If we look how dads are portrayed in the media, at best it is as a self-absorbed buffoon, at worst it is as a clueless selfish man-child.  We priests do not fare any better.  We are portrayed as heartless dictators, uncaught felons, or buffoons as well.  Certainly our role within the guidance of families and parishes has been diminished.  The devil knows to get at the flock, one must strike the shepherd. This is not the fault of feminism; no can take ground that isn’t ceded.  We men have fallen into a trap of being merely nice, of being merely good.  That isn’t our call. It isn’t the call of any Catholic.  Understanding the core of our call is essential to understanding our role within the parish, the family, and our society.

What is that core?  Virtue.  The Scriptures call all of us to various qualities.  They never call us to be good or nice.  Never.  We are called to something much more bold, strong, brave, and challenging.  The virtues clue us into that.  There are 4 cardinal virtues (temperance, justice, fortitude, and prudence) and three theological virtues (faith, hope, and love).  These clue us into our roles as men within the church.

Virtue are learned disciplines that are strengthened or weakened by our choices.  They do to the soul what weights for the body or studying does to the intellect.   The virtues challenge us to be our better selves.  They are difficult at first, but become easier with practice.  I liken it to weight lifting.  The first time one weight lifts the movements can be awkward if done correctly; if the movements are not done correctly they can do great damage.  The movement must be disciplined and intentional.  So it is with the virtues.

Prudence is the virtue by which we learn to wisely decide what is good, what is to be done, what strengthens us. Justice is the virtue by which we judge what is needed by another; it teaches us to move from selfishness to selflessness.  Temperance is the virtue by which we learn restraint and right use of goods; it leads to personal strength.  Fortitude is the virtue by which we willingly engage in these virtues and stick to them regardless of the hardships, external or internal, that follow.

The three theological virtues require grace to grow; we cannot divorce the practice of the faith from these virtues.  Faith is the virtue by which we brow in the knowledge of what constitutes our faith.  Hope is the virtue by which we willingly embrace conversion trusting in God’s will for us.  Love is the greatest of all these virtues, because its selfless nature spurs us to reach for the excellence the Catholic life calls us to.  Love puts the focus where it should be and powers all of these virtues.

A good pastor has the qualities of a great coach.  Of my many tasks is to call to excellence, expect excellence, and lay out a path to it.  Christ has given us this already.  We must, if we are to be effective, boldly charge into the breach.  My expectations of myself and other men are that we give the best of who we are for the good of those placed in our care.  My expectation is we embrace whatever sacrifice and suffering is necessary to manfully accomplish the task Christ sets us to.

My brothers, we share in the shepherding role of Christ.  A man who is good at shepherding places himself in between his flock and what would harm his flock.  The time for absconding our duties and leading from behind, a time that should never have been, are long past.   Not long ago, Bishop Olmstead of Phoenix issued a pastoral exhortation the men of his diocese called, “Into the Breach.”   I would love to get the men of this parish to read, study, and rise to the challenge of this letter.  I know some men already have.  That said, a parish doesn’t need some of its men engaged or even the majority of the men engaged; it needs all of its men engaged!

We need the support of each other in this task.  We are called to use God’s grace to raise each other up.   Gentlemen, we are on a battlefield.  The devil has gained too much ground and it is high time we take it back.  The stronger a warrior we are, the more effective a warrior we are.  The devil wants access not just to you but to your wife, your fiancé, your girlfriend, your children, and all others you love.  His plan is to eternally destroy them.  He has to get through you.  Will you stand and fight.  Because if you will, as we have Christ as our head, the devil can damage but destroy.  

I have been approached already by some men of the parish to form something that would accomplish this end.  Here is my call to arms, brothers.  Let us stir up the nobility and heroism that is proper to us and get about the business of being Catholic men.  If you are interested, contact me.  If you are not: why?  I know we have schedules that are jam packed.  That said, men, we need warriors, not excuses.  Time to engage.

And the Greatest of These is Love

"From the beginning, God contrived ten thousand ways for implanting love within us"

St. John Chrysostom , Homilies on I Corinthians 13

Over the next few weeks, I and the staff of Camp Maccabee will be focusing on the theological virtue of love.  We focus on the virtues, both theological and cardinal, every year.  One year of the cycle, though, we focus exclusively on love.  Why?

We focus on love because there are fewer words so horribly misunderstood and misused as is the word love.  We use the word, in our culture, to denote a feeling about many things.  We use the word to express our like or affection for everything from a food to a sports team to a pet to a human being.  We use the word to express an affection for persons, places, concepts, and things.  We leave it to the context to see if we mean something different by 'love' depending about whom or what we are speaking.  

Let's be honest though.  More often than not, we are speaking of our affection for what something or someone offers us; how they make us feel.  This is a love that is mere emotion; a response to an outside stimulus. For as long as what is stimulating that feeling makes us happy, we keep it around.  When that stimulus either ceases to make me happy or causes me pain, we dismiss it.  It is why people run hot and then run cold in their affection for something.  We fall in and out of love with things and people.  Because it is an emotion based love, it is fickle by its nature.

Love, within the context of our faith, is an entirely different thing.  It transcends the emotions and settles in our will.  Love is a deliberate choice, a discipline, and a virtue.  Its directionality is wholly different from the world.  Where in this world the focus of love is what is done for me, in faith the focus is away from the self and towards another.  This is what the Greeks refer to as 'agape' or divine love.  The love God is has is  not directed at what we can do for Him.  Why?  Because there is nothing that we can give Him that He does not already does not have.  We can add nothing to Him.  However, because God's love is directed towards us it demands an in kind response.

This in kind love is difficult because it requires a heroic selflessness.  This kind of love, because it is a virtue,  puts the beloved first.  It seeks the good of the beloved even if in doing so , sacrifice and suffering are involved.  Jesus tells us, "No greater love  has one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends." (John 15:13)  To give the full measure of oneself is the kind of love Jesus Himself has and expects of His followers.  It is no surprise, then, that St. Paul, when giving us the attributes of love in I Corinthians 13:4-7, paints the picture a thoroughly selfless and heroic love.  These attributes become the watermarks by which we can determine my love for God and for others.  This goes back, again, to the fact that love is not an act of the emotions, but an act of the will.  It is choice made hundreds of times a day to move us to greater perfection as one who loves.

We focus on this in our camp because each one of the young men is called by God to a vocation.  Most will be called to marriage.  Some will be called to the priesthood or religious life.  All possess the same base.  A man that cannot love will fail at his vocation if he finds it at all.  What we hope to instill is an understanding that here and now they must cultivate love as they search God's will.

A man who cannot love will be an awful spouse and dad.  Even in courtship, he will see his girlfriend as a means to his own happiness.  Insofar as she keeps making him happy, she is useful to keep around.  This kind of selfishness will inevitably lead to sex outside of marriage, as the girlfriend owes him sexual pleasure without the benefit of the stability of marriage.  A man with imperfect love will also train his brain to this using of women through pornography.  I cannot understate the cancerous danger of pornography to warping a man's ability to fully love.  Furthermore, a man who does not properly love his spouse will not properly love his children.  Children will becomes accessories to make him look good.  More dangerous still, a man who will not properly love teaches his sons to do the same and his daughters to not expect it.  It becomes a multi-generational cancer.

A man who cannot love will be an awful priest.  Even in the seminary, he will judge the worth of serving God and His people by what he personally stands to gain. The idea of service will be warped beyond recognition into being a purveyor of goods and service to be given at an exacting price.  His prayer life, if it exists at all, will be functionary.  His homilies will always give him away though.  Homilies are a window into the preacher's soul.  His treatment of those placed in his care will resemble a dad who is faithless to his spouse and sees his children as useful only when they perform whatever duties he deems they should.  The abuse and neglect that are seen in a loveless spouse and dad will manifest itself in a loveless priest or cleric as well.

Because God and Holy Mother Church want better for our families and parishes, we teach the conscious discipline of love.  We teach it as the virtue it is.  We do not reduce it to a mere emotion.  Without the nobility and true heroism of love, we will continue to see the unraveling of the family unit and the plunging of priestly vocations.  

Because love is a theological virtue, it requires the grace of God to grow.  On our camp, we keep focused on the ultimate act of love: The Eucharist.  If a man is to be truly a man of love, then his eyes must be set on the very model of that love.  He must be a man unashamed of prayer.  He must be a man who sees in Christ the kind of selfless and courageous hero he himself is called to be.  We know from studies that when the dad is disengaged from faith, the likelihood of his children pursuing the faith is infinitesimally small.  We know that parishes rise and fall on the pastoral care afforded by their priests.  We know the lasting damage either spouses/dads and priests can do for generations.  We also know the heroic virtue they can instill for generations as well.

We need men to rise up beyond the shallowness of the emotion of love and grasp the greatness of the virtue of love.  We know that everything we bemoan in our society can be turned around, albeit with difficulty, but it can be turned around.  To be sure the culture will fight this as the culture has gone full throttle in emasculating men and keeping them on the level of a boy.  A man who truly loves is a force of nature that cannot be stilled by political correctness or cultural whims.  These are the giants we need to raise.  We need men who will not merely be good husbands, dads, or priests; we need stellar and courageous men who will fill these vocational roles given to them by God.    

When Scandal Arises

This column is not written to excuse scandalous behavior nor to act as judge and jury on pending cases.  It is not a commentary on any particular incident and is not intended as such.

Over the past few days, a few stories on clergy being charged or arrested on behaving sinfully, in one case in a apartment in Rome and the other being a high ranking Vatican official, has made international news.   They are part of very long lists of either accusations or actual criminal and immoral behavior that have captured the headlines.  They are scandalous to be sure.  They do grave damage.  They hurt people for many years.  They can scorch faith and create doubt.  It is for no small reason that Jesus uses a graphic and horrific example of what would be preferable to giving scandal in Luke 17:2 where Jesus tells us it would be better to have a millstone placed around your neck and be throne into the sea than for one to give scandal.  That He had to say it 2000 years ago is telling.

Scandal is as old as the Church.  The apostles jostled for dominance.  They ran away.  One betrayed Jesus, another denied even knowing Him 3 times.  Quarrels erupted about doctrine, starting with circumcision and never really left.  False teachings and heresies, most of which were begun by clergy, have been with us from the very beginning.  Clergy acting cowardly during persecution, clergy having the sexual morality of a tapeworm, clergy in power struggles, clergy committing all sorts of evil have been with us the entirety of the Church.  There have been horrible bishops and even popes. The latest round of scandals are nothing new under the sun.

The biggest reason for this is that God chooses His clergy from human beings.  As much as we should certainly hope that our clergy would represent the best in modeling the Catholic life, more often than not, clerics prove to be all too human as well.  If history shows us anything within Church history, is that there has never been a golden age of honest and angelic clergy.  The concupiscence that weighs each of us down, afflicts the clergy as well.  The grace of Holy Orders does not make their humanity go away; concupiscence does not dissolve with ordination. Free will is a constant.  This is not to excuse any wrongdoing and sinful actions done by clergy and religious, but to state a simple fact.

Lest we lose hope, history shows us that great saints rise in the midst of even the most foul of circumstances.  That the Church has survived barrage after barrage of clergy behaving sinfully says something about the fact that ultimately God guides His Church and keeps it from collapsing under the weight of the sin of her members.  This said, what do we do when we are hit with scandal?  Scandal does and can ruin faith.  It can make it us abandon hope if left to fester.

As a cleric, it has been hard to witness the scandal given by my brother clergy.  Even if it is a small percentage of them, I am still all too acutely aware of the damage done.  I know like other professions, it only takes few to bring the whole into a bad reputation.  What keeps me from washing my hands of everything and walking away is the following:

1) It is God we serve first and foremost.  It is not a man or a group of men.  I know God can work through sinful men because that is what He has had do to for millennia.  When I go to Mass, it is to encounter the Lord in the Eucharist.  That is where I concentrate.  I don't buy into or want to create for myself a cult of personality.  We focus on Christ and His grace in the sacraments.

2) The Church is bigger than any of her members.  For all the sinfulness of her members, her teachings on faith and morals have remained consistent.  It is this to which I attach. While not all her members may speak the truth or even expound upon what the Church teaches, the teaching remain and are accessible for me to know.  I know that morality is not contingent upon the personality of the preacher or teacher.  Hence it is to what is laid out in the Scriptures and Magisterium of the Church that I focus.

3)No institution is reformed from the outside.  That people spiritually pick up their toys and leave only insures that sinful behavior remains and defines.  I love Christ and His Church too much to do this.  Complaining about a situation is not a solution.  It is getting one's skin in the game that matters.  By getting one's skin in the game, I don't mean the meaningless passivity of petitions.  I don't mean writing terse letters.  I mean that we find charitable ways to uphold the truth.  That is what St. Francis of Assisi did.  That is what St Charles Borromeo did.  That is is what St. Bernard of Clairvaux did.  I could go on with that list.  Not everyone pulled a Martin Luther and parted.

Some of this is a self inflicted wound.  When we saw the priesthood as beneath our best and brightest we starting setting up the game.  This sentiment is as old as the Church.  Many saints' stories are riddled with parents who sternly forbade their son or daughter from pursuing a call to serve God in the priesthood of religious life. When dioceses just started taking anybody because positions needed to be filled, it was because of a shortage of solid candidates.  Catholics wanted all the services to remain consistent, but didn't want to provide capable candidates for the work.  You want a better priest, raise a better young man who is open to serving God as a priest. You want a better clergy, raise strong virtuous men who will serve God wholeheartedly.  This is not to say that every man who went into the seminary was somehow a social reject.  Not at all.  Many have been good, solid, faithful, and holy men.  They don't get the press, but vthe toil in the fields of the Lord wondering if the reinforcements are coming.

Some of this comes  a result of priests forgetting what they promised. Sometimes we priests forget we are priests and not businessmen.  We can forget we are in the world but not of the world. We can get bogged down in compensatory behaviors and vices like anyone else.  We clergy need to remember that we are to be the Persona Christi and it does matter how we comport ourselves.  We need to remember that we live in the white hot spotlight and that the devil desperately wants us to fall.  When one of our brothers does fall, it does hurt.  All the more reason that our non-media garnering attention lives must shine brighter than those who fall.

I wish I could point to an idyllic time in our history where we got it right when it came the living of the faith.  It would give us a clue on what path to trod. There are none.  Looking for boogeyman to blame is an ahistorical fool's errand.  We persevere.  We must.  Each of us tussles with our own sinful inclinations and concupiscence everyday.  We need God's grace to this end.  That those who should know better don't do this cannot be reason for our own defection.  This doesn't mean we turn a blind eye to sinful behavior, it means we don't judge the totality by a minority...or even a majority.  Christ said He will be with us till end of the age.  We must look for the saints in our midst, among our clergy, as well.

As an end note I say this:  Too many times sinful behavior finds a fertile field when a priest has been put on a pedestal of has been forgotten.  For those on a pedestal, they can get an inkling the rules no longer apply to them (human nature there).  For those forgotten, they could look to behaviors and addictions to numb their loneliness (also human nature).   Many times, the cleric will cultivate their loneliness or pedestal.  Befriending him and offering him support can go a long way to helping have a healthy and holy priest.  Never turn a blind eye to behaviors that are sinful and damaging.  But do not treat him as an unconvicted felon in waiting either.

Pray for good men to become good priests.  We need them.  We always have.  We need men who will counter the poor and scandalous witness of the minority with the heroism of a saint.