About an hour ago I sent the following letter to the editor to two papers, a secular daily that covers a lot of suburban Chicagoland and the local diocesan paper.
I want to send it to numerous Catholic papers around the country, including that of the Boston Archdiocese, but before doing so, I would appreciate your feedback. I know it's long, and the editor will take care of that if he wishes, but how can it be improved?
Is there anything fundamentally flawed about it in your opnion?
Dear Editor,
In the past few weeks the Catholic chaplains of Good
Samaritan and Edwards hospitals here in the western suburbs of Chicago have resigned as the
result of allegations that date from the seventies. In
other words, they have been clean since then, in fact
squeaky clean.
Father Phillip from Edwards Hospital was the priest
who ministered to my mother during her last weeks of
life, and to us and her at her death, and he came to
the wake to give us his condolences. When she was
living, he brought her the Eucharist, he spoke with
her, he sang her a song. He was attentive to her and
solicitous of her. The newspaper indicated there was
one allegation that dated to the seventies.
Perhaps the Church should have adopted the "one strike
you're out" policy that the press is crying for, but
both these men have done good work since that
disgraceful period of their past...when they arguably
should have been dismissed. However, they were not
dismissed and it seems to me that they have both
redeemed themselves. The state is unrelenting and
unforgiving, but should this be carried over to the
Church?
Beyond that, though, this situation is very rich in
irony. The media, the very people and institutions who
make make their money by keeping the sexual
temperature white hot, who are constantly looking
for taboos to break in order to attract audience to
sit in front of their advertisements and be corrupted,
*they* are indignant. That's really rich.
Of course this is a total disgrace for the Church, and
should never have happened, and should have been dealt
with better.
Mostly though, this is a culture war, and our enemies
have siezed on this as a fantastic opportunity to
undermine our witness, sow dissension among us, sieze
our assets, propagandize our people and the world with
their agenda for us, e.g. the elimination of the
witness of celibacy, the democratization of the
Church, and the withdrawal of support among other
things. It distresses me to see Catholics in the press
or elsewhere parroting this media line.
For my money the solution to this has almost nothing
to do with the adoption of new policies on how to
handle priestly pedophiles in the future, but to take
every step to see that there be no priestly
pedophiles whatever in the future, or any sexual
predators or deviates in the priesthood whatever.
In connection with this, my mother often said that the
vocations crisis came about because of the elimination
the Ember days. Ember days, you'll recall, are three
days, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, placed at the
beginning of each of the four seasons, and set aside
as days of fasting, abstinence and prayer.
In trying to track down the source of this view of my
mother's, with which she had obviously been inculcated
by the Dominican priests and nuns who taught her, I
ran across this:
"Another Roman variation of Embertides, instituted by
Pope Gelasius I in 494, is to use Ember Saturdays as
the day to confer Holy Orders.*
Apostolic tradition prescribed that ordinations be
preceded by fast and prayer (see Acts 13:3), and so it
seemed quite reasonable to place ordinations at the
end of this fast period. Moreover, this allows the
entire community to join the men in fasting and
praying for God's blessing upon their calling and to
share their joy in being
called."
The article at
www.holytrinitygerman.org/Ember-Days.html also
indicates that keeping these days is of ancient
origin.
However, in addition to the fast from food, I
heartily, devoutly wish that the Catholic people would
throw their televisions into the garbage. There
is no difference whatever between the morals of the
Catholic people re abortion, premarital relations,
pedophilia, pornography or anything else, for that
matter, and there should be. Garbage in-garbage out.
And no one who has sat in front of the television for
any evening in the past thirty years can deny that it
was an evening of feeding his soul on garbage.
This weekend our deacon gave a rousing sermon in which
he said, "The power does not come from the Vatican,
from the bishops, from the pastor. The power has
always come from the pews. Are you praying for
your priests? If not, why not?" I think this is
correct. In other words, the solution is not that Cdl.
law should resign, but that the Catholic laity should
enlist and go to war, upon ourselves primarily,
with prayer and fasting and self-denial of all kinds,
to bring the grace of God down upon us in cleansing
floods.
Lee Gilbert
I want to send it to numerous Catholic papers around the country, including that of the Boston Archdiocese, but before doing so, I would appreciate your feedback. I know it's long, and the editor will take care of that if he wishes, but how can it be improved?
Is there anything fundamentally flawed about it in your opnion?
Dear Editor,
In the past few weeks the Catholic chaplains of Good
Samaritan and Edwards hospitals here in the western suburbs of Chicago have resigned as the
result of allegations that date from the seventies. In
other words, they have been clean since then, in fact
squeaky clean.
Father Phillip from Edwards Hospital was the priest
who ministered to my mother during her last weeks of
life, and to us and her at her death, and he came to
the wake to give us his condolences. When she was
living, he brought her the Eucharist, he spoke with
her, he sang her a song. He was attentive to her and
solicitous of her. The newspaper indicated there was
one allegation that dated to the seventies.
Perhaps the Church should have adopted the "one strike
you're out" policy that the press is crying for, but
both these men have done good work since that
disgraceful period of their past...when they arguably
should have been dismissed. However, they were not
dismissed and it seems to me that they have both
redeemed themselves. The state is unrelenting and
unforgiving, but should this be carried over to the
Church?
Beyond that, though, this situation is very rich in
irony. The media, the very people and institutions who
make make their money by keeping the sexual
temperature white hot, who are constantly looking
for taboos to break in order to attract audience to
sit in front of their advertisements and be corrupted,
*they* are indignant. That's really rich.
Of course this is a total disgrace for the Church, and
should never have happened, and should have been dealt
with better.
Mostly though, this is a culture war, and our enemies
have siezed on this as a fantastic opportunity to
undermine our witness, sow dissension among us, sieze
our assets, propagandize our people and the world with
their agenda for us, e.g. the elimination of the
witness of celibacy, the democratization of the
Church, and the withdrawal of support among other
things. It distresses me to see Catholics in the press
or elsewhere parroting this media line.
For my money the solution to this has almost nothing
to do with the adoption of new policies on how to
handle priestly pedophiles in the future, but to take
every step to see that there be no priestly
pedophiles whatever in the future, or any sexual
predators or deviates in the priesthood whatever.
In connection with this, my mother often said that the
vocations crisis came about because of the elimination
the Ember days. Ember days, you'll recall, are three
days, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, placed at the
beginning of each of the four seasons, and set aside
as days of fasting, abstinence and prayer.
In trying to track down the source of this view of my
mother's, with which she had obviously been inculcated
by the Dominican priests and nuns who taught her, I
ran across this:
"Another Roman variation of Embertides, instituted by
Pope Gelasius I in 494, is to use Ember Saturdays as
the day to confer Holy Orders.*
Apostolic tradition prescribed that ordinations be
preceded by fast and prayer (see Acts 13:3), and so it
seemed quite reasonable to place ordinations at the
end of this fast period. Moreover, this allows the
entire community to join the men in fasting and
praying for God's blessing upon their calling and to
share their joy in being
called."
The article at
www.holytrinitygerman.org/Ember-Days.html also
indicates that keeping these days is of ancient
origin.
However, in addition to the fast from food, I
heartily, devoutly wish that the Catholic people would
throw their televisions into the garbage. There
is no difference whatever between the morals of the
Catholic people re abortion, premarital relations,
pedophilia, pornography or anything else, for that
matter, and there should be. Garbage in-garbage out.
And no one who has sat in front of the television for
any evening in the past thirty years can deny that it
was an evening of feeding his soul on garbage.
This weekend our deacon gave a rousing sermon in which
he said, "The power does not come from the Vatican,
from the bishops, from the pastor. The power has
always come from the pews. Are you praying for
your priests? If not, why not?" I think this is
correct. In other words, the solution is not that Cdl.
law should resign, but that the Catholic laity should
enlist and go to war, upon ourselves primarily,
with prayer and fasting and self-denial of all kinds,
to bring the grace of God down upon us in cleansing
floods.
Lee Gilbert
