This week, we suspend regular postings on our theme – learning how to not miss the Rapture – for a very critical purpose. The reason is that our hearts are bleeding for the Roman Catholic priests’ victims and the priests themselves. First of all, as servants of God ourselves, we are grateful that God uses imperfect disciples. I imagine that if He insisted on waiting until we become perfect, the gospel message would be long dead.
We on this blog are not so heavenly-minded that we are no earthly good. Therefore, we take this break for commentary on current affairs. Our focus is on the sexual abuse saga of the Roman Catholic Church. We also want to continue to pray for healing – physical as well as emotional – for the victims and their families.
Imperfect Church Of Imperfect Disciples
I believe it is Bishop T D Jakes who famously said that the minute you walk into a church, it stops being perfect. That is because none of us is perfect. Sometimes, the Bible refers to that state as blameless. Mercifully, God uses imperfect disciples. Jesus made a very poignant point when He asked the prostitute’s accusers to throw the first stone if they were blameless. As you may recall, no one threw a single stone at the accused.
And that is because only the son of God can lay claim to living a sinless life. The rest of us – all 7.5 billion – are at best, striving for perfection. We are making a hash of it, truth be told. And unless God uses imperfect disciples, we would all be useless.
Now, it is possible that there are some in the Roman Catholic church who are no longer striving for blamelessness. At some point, they took a decision to succumb to the seductiveness of the flesh. Some others may have a problem fending off the lust of the eye or the pride of life. As you know, there is no sin outside of these three categories, the same which caused the Fall in the Garden of Eden.
In the same way, I know some in my church (I am not Roman Catholic) who are active in one or more of these sin-categories. Without a doubt, if you pay close attention, you also know some in your church who are far from blameless.
God Has Imperfect Disciples
And yet the crimes that the Vatican and several other Roman Catholic institutions are exposing are not victimless. Not at all. For Pope Francis to compare this horrendous evil to human sacrifice is not hyperbolic. Because when a sexual predator acts, he effectively steals the child’s life away. Physical suicide is not the only type of death there is for victims of sexual predators.
Surviving victims die a thousand times over as they struggle to find a life of some sort, any sort. There is never going to be a point where the Roman Catholic Church will succeed in mitigating the hurt. Never. Whatever it does will be too little too late. Our hearts will never stop bleeding for the victims of Roman Catholic priests.
Never will our hearts stop bleeding for the victims of the Holocaust. Similarly, our hearts will never stop bleeding for the victims of the slave trade. These are evils of global proportions. And we must never forget. Never. Which is not to say we should continue to wallow in the gloom as we consider God’s imperfect disciples. Our collective grief should spur us to action beyond Vatican conferences and beautiful words.
The Church Survives In Spite Of God’s Imperfect Disciples
If you have been keeping abreast of the recent Vatican conference, you wonder how the Roman Catholic Church is still standing. How do they still have adherents? Especially when a mother blames herself for waiting in an adjoining room as her preteen son is being sodomized? Nevertheless, you may not have answers, not unless you grew up in the church. Then you know that in matters of faith, just as in politics, making a change is not easy.
Tongue-in-cheek, my response to those who thus wonder is, “where do you go if you leave your current congregation? You may find that you are going from the frying pan straight into the fire. The priests and pastors in your target church may prove to be worse than your Roman Catholic congregation. You won’t know until the world finds them out. After all, a couple of decades ago, none of us knew this about the Roman Catholic church. And yet, it is all in the public domain now. Your preferred church may be next.
Therefore, the church, in spite of its imperfect disciples, will survive. As will your church, where God also uses imperfect disciples. But does that mean we simply turn a blind eye and keep going on as before? Not at all. And even as Cardinal George Pell, third in command to the Pope, falls, the hurt remains. As it will remain even with the fall of other Cardinals. God forbid that the Pope should fall but even that will not heal the hurt.
Will God Continue To Use Imperfect Disciples?
Please allow me to postulate that the priests are also victims. Naturally, they are not victims in the same way that the choir boys or nun-slaves are. That is because they had a choice to walk away from an unnatural law. Some did already, and therefore those who chose to remain had a choice but took the easy way out.
Don’t hear me excusing them. Nevertheless, they are victims of a Roman Catholic church that wanted to play God. The Roman Catholic church is the perpetrator in this furnace which is consuming all who come in contact with it.
It thought it was wiser than God. God, in His infinite wisdom, said, after He created man, that it is not good for man to be alone. Not only is celibacy an unnatural law, it is also a slap on God’s face, who created a helper suitable for the man.
Next Battle Frontier With Imperfect Disciples
The mighty Apostle Paul got it right. Some disciples, such as himself, can readily abstain from sexual desire, others just cannot. Apostle Paul recommends marrying if you are in the latter group. Being married does not stop God from using you. Remember, He specializes in using imperfect disciples. Don’t force it, he says. The bible actually says, “don’t burn.”
Celibacy forces men to burn. And now, the resulting conflagration is consuming both the church and its members. It is also threatening to singe the entire world. I firmly believe, just from studying the Bible, that we have our work cut out for us. Let us not simply fold our arms and moan.
In honor of the victims and their families, our next battle frontier is to work to dismantle this unnatural law. Celibacy is both unnatural and an act of defiance against God. It should not be associated with any institution that claims to serve the God who created them male and female.
Maranatha!
