This evening, we gather as the Church of St. Louis to
acknowledge with sorrow and shame the sexual abuse of children and
vulnerable adults. Many of you I’m sure feel anger over the seeming
inability of bishops and others to address this issue.
As George
Weigel said in his recent article on Aug. 30, Catholics do not go to
Mass on Sunday because they admire the pope of the day, or their local
bishop or their pastor.
Rather we gather in friendship with Christ
to hear the word of God in the Scripture and to learn from Christ and
to be fed by Him in Holy Communion — the primary reason for Catholic
worship. So, tonight in this Mass of Reparation, this Mass of healing,
may God’s grace move us along a journey of renewed conversion.
In
the first reading, we heard the words of the Prophet Joel, “Even now,
says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, with fasting, and
weeping, and mourning; rend your hearts, not your garments, and return
to the Lord your God.”
As I sat with this reading, I was invited
to repent — to grieve for the sin of abuse — to feel humiliation of the
failure of the Church — my failures — to seek contrition and forgiveness
— to open my heart to Christ’s love and the gentle whispering of the
Holy Spirit.
Indeed, to ask forgiveness for the thousands of child abuse cases around the world.
A
few days ago, someone sent me information about “The Rosary to the
Interior: For the Purification of the Church,” and reflecting on the
Fifth Sorrowful Mystery the author said, “It is the destruction of
spiritual childhood which is now the primary objective of Satan within
Christ’s Mystical Body the Church. And it is because of Satan’s success
in this work that the infinite graces of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice
are now bearing so few graces within the Church, and the Church is now
ascending its own, largely self-inflicted Calvary.”
Two thousand
years ago, Christ allowed His physical body to be crucified by those who
opposed him. And today, His mystical body — the Church — has been
crucified by those who claimed to follow Him.
I believe that tonight’s second reading gives us a path forward — a moment of grace:
St.
John said, “If we say, ‘We are without sin,’ we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. But if we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful
and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from every
wrongdoing.”
The Church today around the world and here in the
Archdiocese of St. Louis suffers from the wounds of many scandals. The
Body of Christ experiences the weight of scandal and is in need of
divine mercy in order to be healed. We turn to Christ and humble
ourselves before the Paschal Mystery and we pray that by the Blood of
the Lamb, Our Lord Jesus Christ, our sickness, our sin-sickness, will be
cured. We ask God to take away our blindness, our deafness, our
stubbornness, our vices and our pride. And through the sacraments of
penance and the Holy Eucharist, we pray that the Divine Physician
manifest in each of us, in our local church, in the Church around the
world, only His healing power.
This brings us to the Gospel of the
Prodigal Son — with the two significant movements in that passage —
first, the dire need of the son; and secondly that the father was deeply
moved. If we understand this movement we understand the message. We
discover the hope, which is there for us, if we can mine it, which is
the limitless mercy of God.
And so tonight we pray as people have
prayed for thousands and thousands of years, “Be merciful, O Lord, for
we have sinned. A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast
spirit renew within me” (Psalm 51).
As people of faith, we trust
that God will bring good out of this, this immense suffering, and
through His grace of forgiveness may He make the Church once again
healthy and holy.
I have some favors to ask of you.
First: I
invite my brother deacons, and priests and bishops to consider some
sacrifice of prayer, of fasting and almsgiving from tonight until the
feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, some thirty days from now on Oct. 7.
And
secondly: On Oct.1, the feast of St Therese of the Child Jesus, the one
they call the Little Flower, I invite all of you to pray for our
clergy, especially priests.
Thirdly: On Oct. 2, the Feast of the Holy Guardian Angels, I invite everyone in this archdiocese to pray for victims of abuse.
And
finally: I also call upon the lay people present here, and throughout
the archdiocese — to put it simply: we need your help — I, personally
ask for your help. Deacons, priests, and bishops need to be first in
line when it comes to doing penance and making reparation. But my
brothers and sisters, we cannot do it without you. I would be grateful
for any sacrifices you can make to help bring healing to this situation,
to our experience here, especially in your daily prayer.
I thank
all of you who came out this evening. I thank our priests and deacons,
all who serve the people of the Archdiocese, in religious life, in the
curia, and the various parishes and schools of our archdiocese. I thank
you for what you do, my brothers and sisters, day-in and day-out. I know
that there is much distrust right now in the Church and no one of us
has all of the answers — I certainly do not. But I believe that we need
to address these things together.
I thank you, from the bottom of
my heart, for joining with me tonight. I thank you for praying for me,
praying for us. I thank my brother priests and deacons for the good that
you do, so often, good that goes unnoticed. And I pray for the great
people of this local Church and I promise to pray for you.
— Most Reverend Robert J. Carlson, Archbishop of St. Louis