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  Why Do Catholics Stay? Regina Brett Shares Her Reasons

By Regina Brett
The Plain Dealer
April 8, 2010

http://www.cleveland.com/brett/blog/index.ssf/2010/04/why_do_catholics_stay_regina_b.html

Why do we stay?

We Catholics hear that question a lot these days.

Many of us have asked ourselves that question in the silence of our souls.

The reasons to leave grow as the number of victims grows. Recent news reports say up to 200 deaf boys were sexually abused by one priest in Wisconsin.

Why do we stay?

Priest Andrew Greeley once wrote, " I'm still a Catholic because I was born Catholic, raised Catholic, educated Catholic and like being Catholic. I'll never stop being Catholic, despite the fact that many of the current leaders of the institutional church are corrupt thugs, from the parish right up to the Vatican."


He said the beauty of the stories kept him. The ugly stories are making people flee. Child sexual abuse by priests has rocked the church in Ireland, Germany, Canada and here at home in nearly every diocese.

Rome chooses to blame the victims and the press, to cling to canon law while ignoring criminal law and the fact that those sexual assaults weren't just sins to absolve. They were felonies to stop.

Every bishop, cardinal and pope involved in shuffling abusers from parish to parish needs to step down. They won't, which brings us back to the question: Why do we stay?

Many of us have shopped around for other religions. I tried to leave it, but the church wouldn't leave me. The smell of incense, God's cologne, brought me back, and the little red light near the altar that signals the Body of Christ is present.

I stay because of Sister Mary Ann Flannery at the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma who maintains that holy place of peace. I stay because of priests like Joe Fortuna who truly celebrates the mystery that is Eucharist.

I stay because of priests like Bob Marrone who on Easter gave the final sermon at St. Peter, closed as part of the Cleveland diocese's downsizing. He said: "The power of fear which has caused this injustice is not the last word."

I stay because of priests like Bob Begin, pastor of St. Colman, who dared to tell the press that the bishop's actions were "driving people away from God."

I stay because of priests like Jim Lewis, Tom Schubeck and Jim O'Donnell; missionaries like Kevin Conroy and Paul Schindler, whose motto is: "Start with the poor."

I stay for Sister Bernadette's hugs at the Carmelite monastery, for Father Howard Gray's sermons and Donald Cozzens' wisdom.

We Catholics may look like a dying breed. The flock has been scattered by its own shepherd, a wolf in shepherd's clothing.

But we don't stay because there is nowhere else to go. We stay because we have faith. Yes, it has shrunk to the size of a mustard seed, but we know that is enough.

During Easter Mass we were asked to pray for the Church . I cringed. Then I prayed. I prayed that it hits a bottom, that every new horror story brings it to its knees, that this infested institution falls like a house of holy cards so it can be rebuilt.

It's time for a divine intervention. For Vatican III.

Those who cling to doctrines and dogma will call me a bad Catholic and tell me to love the church or leave it. I won't. Like so many of the faithful around me, I defiantly love this church.

We don't like what the people in power are doing, but they can't touch the mystical body that lives and dwells within us.

Why do we stay in a church that seems heartless?

Because this church still has a heartbeat. You can hear it pounding in the pews, louder than ever, when we say those words: "We wait in joyful hope for the coming of the Lord."

Contact: rbrett@plaind.com

 
 

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