When Shepherds Stray, Mercy Is Hard but Necessary
By Dan Sheehan
In the past decade or so, I have walked away from my cradle faith, Catholicism, a handful of times. These departures were occasioned by reporting on the sexual abuse of children, which is a crime that happens everywhere but is especially grievous when committed by people entrusted with the care of souls. I had no direct experience of the crushing dismay that comes with the arrest of a priest. But wading through the detailed horrors contained in grand jury reports was enough to drive me out of the fold, into other churches where there were no priests and the demands of faith were uncomplicated. Among Baptists, for instance, one assented to the idea that the debt of sin had been paid by Christ on the cross, and that was that. Live well and look forward to the kingdom. Presbyterians offered the terrifying, but somehow comforting, notion that the matter of salvation or damnation has been settled from eternity, and there's really nothing to be done about it. A good life might be a sign that God had found in your favor, but there were no guarantees. My dalliances with these traditions never lasted long. The head would give way to the heart and the heart would remind me I was a sinner myself and had no business making judgments against a church that had, on balance, done far more good than harm over 2,000 years, and treated me well in the bargain. If salvation depended on my cooperation, well, I would just have to try harder to cooperate. I could not help it if other people, even priests, didn't do so. Feeling sheepish, I would return to Rome. Pun intended, yes. While atheists and agnostics like to mock the faithful as "sheeple," the Christian embraces the idea that he is one in a great flock led by a shepherd. In all cases, the supreme shepherd is Christ, but Catholics also follow an earthly shepherd who is presumed to be a trustworthy guide. When he is not — when he walks off a cliff or into the thick of a wolf pack — we simultaneously despise his behavior and marvel at his stupidity. We also, out of mercy, pray for him. Is he an evil man, or a good man who has done an evil thing? In either case, it's incumbent on us to ask God to cure his heart and to give him time to make such amends as he is able to make. It's hard, but we'd want the same mercy if we fell as far. Last week, my own parish, in Emmaus, experienced the disorienting shock of learning that the pastor had been arrested and charged with having child pornography on his computer. He had been gone for some time already because, we were told, he was in poor health. This normally would have raised alarms for me, because "health reasons" has often been church shorthand for some self-inflicted catastrophe. But our pastor had indeed been in poor health for many years, and had declined during the summer. It seemed reasonable that he couldn't keep up with his duties anymore. When my wife told me about his arrest, I felt a keen sorrow. After all, this was not a paper monster from a grand jury report but a priest who had, more than once, given me wise counsel in the confessional and delivered substantive and beautiful sermons at Mass. Could such a heart have been utterly corrupt? Plenty of people thought so, judging by the comments on Facebook feeds and under the stories on our website: "Save your prayers for the children in the pictures," someone wrote. Another said "Close down the whole church already." The anger was raw, and I was angry, too. We had to tell our daughters about it, and there's really no way to explain such a thing without making their world a shade or two darker. In due course, the case will make its way through the court system and the details will be recounted and the anger will return. But knowing this hasn't made me want to leave the church again. I want to stay the course and pray for the pastor, and for the children in the pictures, and for all the other souls caught in a life that feels, at such times, as strange and confounding as a fever dream. I'd want the same mercy if I fell as far. Contact: daniel.sheehan@mcall.com 610-820-6598
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