St. Dominic Catholic Church

Pastor's Corner

August 26, 2018

While on retreat last week I reflected on the revelation of clergy sexual abuse by a (now former) cardinal. In his letter, our Provincial named the whirl of emotions I am experiencing: anger, shame, and profound sadness for the young lives wounded and betrayed.  Something else gnaws at me, though.  How could Theodore McCarrick seemingly function as though everything were fine?

One could assert he has no moral compass (i.e., he’s completely depraved and is without conscience), or that he is simply a massive hypocrite, or - if one is verycharitable - that he confessed his sins and was contrite.  I do not think anyone will suggest the third option precisely because the first two are saferfor us.  It makes him differentfrom us.  I suspect, however, that in one way we are very much like the former cardinal. Almost all of us have the ability to seal off from our normal daily life the memory of our worst sins.  I know I do.  Yes, I have confessed them, and normally I urge people who are obviously contrite in the confessional to leave their sins in the confessional.  But it’s precisely the selective forgetfulness of our own sins that seduces us to focus on the faults of others, to gossip and backbite and judge presuming we know the whole truth when, in fact, only God can.

And this same God, confronted by a self-righteous mob seeking his blessing to stone a woman caught in the act of adultery, stopped that crowd in their tracks by disrupting their collective amnesia with the words, “Let him who is without sin cast the first stone.”

McCarrick’s heinous sin wrought incredible damage to the faith of the victims and those who love them. He has crippled our proclamation of the Gospel to a secular world. But in the heat of our righteous anger, let’s not forget our own sins and our own need to repent.