St. Noel Church -- Events and Information-Homily

Homily - August 3rd & 4th, 2002

I had been hoping, as I am sure you had been hoping, that the sexual abuse scandal which has plagued our Church recently, could be quickly resolved and put behind us. But the course of events over the last few months have made it clear that we will be dealing with this crisis for months and probably years to come.

In Dallas, the Bishops of the United States adopted a zero tolerance policy, which if effectively implemented, I believe will give us confidence that our children are protected. But in recent months, related and, I think, even deeper questions have begun to arise. Questions such as, how did we get into this awful mess? To what extent were our bishops negligent in their role as overseers and to what extent should they be held accountable to such negligence? And perhaps even deeper, are there flaws in the very structure of our Church that tend to lead to these kinds of mistakes and, unless those flaws are corrected, will similar mistakes be made in the future? These deeper questions are appearing in the papers, as they did in the Plain Dealer this week. Members of the Catholic Charities Board are asking for assurances from Bishop Pilla that monies given to Catholic Charities will not be used to settle law suits. To date, at least one prominent Catholic layman believes that it is time for Bishop Pilla to resign.

These are the kinds of questions that we would not even entertain years ago, nor even months ago when this crisis first emerged. I don't know how these make you feel, but they certainly unsettle me. It is impossible to tell what the future will bring. I don't have any inside information. I don't know what Bishop Pilla did, or didn't do. I don't know what the County Prosecutor will eventually decide in the cases before him. This raises the deeper question -- how do we, as Catholic Christians go on in this ongoing crisis? How do we continue to practice our own faith in a Church that has this cloud hanging over it?

Here is where today's Gospel, I believe, is important. The disciples come to Jesus and they are desperate. They say, "we have to send these people away because there are too many people and far too little food". Jesus' response is important. He says, "You feed them". What Jesus was telling his disciples is that they had the power and ability, with His help, to feed those who were hungry. I think that Jesus might be saying a very similar thing to you and I in this present crisis in our Church. What we tend to do is look to our bishops and say, they are the ones that need to proclaim the Gospel, to care for the poor and to give witness of the Catholic faith that we profess.

What Jesus is saying to us today is the bishops are going to be preoccupied for a good deal of time in getting out of the mess. Therefore, it is now up to us to proclaim the Gospel, to care for the poor, and to live our lives in a such a way that the larger society will see the validity of the Catholic faith that we share together.

Now, these responsibilities have always been ours. They come from our Baptism, from our call to be followers of Christ. Yet in a Church that has popes, bishops and priests, I think it is real easy for the ordinary Catholic to say "let them do that; I will sit back and watch". If there is one thing clear in this present crises, it is that the energy and the hope that is needed to solve it is not going to come from the top down. It is going to come from the bottom up. Every Catholic person must rise to the challenge of accepting his or her priestly calling to be a representative of the Church. We must proudly live our lives based on what we believe by being faithful followers of Christ.

Now, certainly as a Church we are connected to our bishops. They are our leaders and they deserve our respect. What happens to them, certainly influences us. But, one thing we must know very clearly is that our access to God is not mediated through them. There is one mediator between God and humans and that is Jesus Christ. So, if our bishops are preoccupied or flawed, it does not cut us off from the God who loves us. We must know that and believe that. We must accept the truth that we, as a local parish community, have what is necessary to continue living our faith deeply and authentically. We as a community have the authority and the power to celebrate the Eucharist as we do this morning, to minister God's healing and forgiveness to those in need, to welcome into our community new members, to pass on the faith we hold to our children, to plan for the future, expanding our ministries and expanding our physical plant, as we are in the process of doing right now, to work in partnership with St. Augustine in projects that serve the poor and in other ministries of social justice, to marry those who seek the Sacrament of Marriage and reverently to bury our dead. All of these important aspects of Christ's life among us, can and must continue and will continue because the living presence of Christ is here among us.

Historians tell us that in the Third Century, all the bishops of the world, with the exception of about seven were led into false teaching, teaching contrary to the Gospel. The Church survived and continued to grow. Why? -- because local parish communities continued to believe the apostolic faith and continued to pass it on to their children. Now, I am not implying that the present crisis renders all of our bishops ineffective as it did in the Third Century, but what I am saying is that even if it did, we can and must continue because the presence and faith that comes to us from Christ exists in our shared life together.

Today, men and women hunger for the word of God. Men and women hunger for the love that comes from God's people and the hope that it can bring to our world. Jesus says in the Gospel today, "You feed them", and he is not talking just to bishops. He is talking to you and to me.