Born-Again Arrogance Hurts Church

The Boston Herald

Back in the early 1990s, before the priest scandal and the shutting down of Catholic churches and Catholic minds, the Roman Catholic Church paid for newspaper and radio ads inviting lapsed Catholics to come back to a kinder and gentler church. ``Rediscover the Catholic Church'' was a revolutionary reaching out to Catholics who - because they were divorced, because they were gay, because they disagreed with the changes made by Vatican II, because of many reasons - had stormed out of the church years before.

“We don't have all the answers,'' the church actually said. Imagine that.

For those of us who grew up before Vatican II, in a church that said it knew everything, this admission was stunning. The church was, for the first time, opening its arms instead of pounding its fists. Come back. We'll talk. And we'll listen.

Then came the devastating news that not all priests were as pure as we were taught to believe. And the even worse news that the church knew this and had hidden it. 

In the aftermath of this deception, you would think the church today would be a lot more contrite and a little more conciliatory. You would think that it would heed Christ's words, ``Let you who are without sin cast the first stone.”

But there has been little contrition in the church.

And now, incredibly, it's back to obedience first. ``You must.'' ``You will.'' ``You shall not.'' And if you don't do what the church says?

You get denied communion. And you get pilloried.

It isn't the visible shutting down of parishes and the dismantling of altars that is tearing apart Catholicism. It's the shutting down of dialogue and debate.

Last Friday, the Vatican told the Rev. Thomas J. Reese that he must resign as editor of America magazine, a moderate weekly published by Jesuits. Why? Because Rome doesn't like that Reese, who is frequently quoted by the press, engages in conversations about same-sex marriage, abortion and end-of-life issues. He doesn't promote these things. But he doesn't condemn those who do.

After Vatican II turned the altar around, it turned Catholicism around, too. Catholics were finally free to be lectors and alter girls, to be deacons and Eucharistic ministers, and - most important - to be men and women who could think for themselves. 

Now with the firing of this editor, the old rules are back and the message is clear: Obey or leave.

Jesus of Nazareth, founder of Christianity and of the Roman Catholic Church, fired no one, rejected no one, turned away no one. Love one another. That was the one rule. ``Lord, help me. Lord, cure me. Lord, forgive me,'' people asked. And He did. Without demands. Without saying, “If you obey me.’’

 The best way to rule is by example. And the best example is love. That's what the church preaches. But it's power that's coming out of Rome, not love.