BISHOP BARRON: FIGHT FOR THE CHURCH # 1 OF 2

BISHOP BARRON: FIGHT FOR THE CHURCH # 1 of 2

IN PURSUIT OF THE TRUTH - HTTP://WWW.CINOPSBEGONEBLOGSPOT.COM - WED. SEP. 19/18

OCCATHOLIC - SEPTEMBER 9, 2018 - This month's column is transcribed from a video chat with Bishop Barron, available at You tube wordonfire.com . Why Remain Catholic (With So Much Scandal)

    This terrible crisis we're passing through in the Church, this crisis of sexual abuse and countenancing of it by some bishops.... the number of people who seem to be calling for the abandonment of the Church: "Because of this crisis, it's time for us to leave the Church.... Leaving the Church is not what we ought to be doing. What we ought to be doing is fighting.

   
 Let me explain that with a little historical reference. One of my great heroes is Abraham Lincoln. And Lincoln of course operated politically at one of the most convulsive times in our national history, when slavery was threatening the very foundations of American democracy. Lincoln knew from the beginning  of his career that the nation, as he puts it, couldn't survive have slavery and half-free . But he saw more profoundly to that slavery as an institution was repugnant to the very principles of American democracy.

   
 Now, we can hear that in the Gettysburg Address... "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on his continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Notice he articulating the principles that define American democracy: freedom and equality.... Now, I suppose at the time (to prevent a civil war) and option would have been simply to give up on the American experiment. "I'm leaving the country. I've had it. This thing is a disaster. I'm giving up. But Lincoln wouldn't take that option.... fighting for the ideals of American democracy.

   

    Now, now can I suggest everybody, I think something similar is at stake right now. "The Catholic Church, the great principles and ideals, the Catholic Church, grounded in Jesus Christ, love of God made manifest in him in his dying and rising; the Catholic Church, in all its power, beauty and perfection, in indeed threatened by this terrible scourge of sexual abuse. It is indeed a blight on the Church. It is appropriate that people feel anger, frustration. ...

   
 Rather, what called for is the Lincoln option: fighting for the Church that we believe in so powerfully; seeing this blight, naming it clearly, unambiguously, but then fighting to set things right. It is not a moment for cutting and running.

   
 And you say, "Well okay, Bishop, I get it. But how do I fight? Look: You fight through your own righteous anger. {That is the way this blog is going to fight.} You fight by writing a letter to your bishop, a letter to the Pope. You fight by your presence at Mass. You fight by keeping people's feet to the fire. You fight by organizing fellow Catholics. Fight anyway you can. But fight because you believe in the Church; you love the Church; and you realize that despite this terrible. it is worth fighting for.

   
 You know, keep in mind everybody we are not Catholic because of the moral excellence of our leaders. I mean God help us if we were .... We are Catholic because of Jesus Christ, crucified and risen from the dead.We're Catholic because of the Trinitarian love of God. We're Catholic because of the mystical body of Christ. We're Catholic because of the sacraments. We are Catholic especially because of the Eucharist. Were Catholic because of the Blessed Mother. We Catholic because of the saints.

Even as leaders of the Church fail morally, the Catholic Church remains the Mystical Body of Christ, the Bride of Christ. And she's worth fighting for....

George H. Kubeck