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Let Not Your Hearts Be Troubled! Some Positive Reflections on the Current Church Crisis
By John Sheehan, S.J., Psy.D.

Not so long ago, I had the opportunity to offer a homily on the occasion of one of Pope John Paul II’s recurring illnesses. In that homily, I noted a peculiarity of our Roman Catholic Faith. It occasionally looks as though it does not quite know to do with the good times.

On the other hand, I reposted, “When the bad times come, there is no religion like unto ours on the face of the earth!”

For John Paul, the bad times had come, and I gave thanks and praise to God for the Faith that had taught him so well to deal with his suffering.

For all of us Catholics, in recent years, some pretty bad times have come.

Priests, even elderly priests, may notice a reflexive reticence in the face of the friendly greeting of a small boy. Noticing the reaction, we pull ourselves together and say, “Surely, it has not come to this!” But it has.

Laity, should the subject of religion come up in casual conversation, may notice an irrational but real sense of shame. All the rational rebuttals come to mind, but the shame, subtle though it may be, lingers.

As I reflect on this state of affairs, my mind returns to Biology 101, Weston College (then in Weston, Massachusetts).

It was the summer of 1955. The lecturer, Fr. W., was a serendipitous summer replacement en route to becoming one of the great Jesuit academic figures of his generation.

He mused aloud, “There are two professions that demand absolutely essential prerequisites for entry. To become a medical doctor requires a fairly high level of intelligence. To become a priesthood requires a high level of moral rectitude.”

One winces.

That is the last negative note in this essay. We cannot remain mired in shame or immobilized by fear.

There are more than a few sources of consolation from writers who have sought to offer a perspective that might move us forward.

I revisit periodically the very thoughtful book by Philip Jenkins, Pedophiles and Priests, (Oxford University Press, 1996), which offers both historical and sociological perspective on the present times. Thomas Plante (in America, January 5, 2004) offered perhaps the most recent scholarly contribution to this body of literature.

In this essay, however, I would like to offer words of consolation from a different and very personal perspective.

How We Are Different

Thirty years ago, a Jesuit colleague shared an insight with me. He articulated an essential feature of the Roman Catholic Church, one of the features that make our church distinctive.

In many Evangelical churches, the sinner is saved and then enters the church. The concept and the process are awesome. Jesus Christ heals the sinner and calls him or her into the Church Triumphant. And there is much to be said for this posture of sanctity before church membership. From the beginning, one is aware of one’s sobering responsibilities as a Saint.

But for us Roman Catholics, it is in the Church that salvation is worked out. We are a church of sinners. This truth is reflected in the heart of the liturgical charism of the Catholic Church; the onetime death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth are made truly present again and again and again.

So it is in the lives of the members of this church. We fail again and again and again; we are raised up again and again and again.

Over time, for the sincere pilgrim, the process of dying and being raised again in the sacramental mysteries leads to holiness more and more and more pure. O, happy fault!

Does the above ecclesiology have something to say to the pain of the present moment? Let me try to make a connection.

Some Thoughts from the Underground

The next memory derives from an experience, about sixteen years ago, that began at an underground stop of the Chicago transit system.

Not long before, I had managed to talk my way into a graduate program in clinical psychology. The only pre-requisite I brought was a single correspondence course in tests and measurements.

This night I was convinced I had o’erreached myself. The eloquent rhetoric I brought from my years as a theologian was wonderful for getting in the door, but not sufficient to move me through the very different world of behavioral science.

I did some mental arithmetic. How many points would I need on the one remaining test of a first semester course? Without those points, I would not be awarded a “B;” without a “B” I would have to repeat the course – or worse.

To say the least, I was a bit discouraged.

I stopped my arithmetic calculations long enough to pine ardently for a window seat on the next train. In such a seat, I knew, my head could rest and sleep might even come until the familiar sounds of the Loyola stop would wake me.

A voice pierced the reverie. “Fr. Sheehan!”

The voice was marked by a vague foreign accent; a small Asian face followed the voice into my awareness.

The speaker continued. He had often seen me at the station and recognized me from my appearances at the Loyola University Church. He had often wished to speak with me, to tell me how much he appreciated my homilies. Tonight, finally, he had mustered adequate courage. Perhaps we could sit together and talk until the Loyola stop. His destination was but a few stops after that.

A line from an ancient Greek play ran through my head: “I am struck a grievous blow from deep within!” What could I say?

Of course, I agreed to his plan but, in the mental equivalent of crossing my fingers behind my back, formed a counter plan of my own.

I made a move for the window seat; the elbowing was not excessive. I determined to ask my visitor a question. He would talk and I would close my eyes, to all appearances raptly attentive, but deep within getting much coveted rest.

And so it happened. I found the window seat and an open place beside it for, let us say, Mr. Nam. Now for the question. On the platform he had told me, “I love your stories!” That was my escape.

I suggested that Mr. Nam retell one of the stories. I closed my eyes as he began: “I love the story you told about the woman who lived in Cambridge. She had four sons: one was doing a Ph.D. in English at Harvard University; the second was studying at the Harvard Law School; the third at the Harvard Medical School and the fourth---was selling hotdogs in Harvard Square!”

Then he fell silent. Like a spiritual friend recounting a first line from a familiar Psalm, the whole had been spoken and the point had been made.

But what was it? And what about my rest!

I opened my eyes, disconcerted. Was it me? Curmudgeonly Jesuits sometimes accuse me of telling stories that have no point. Had I done this from the pulpit?

I gently lobbed the ball back into his court. “So what did you take from this story?”

“Oh, Father, you went on to draw a beautiful teaching. The mother had said, ‘And why is it that the last one is the one most dear?’ And you answered for her, ‘This is the way God loves. He loves us not for our accomplishments; he loves us for our needs!’”

I was re-energized. The bread that I had cast on the waters long since had now returned for my own consoling nourishment.

And the Church?

Some may fret at the image of the Church as an underachiever selling hotdogs in Harvard Square. But I am in a bold Jesuit tradition.

Did not Gerard Manley Hopkins, S.J., once preach to a working class congregation about holy mother church as a provident cow with seven sacramental teats? (Was he transferred shortly thereafter?)

Perhaps more inspired, Caryll Houselander could look at the apocalyptic horrors of World War II and write, This War is the Passion (Sheed and Ward, 1947).

Is my figure so different? Surely sin and weakness are involved in the present crisis. But as Joseph pointed out to his brothers, the Lord of History can use even sin to his own glorious purposes. (Gen 45.8)

A final Figure

But a yet more powerful figure occurred to me recently in the re-reading of an old favorite.

Sigred Undset wrote much more than perhaps she realized in the deathbed scene of Kristin Lavaransdatter. (Knopf, 1929)). Kristin is dying after a life passionately involved in the intermittent seeking of virtue. She had worn a signet ring for some years and the ring bore on it the impression of an M, for the name of the Virgin. The nursing sisters had removed the ring due to the swelling of her fingers, but somehow the imprint of the letter had remained on her flesh. Kristin rejoices at the thought that the imprint would outlast her imminent death. She consoles herself that she too had her whole life long been a servant of God, albeit idle at times and rebellious under correction, but a servant of God nonetheless.

Undset concludes: “But God’s love had wrought in her like sunlight in the darkest earth…” Hidden seed brought to fruition. Ms. Undset had these words inscribed on her own tombstone, so closely did she identify with Kristin—the Struggling Servant.

In reading Kristin again after many years, I contemplated the church that serves and suffers, that dies, and eventually rises again. Even as the church seems to be dying, the Most Blessed Trinity works in her “like sunlight in the darkest earth” bringing forth new life, resurrected life.

Until that most current of Easter dawns, all of us – lay, consecrated religious, priests and bishops – could do worse than fast and pray—with expectant hope.

In the process we might occasionally hold before our eyes, images of contemporary prophetic figures—Dorothy Day, Baroness de Hueck Doherty, Mother Teresa—and ask ourselves some probing questions.

What is God working in this darkest time? How might I best give myself to its fulfillment?

From this will come our most eloquent witness. In this lies all our hope.

John Sheehan, S.J., is a onetime professor and Chair of the Theology Department at Marquette University. Currently living in St. Louis, Missouri, he is a now a clinical psychologist and Associate Director of the Psychology and Religion Program in the Behavioral Medicine Institute, an affiliate of Saint Louis University.

Copyright 2005 John Sheehan, S.J.