My husband (wife, son, daughter, etc) has decided
to leave the church in response to the Pennsylvania report. To be honest, I am
thinking about leaving too. Any parting words?
Just this week I’ve
had 12 people visit, call or send me a message to this effect. Some were commiserating
with my article from last week and others were just venting their frustration
and pain – looking for a safe place to let off steam. I’m honored to be that
“safe place”and glad you know my door is always open to express yourself
without any self-editing. In our tidal wave force culture where ideology rules
and dialogue is barely breathing - passionate and candid conversation is critical
to our evolution – even to our survival.
From my
perspective, The Church (aka the “People of God”) is having a sound and
appropriate response to this crisis. Our leadership (for the most part) is not.
And this is not new, which compounds the problem. Even Pope Francis left us
lacking with more words. So, I understand why people are hanging up their
cleats. I do. If you find nourishment elsewhere, then by all means be
nourished!
One sincere
request though before you hit the road. Sr. Joan Chittister said it best - “If you are going to leave the Church –
please don’t leave quietly and if you are going to stay in the Church – please
don’t stay quietly!” So, if you are walking out the door, please, make some
noise on your way out, perhaps a phone call or a letter to our Archbishop as to
WHY you are leaving.
If you have
decided to dig in your heels and make the same phone calls and write the same
letters so as not to “stay quietly” then I want to share with you a great
source of encouragement for me in this crisis of leadership; the theology of
Jesuit scientist Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ.
Teilhard invites
us to expand our vision; to think about God, time and space and our place in
creation in a much broader way than we usually do; to reignite our romantic
imagination. He invites us to recall that even if we could travel the speed of light,
it would take us 40,000 years to reach even our nearest star and that distance
would not even be a fraction of the distance across our own galaxy. And there
are billions and billions of galaxies – quite literally countless. Our God is
the creator of a universe that we have yet to find the beginning or the end of
– the alpha or the omega. Our God is prodigious beyond our imagination – the
creator of babies, the author of love, the energy that draws and enlivens every
living thing on earth – THIS is the God Jesus invites us to trust in and call
“Abba” or “Daddy” like a child would call out to a loving parent.
Teilhard was once
asked “What if we destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons?!?!?” He responded “Well,
that would be a 2-billion-year setback.” Ha! His humor rooted in his ENORMOUS
vision of who God is, how patient God is, helps me to put things into
perspective. I find it comforting to be reminded that life, love and God
will go on being boundless regardless of our missteps in this wisp of history.
But Teilhard also
reminds us that our little actions are more powerful than we think and WILL eventually
add up to change for our troubled institution…even if we move at the speed of a
dang glacier…sigh.
Here is a great
article by Dr. Ilia Delio on the bigger scope of our current crisis. www.omegacenter.info/death-in-church-new-life-ahead
Send your Crazy
Catholic Question to Lisa Brown at dre@ctredeemer.org or read past columns at www.crazycatholicquestions.blogspot.com.
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