Why Remain a Catholic?

It has not been easy to be a Catholic lately. The scandal of sexual abuse by Church personnel and the subsequent cover-up of criminal acts has been compounded by a series of embarrassing statements made in supposed defence of the Church.

Many Catholics will have been mocked for being a member of the Church, perhaps accompanied by the question: How can you still be a Catholic? And many Catholics will have wondered whether their inquisitors might have a point when remaining a Catholic means being identified as a member of an organisation which is regarded by many as morally corrupt.

Some people have left the Catholic Church. They presumably did so not because they had lost their faith, but because the dimension of the scandal was too much of a betrayal for them. Such people must not be blamed, though we may pray that one day they will find their way back to a purified Church.

Most Catholics, however, remain. Indeed, reports from many countries suggest that Catholic churches were full over Easter. This is encouraging.

Catholics, it seems, generally have not lost sight of the salvific mission of the Church, which is independent of the quality of those who preach it, and remain on the pilgrim journey with the Church, regardless of how they feel about those who lead it. Our faith resides in our Lord, not in our lordships.

For most Catholics, the Church is a home, with its own sacraments, theology, devotions, traditions and teachings from which they cannot be divorced. Even if they don’t observe or even disagree with some of these, the Church gives them a spiritual, social and cultural identity.

Catholics believe in their Church’s optimistic theology of grace one that sets it apart from much of Calvinist Protestantism.

Catholics appreciate the Church’s unbroken apostolic succession, which can be chronicled right back to the morning on the shores of the Sea of Galilee when the risen Christ entrusted his Church to St Peter.

Catholics also know what much of the media coverage overlooks: the great majority of our priests are selfless and dedicated in the service of the faithful, and not every bishop was engaged in the systematic cover-up of child abuse (though many made terrible mistakes which they have come to regret profoundly). More than that, the Church is now a much safer place for children than it was before, perhaps safer than any institution that deals with children.

The Vatican itself, under Pope Benedict’s guidance, is aware that it needs to heal itself.

Pope Benedict’s tears  reported by an abuse survivor in Malta who told the pontiff of his ordeal at the hands of a priest  must be allowed to speak much louder than the arrogant self-justifications of the likes of Cardinal Dario Castrillin Hoyos, who as prefect of the Congregation of Clergy congratulated a bishop for breaking the law to shield an abuser priest from criminal proceedings (and now says that Pope John Paul II approved of such a thing).

Fr Timothy Radcliffe, former master of the Dominican order, in the April 10, 2010 edition of the British Catholic journal The Tablet, explained why he is still a Catholic:

From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one  and his successors  whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ’s defeatof sin’s power to divide.

And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.