My first day as a second grader at St. Andrew’s Catholic School in St. Paul, I, and approximately 29 other classmates were told by Sister Angeline that ten of my classmates were going to go to Hell when we died. That came as no great surprise to me. I personally knew the unfortunate ten, though I must add that my list might not have been consistent with the lists of my other classmates. And there was a distinct possibility that I might be on the “hell bound” list of others in my class.
In the world of a Catholic school second grader in 1959, religious sisters were a kind of human anomaly. Because the religious sisters were covered head to toe, with only their faces and hands showing, I thought there were three different sexes, namely: men, women, and nuns. Because of this anomaly, I believed nuns had special powers not attributed to other human beings, and, the words they spoke carried a lot of weight that was generally reinforced by the 12 inch rulers secretly placed up their sleeves.
Sister Angeline was a kind and compassionate nun, however, she held to a firm belief that the quickest path to heaven was through the use of fear. If we were not going to heaven willingly, she would do all in her power to scare us there. Hence, we had a full year of stories about Hell, demons, demonic possession, and other paranormal horrors to insure that we would be “good Catholic” boys and girls. What was pounded home time and time again was that we were in desperate need of conversion. I didn’t know that Jesus was loving, kind, and merciful until I took beginning theology courses as an undergraduate in college. Incidentally, this belief was confirmed when the Doobie Brothers made it official in their song, “Jesus Is Just Alright.”
Admittedly, over the years I have had a love/hate relationship of sorts with the memory of Sister Angeline. Her over emphasis on sin and Hell I greatly resent in so much that it prevented me from seeing the tremendous love, compassion and mercy of Jesus. This explains my negative visceral reaction to the heavy handedness of any cleric, particularly Pope John Paul II, and then, Cardinal Ratzinger, who choose to err on the more Pharisaic side of rigidity to rules and a judgmental God rather than focusing on the love and compassion of Jesus. All that being said, there is no denying that all of us are in need of conversion.
In a world that denies the need for conversion and boasts that there is no such thing as sin, all we need to do is pick up a newspaper, watch the news, and find that sin is very prevalent and is very much alive all around us in the horrible things that people do to one another every day. From mass shootings, to corporate greed, to racist and religious prejudice and persecution, to withholding food and shelter from the poor, oh, yes the world is in much need of conversion.
It is easy to think that of all the human institutions that abound, the only one that is NOT in need of conversion is that of the Catholic Church. One couldn’t be more wrong. The Catholic Church, in so much as it is made up of human beings, is very much in need of conversion, too. Remarkably, the Catholic Church says as much.
In the Introduction to the Rite of Penance¸#3, under the heading “The Church Both Holy and Always in Need of Purification, we find the words, “Whereas Christ, ‘holy, harmless, undefiled’ (Hebrews 7:26), knew no sin but came solely to seek pardon for the sins of his people, the Church, having sinners in its midst, is at the same time holy and in need of cleansing, and so is unceasingly intent on repentance and reform.”
This is an important statement by the Catholic Church. For countless centuries, the Catholic Church taught that the Church was the “Perfect Sinless Society” without flaw. For many of us who have ministered within the Church, we know how flawed an institution it is.
In our Archdiocese for the past 3 years, we have undergone an exposure to the sin perpetuated upon the innocent and the vulnerable, mainly children and adolescents, by ordained clergy, mainly from the past when the Church still considered itself “the Perfect Sinless Society.” Countless number of people were sexually preyed upon by priests and religious in the 1940’s and 1950’s, and now as a Church, we must do penance and compensate those so grievously harmed by not only the sexual predators, but also by a hierarchy who ignored the cries of those victimized, and threatened the victims to remain silent, in order to preserve this illusion of being a “Perfect Sinless Society.”
When I began my ministry in the Church 41 years ago, I had to come to grips with the sinfulness of the Church as a human institution. All the flaws we see in any human organization are present within the institutional Catholic Church. As in any business, there are those attempting to climb the corporate ladder, often priests seeking higher clerical office within the institution. As there is in any human institution those actively seeking higher office have no scruples as to who they step on or destroy in order to attain that higher office. Some of these fail, and others succeed to become bishops, archbishops, and cardinals. The politics of the chancery can rival that of many monarchial dynasty. “Holy Mother Church” as a human institution can be a cold hearted, evil step-mother who uses people and casts them aside as refuse when no longer needed.
On the other hand, I also was exposed to the many men and women, some clerical, some religious, some lay ministers, and some lay volunteers who do remarkable ministry in the Church without seeking any recognition or personal gain. Motivated by the Gospel life of Jesus, they seek to serve rather than be served and work tirelessly to build the Reign of God in our world. I found that there are many more of these selfless people within the Church then the self-seeking religious plutocrats seeking self-advancement.
Very early on, I had to develop a coping mechanism to continue working in the Institutional Church. I did this by using a rather graphic metaphor to separate out the sinfulness of the Institution from the grace-filled Church that Christ intended. The cruel and awful things the Church as an institution did to people went into the “shit” pile. The wonderful ministries to the poor, to the disenfranchised, to those mourning, to those most in need spiritually and temporally, went into the “grace” pile. That which the Church does that builds up the People of God and advances the Reign of God in our world goes into the “grace” pile. That which separates and destroys community goes into the “shit” pile. I continue to use this graphic metaphor today.
When I read the opening statement for the Sacrament of Penance, above, for the first time, I realized that my observation as a church minister on the sinfulness of the institution was spot on. Comprised of its human membership, all of the Catholic Church, hierarchy, religious and laity are in need of conversion. Only Jesus, the head of the Church, is without sin. All of the institutional Church is in need of metanoi, ongoing, daily conversion, so that we might more ably reflect the love of Jesus, the sinless One, to those we have been called by God to serve. It is only through ongoing conversion to the Gospel of Jesus that the good fruit of the Church can happen in the world. It is only through ongoing conversion to the Gospel of Jesus that the lives of those most in need of love can be healed from their brokenness.
I have been told by people that they no longer go to church anymore because of all the hypocrites sitting in the pews. The people in the pews put on a good show of “holiness and righteousness” within the four walls of the church, but outside the church their values are in direct contradiction to the teachings of Jesus. This is a valid observation and one that has been made for as long as I can remember. My father, prior to the reforms of Vatican II, talked about “Sunday Catholics” who performed their Sunday obligation but were hell-bent on getting out of the parking lot of the church as soon as Mass was over. The only time they were “Catholic” was the 40 minutes or less when they were in church. Outside that time, they got drunk, cheated on their spouses, stole, and lived contrary to the rules of the Church. The hypocrisy of church members was no different then as it is now, the only difference being the Mass was in Latin.
The truth be told, the Catholic Church, and for that matter, all Christian churches, and non-Christian religions can be labeled “hypocritical.” Each and everyone of us, whether we be a Pope, a Bishop, a Iman, a Rabbi, the Dalai Lama, and so on, are hypocrites. We are hypocritical in that we fail to live out the faith, the religious tenets to which we are called and profess. Whether it be the Gospels of the Christian religions, the Torah, the Talmud and Mishna of the Jewish religion, the Koran of the Islamic religion, the Tripitaka and Mahayan Sutras of the Buddhist religion, the four Vedas of the Hindu religion, or any other sacred teachings of any religion, no member of any of these religions faithfully and completely live that which is taught in their sacred texts. So, yes, we are hypocrites. However, this only proves that no matter what religion we profess, we are equally hypocritical.
If those who profess a religious faith are hypocrites, what is the point of worshipping God in community? For Christians and speaking specifically for Catholics, the answer is in the first part of what was said in that Introduction to the Sacrament of Penance. All of the Church is in need of conversion/purification except for one, Jesus, who is sinless and is the head of the Church.
We gather as a miserable, broken, hypocritical bunch of human beings to receive the grace from the One who has not sinned but bore the brokenness of our miserable human condition in his own body. Our brokenness needs healing. We do not possess the ability to heal ourselves. Only Jesus can heal the brokenness in our lives. We need to be made self-aware of our own hypocrisy and to begin to live lives that bring harmony to the world, not disharmony. Whether I am at Mass as an ordained deacon, whether I am at Mass as a liturgical musician, whether I am at Mass as one among many in the pews, I come to receive the grace I need from God to be made whole again for another week. I come to be renewed when my faith is challenged. I come to receive forgiveness for the brokenness I have caused others during the week, and to forgive those who have caused brokenness in my life. I come to Mass to acknowledge that I am one with everyone in the church and in equal need of conversion in my life.
There is no place for an attitude of “holier than thou” in the Catholic Church. To use Jesus’ parable of the tax collector and the Pharisee who went to the Temple to pray, rather than boast with the Pharisee about how self-righteous we are, we must adopt the attitude of the tax collector who bows his head, strikes his breast, and says, “Have mercy on me, Lord. a sinner.”
Sister Angeline was correct on insisting that us Second graders needed to learn the lesson of conversion. Her methodology to reinforce that particular lesson could have been better. It is important that we acknowledge as a community our need for conversion in our lives. It is important that we gather as a community to mutually seek the healing for the brokenness in our lives. We can learn much from the wisdom of 12 step groups that by ourselves, we cannot bring about the conversion that we need in our lives. We need to rely on the love and the grace that we can receive only from Jesus. Why gather to worship at Mass? Why not? It is the only place where we, hypocritical as we are as a community, can receive the grace we so desperately need.
