Pastor's Letter

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Pastor’s Greetings,

The Roman historian, Tacitus, who was also the Roman governor of the Province of Asia around 112 AD, thought of Christians as an abominable group with a “deadly superstition.”  This is evident in his account of the great fire of Rome (64 AD).  He suspected that Nero had ordered the fires and had then condemned and cruelly punished the Christians for his own misdeed.  But the populace, not being fooled, had felt compassion for the Christians as a result of the emperor’s crimes.  Tacitus believed nonetheless, that while they were not guilty of arson, Christians deserved “extreme and exemplary punishment” for the crime of odium humani generis (hatred of the human race) [Tacitus, Annals, XV.44.2-8, cited in A New Eusebius, J. Stevenson, ed., 1975].

Charges against the early Christians in the empire libeled them as being magicians, atheists, and as wickedly superstitious.  They were falsely accused of obstinacy, unbending perversity, cannibalism, incest, and sacrilege.  Of course, Christians gave absolute allegiance to a man crucified by the Romans whom they claimed to have been resurrected from the dead and whom they worshiped as the Son of God.  This faith allowed no recognition of any other gods or goddesses, but claimed the one and only God to be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  To the casually informed and to many of the highly educated, this was philosophical madness.  To follow such a conviction with belief in a personal resurrection was superstition.  As the numbers of Christians mushroomed in all parts of the empire, pagan temple trade became severely depressed with marked economic and, thus, political impact.  But Christians in great numbers chose rather to die than to curse Christ and worship other gods.  At their agapes or “love feasts” they took simple food but called it the “flesh and blood” of Christ.  Charges of sexual impropriety were sheer inventions, for, if anything, their sexual morality and purity put most of the rest of their contemporaries to shame.  Is this to say the Christians had a spotless record?  No, for among the churches they communicated their concerns about what to do with or how to bring to a new conversion and to reconcile their members who sinned seriously after baptism.

I mention all this not just for an historical interest in early Christianity but because pagans concluded that Christians, in their stark difference from them, hated humanity.  Christian apologists argued that, indeed, they hated the sins but not the sinners (pagan or Christian).   Today, Catholic doctrine on chastity, modesty, the sanctity of embryonic and fetal human life, and on the grave immorality of homosexual behavior are being characterized not only as conservative but as extreme and even hateful.  To appeal to modesty in clothing and behavior is caricaturized not only as prudish but as despising the young.  To oppose abortion is to be an “extremist” and a despiser of women’s freedom.  To reject the harvest of stem cells from human embryos is portrayed as cruelly condemning the sick and injured by refusing them potential therapies.  To reject the morality of same gender sex acts is termed phobic and hateful.  We, i.e., Catholic Christians, have been here before.   Unlike the ancient Church, an added burden on the Church today is the label of hypocrisy.

There have been fallen Christians from the beginning, too, those who betray and abandon the faith (apostates), who grievously violate our moral commitments, or who are “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”  Even while spiritually battling persecutors, the community of the faithful has had to reform its own members, reconcile sinners, and acknowledge betrayal in its ranks.  Unrepented sin wearing the face of fidelity has invited the charge of hypocrisy not only against the guilty, but also against the Church and the Gospel.  In our day, the sexual abuse of children and youth by Catholic priests gravely scandalizes and undermines the moral authority of Catholic doctrine.  We know now that these crimes often went unidentified, hidden, and often ineffectively addressed by Church leaders, until the force of public exposure and outcry brought civil and criminal pressures to bear.  This hiddenness exposed perhaps an even greater scandal.  It reasonably raises the question of what else might lurk hidden from view if such a great evil could fester so long unseen.  It sobers if not weakens public trust.  Our witness of faith is deeply wounded and those who would revile the Catholic Church have no rules of fairness.  The faults and crimes of some few of our shepherds have shown them to have been “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”  The whole flock now and all the shepherds who must tend the wounded and guard the innocent are exposed to calumny.  St. Paul in the New Testament had warned of just such times.   The call of our times is then that of our call in all times, one of a vigilant reform within the Church and of steadfast witness to the world around us.  We are still accused of odium humani generis.  Steadfastness is possible today, as it has always been possible, because of the one who said, “I am sending you as sheep among the wolves,” and who also said, “I, the Good Shepherd, am with you always.” 

Fr. Richard