Scandals and how we handle them

By Father Michael Kelly SJ

VERY early in my spiritual life, I was brought up short by the offhand remark of a wise old priest: “You’re a strange sort of Christian if the sins of others disturb you.”

Like many in my generation, I was raised to think that Catholicism was about achieving perfection and I should do everything I could to be perfect. In fact, I thought it was up to me to be perfect.

Wrong. That’s a heresy condemned in the early Church – Pelagianism – and it led St Augustine to develop our understanding of grace and its action in our lives, which has remained unsurpassed in 1,600 years.

So, we are fairly undeveloped Christians, perhaps with an outstanding blindness to our own failings, if we get upset when we hear or see other Christians demonstrating vividly for us the weaknesses in all humans.

This has relevance to the flow of news from and around the Vatican this past month.

There’s an old saying that does the rounds in many variants. But they all come down to this: “Don’t go to Rome if your faith is shaky.”

And if your faith is shaky and you’re easily shocked or surprised, there would be enough actual or unfolding scandals happening in Rome or with reference to Rome to send a shaky faith crumbling.

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