This is the final part of a three part series. Some folks thought I was skating on thin ice by mentioning heresy yesterday. What now? Surely, Frank, you didn't join the Catholic Church because of scandal? No. But at the same time, it didn't deter me much either. You know the old line, right? Hate the sin, but love the sinner. Well the Church is chock full of sinners, and it couldn't be otherwise.
Let's pretend for a moment that the whole world is Catholic. Everyone has professed belief in the Church and Christianity is the one faith shared by all. Would there be any murders still? Would cars still be stolen from time to time? Would banks still be robbed? Would rape still occur? Embezzlement? Wars of aggression? Would some folks still cheat on their taxes, and on their wives and husbands?
You know the answers to these questions reflexively. These signs of our fallenness, and many others, will continue until Christ comes again. The pain we endure from them leave scars on the directly violated, and on the faithful as a whole. And so yes, there will be scandal in our ranks. And scandal, whether on a small or a large scale, has an effect on the Body of Christ that ripples through all of her members.
Around the same time that Fr. O'Connell wrote the articles I've been sharing these last few days, the following was said by the Vicar Apostolic of Gibraltar,
"It is not to be expected that the Church should be free from all scandals. She has to do a difficult work with unpromising material. She has to deal, not with the perfect, but with very imperfect men, weak, beset with temptations, struggling painfully from the lower to the higher life. In that path there are many bitter experiences, many relapses, many total failures. Time brings no change: the Church's work must always be imperfect, for it will not be finished till the Son of Man comes in judgment. Her life will always be a struggle against wickedness both inside as well as outside her fold, scandals will always dog her footsteps while she fulfills her mission of holiness, as the shadow follows him who walks in the sunlight."—Bishop James Bellord.
These thoughts, then, lead us into the final part of this series by Fr. O'Connell, focusing on another aspect of the ever suffering Bride of Christ,
Part III: Scandal
I have mentioned a third affliction of our Church —the unworthy and scandalous lives of many of her own children. But this one I shall not dwell upon. It is a very painful chapter in her history, and in every age has been a perpetual harass to her life and energy, thwarting her efforts for good, and misleading simple souls to their ruin. This, however, I will say, that the true prototype of this class is no other than Judas Iscariot. This man was not a persecutor of Jesus as were the Scribes and Pharisees, nor an unbeliever like those who went back and walked no more with Him.
On the contrary, he stood in the company of His true followers when others abandoned Him, and was one of the twelve who, on that occasion, by the mouth of Peter, said: "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have known that thou art the Christ the Son of God." To this noble utterance all that Jesus answered was: "Have I not chosen you twelve? And one of you is a devil."
Here, side by side, with the most ample profession of faith in Christ, there lived and acted in Judas the supreme of treachery, both to His person and to His cause. Though possessing all divine truth, this unhappy man was ruled by it, neither in heart nor in conduct, and as his is the first instance in the Church of such double-dealing in things divine, having one face for God and another fully turned to every investigation of Satan against God, he may be very justly styled the parent of all those who, while belonging to the true faith of Christ, are nevertheless the remorseless adversaries of Christ.
Of this unhappy man our Savior said: It were better for him he had never been born," and of such as have taken his act as their pattern, He has also said: "It were better for them that, with mill-stones about their necks they were drowned in the depths of the sea," than that they should live on, lacerating His divine heart by their perfidy, and robbing Him of souls by their wickedness and more wicked tongues. Judas aimed his guilty deed at the head of the Church, whereas all who have given scandal since then, multiply similar deeds against His members, therefore equally against Christ, for Christ and His members are but one body.
Let us begin to think more seriously on all these things. Not alone "the earth is made desolate," as the Scripture says, "because no one thinketh in his heart," but the Church also has her desolation for lack of thought of her and of sympathy on the part of her own children. As her divine Master on earth, she, too, is a permanent sufferer both within and without.
She needs, therefore the patience and courage and fidelity of all her children against her persecutors; she invokes their tender sympathy and fervent prayer in behalf of those bereft of her true light and faith, and above all she will have none of them in any way associated with the most awful malediction Jesus ever pronounced; the one against Judas, who, while all along, professing to be His friend, basely betrayed Him, handing Him over to the mockery of His enemies.
To all these needs of your Church, you cannot but cordially respond if only you will not disdain the counsel the Apostle has given. You know how he exhorts you, "to walk worthy of God, in all things pleasing; to be fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, giving thanks to God the Father, who hath made us worthy to be made partakers of the lot of the saints in light; who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of His love."
This kingdom, as you well know, is none other than His Holy Church, in which having "redemption through His blood the remission of sins," we are made fit to enter that higher and better kingdom, which is to have no end, and where all his redeemed are to enjoy the bliss of their God and Savior throughout an immeasurable eternity.
You can find more of Fr. O'Connell's writing by searching the YIMCatholic Bookshelf.
UPDATE: An unwitting assist from Deacon Scott Dodge.
