• Article Tools
• Print
• RSS

Sin and Suffering in the Church

by Father Dominic Legge, OP 

On Tuesday, en route to Portugal, Pope Benedict had his customary in-flight exchange with journalists, where he was asked whether the message of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Fatima could be extended to include “the sufferings of the Church today for the sins involving the sexual abuse of minors.”  His beautiful, elegant, and theologically rich response is at once challenging and consoling to a Church still feeling the effects of the sexual abuse crisis.

First, some background.  In 1917, three shepherd children of Fatima received a prophetic vision from the Blessed Virgin Mary.  Part of that prophetic vision, the “third secret,” was written down and kept secret from all but the pope (John XXIII, Paul VI, and John Paul II each read it), until John Paul II decided tomake it public in 2000.  (Its release was accompanied by a theological commentary prepared by then-Cardinal Ratzinger.)  In the vision, an angel with a flaming sword appeared, standing near the Blessed Virgin Mary and crying out: “Penance, Penance, Penance!”  They saw a bishop dressed in white – apparently, the Holy Father – and many other bishops, priests, and men and women religious going up a steep mountain to a large rough-hewn cross.  At the top of the mountain, the bishop in white was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and after him, the others.  Finally, two angels gathered up the blood of these martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls who were making their way to God.

Does this vision still speak to the Church today?  On Tuesday, Pope Benedict answered that it does: while we can “in the first place refer” the vision “to Pope John Paul II, an indication is given of realities involving the future of the Church ... the need for a passion of the Church, which naturally is reflected in the person of the Pope, yet the Pope stands for the Church and thus it is sufferings of the Church that are announced.”  Of course, in this, the vision of Fatima is simply repeating what Jesus himself told his disciples: “The Lord told us that the Church would constantly be suffering, in different ways, until the end of the world,” said Benedict. 

But why must the Church suffer?  Has not the Lord defeated sin and evil?  Is not that the central message of the resurrection? 

Here, we have reached a profound mystery of the Christian faith.  Why can’t we avoid the cross?  On Good Friday, the disciples of Jesus did not understand why he had to suffer.  (Indeed, to their eyes, his suffering and death meant that he couldn’t be the hoped-for messiah.  Some of them continued to think this even after they heard the first reports that he had risen – see Luke 24:19-24.)  In the midst of our suffering, we too usually find it near impossible to see what good can possibly come from it.  We see only its evil, we feel only its pain. 

Why must we continue to suffer?  In part, at least, it’s because we remain imperfect, and because sin remains in the world.  And it is not only the sins of others that causes our suffering.  Certainly, innocent children abused by others are victims, and it is their abusers who have caused their profound suffering.  But in general, we should also say that we suffer because we sin, because we are proud, obstinate, and disobedient.  God permits us to experience some of the real consequences of sin so that we will turn away from it before the disease is fatal.  Yet when we conform our lives to Christ who suffered for us, then our suffering can be made instruments of the mercy of God, which washes the world clean of sin by the blood of Christ.

This is exactly how Benedict sees the Church in the midst of the present scandals:  “[A]ttacks on the Pope and the Church come not only from without, but the sufferings of the Church come precisely from within the Church, from the sin existing within the Church. This too is something that we have always known, but today we are seeing it in a really terrifying way: that the greatest persecution of the Church comes not from her enemies without, but arises from sin within the Church ...”

And so what is the remedy?  It is in harmony with the angel’s cry at Fatima: “[T]he Church thus has a deep need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness on the one hand, but also the need for justice.”  

In short, Pope Benedict is speaking to you and me: “[W]e see here the true, fundamental response which the Church must give – which we, every one of us, must give in this situation.”  It is the message of Fatima, but also the message of the Gospel: “ongoing conversion, penance, prayer, and the three theological virtues: faith, hope and charity.”

Today marks forty days since Easter, and thus commemorates the Ascension of the Lord: after forty days of appearing to his disciples in his resurrected body, the Lord ascended to take his place at the right hand of the Father.  He did not abandon us to our own Way of the Cross, his triumph but a distant memory, his glory a far-away glimmer.  Although his human appearance is hidden from our eyes, his real presence not only remains, but has been given to us in a fashion more powerful than we imagine: he sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in the heart of every baptized Christian in the state of grace, he remains really present to us in the Eucharist, he guides the Church and conforms her shepherds to himself in the sacrament of Holy Orders, he speaks to us in the Scriptures and acts in the sacraments.  Would that each Christian would turn back to him, repent, and believe in the Gospel! 

---

(The views expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of Headline Bistro or the Knights of Columbus.)