Some Notes on Pedophilia: Catholic Church in Serious Crisis by Mark and Louise Zwick
We do have to say, however, that the level of the outrage against the priests (about 0.5 percent) who may have been involved with teenagers (most of the cases are with teenagers), and the almost hysterical media campaign day after day, hour after hour about cases which occurred ten, twenty, thirty or forty years ago, seems almost odd in a culture which has been promoting total sexual freedom for decades. The media didn't have to go back forty years to dig up pedophiles. Those who work with immigrants have been conscious for a long time of the devastating effects of abuse of minors, but have not been able to get anyone's attention or interest in the problem when it involved poor children. Wherever hospitality is given to immigrants, the guests include young men who have come from other countries to find work that has been unavailable to them, to work and help their families. In areas where centers are set up to help immigrants, pedophiles (not priests) come to prey on the vulnerable. Teenage girls are recruited for cantinas, which are really houses of prostitution. Pre-teen and teenage boys are seduced by well-to-do older men who hang around the streets, by promises of friendship and money; the young men often end up on the streets as prostitutes. For years, Casa Juan Diego has tried to arouse interest and outrage regarding this problem in Houston. Interest has been completely lacking on the part of the authorities and the media. After all, these are only "throw-away" immigrant youth-why should anyone care about them? It is unclear why pedophilia is not broached so much by the media among other denomi-nations and other professions (Claudia Feldman, "Does Anyone Care?" Houston Chronicle, June 23, 2002) Statistics show that it occurs in all professions and that perhaps fifty percent of abuse is perpetrated by family members. Other churches have the problem of pedophilia among authority figures in at least the same percentages (some studies say more), but the spotlight is focused on the Catholic Church. Dorothy Day noted once that criticism seemed to come more fiercely to the Catholic Church on many issues than to others in society-and that one could only say that it was perhaps justly so, because it was, after all, the Church of Christ, though made up of human, imperfect, sinful human beings, and should be better. The recent relentless media campaign about pedophilia is a case in point. The crimes and sins of a small percentage of priests who took advantage of young people, especially young boys, have been presented each day in featured articles in newspapers and on many television stations each day by the hour for months. Catholics and others are justly horrified and outraged by these acts and by those of Bishops who moved the perpetrators around to different parishes without solving the problem. The media failed to mention that a number of bishops implemented strict guidelines on child abuse ten years ago (for example, Bishop Fiorenza of Houston). Had all the Bishops done this, the results would have been different. The isolated cases after 1992 of bishops moving priests around from parish to parish (e.g., Cardinal Law) occurred in dioceses where a few bishops did not follow the guidelines of the United States Bishops' Conference. The Church continues to bleed, as Brent Bozell says. The drive-by journalism of the New York Times et cetera shooting it up has taken its toll. The face of the Church is pock-marked with wounds from savage attacks from all sides. Rarely has it suffered so much ignominy. The epicenter of this moral morass is just a few miles from the Salem witch trials only now on trial is the Archbishopric of Boston. It has never been clear, however, whether the extensive media coverage has been an attack on pedophilia or on the Church. The question remains: how many of these wounds are self-inflicted and how could an institution that was created to help so many be the instrument of hurting so much? The Church has the biggest charity organization in the world. The Church is in trouble and some compare it to the time of Martin Luther, a Catholic priest who discovered Romans 12, gave up celibacy to marry a nun, and started a new church to protest corruption. There is a crisis in leadership in the United States, they say. A new leader is needed, but from where will this person come? Will it be another ex-priest who has abandoned celibacy-now by popular demand-or will it be as Ignacio Larrañaga says, "The Christian leader of the future will be a mystic who has experienced the Lord, or it will be nobody." Larrañaga quotes Hortelano: Today the world needs more than ever a return to contemplation. The true prophet of the Church of the future may be one who comes from the desert like Moses or Elijah, the Baptist, or Paul, charged with mysticism and with this special brilliance which only those have who are accustomed to talk with God face to face." We need leaders who are accustomed to talk to God face to face. (Muéstrame tu rostro; hacia la intimidad con Dios, Editorial Lumen). Double Standard? Most of the cases of pedophilia in the Church (most involving teenagers rather than young children), emphasized so much in the media, occurred 20, 30 or 40 years ago. It is strange to reflect that all through the time that these offenses were occurring, the media itself was campaigning for the freedom to do whatever one wants sexually. We are as disturbed as anyone else about what has happened in the Church. It is hard to accept the attack from the media for neglect in this area, however--the same media which has for years advocated free sex in every form, starting in kindergarten, and has made an ugly caricature out of anyone who disagreed with their position, but has become Puritan when the Catholic Church is involved. Those who have criticized the Man-Boy Love Association and its participation in gay pride parade across the country over the years, for example, have been considered right-wing nuts and homo-phobes. The intent was obvious from the name of that group. The media refused to criticize the association or its participation in the parades, even though victimization of minors was the clear implication. When a priest was involved, however, the group became horrible (which, of course, it was from the beginning). The writings of sexologists, widely publicized, that all sex is wonderful for anyone at any time, created a climate in which this could occur. The Bishops have been justly criticized for their neglect in reporting abuse of minors. One wonders if there will also be extensive reporting in the media about the recent litigation against Planned Parenthood for its neglect in reporting abuse of minors. The fathers of the babies of the majority of teenage girls who become pregnant are older men, older than 21 (See Claudia Feldman again). Suits have been brought against several Planned Parenthood groups who failed to report the abuse confided to them by young girls. Tape recordings of conversations in which staff told girls they would not report abuse have been presented as evidence in some of these cases. Apparently it is standard practice for Planned Parenthood to provide abortions in these situations, but never report the abuse. What a scandal! What crime! The problem of sexual abuse exists among all groups, and its existence among professionals is often under-reported. The problem is so serious in the medical profession in Texas that a web site has been set up to report physicians disciplined for misconduct ranging from sexual abuse to misprescribing drugs. Even though these doctors may have been convicted of crimes, most were not required to stop practicing medicine. (Houston Chronicle, page 36A, July 4, 2002, not the front page). The authors personally took our son to a doctor many years ago and were shocked to discover that he was later convicted of abusing boys in his office. Fortunately, we did not leave our son alone during medical visits and had no problem. You can be sure that this doctor is still practicing today, unless he has retired: "For many of the offenses committed by Texas doctors, the disciplinary actions have been dangerously lenient," said Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group. "The majority of Texas doctors who committed the five most serious offenses weren't required to stop practicing, even temporarily. Therefore, it is likely that they are still practicing in Texas and that their patients are not aware of their offenses." The web site set up to reveal doctors' crimes will only cover ten years of their actions, not 40 years as is the case for priests. Very recently, a group called InterAction, which represents 160 U.S.-based international development and humanitarian nongovernmental organization, reported that sexual exploitation of children by aid workers, sometimes in exchange for food, constituted a "global problem of enormous magnitude." The aid workers of whom they speak are employed by groups which receive huge amounts of money from the United States, other nations, and the United Nations to help refugees. InterAction's report decried the terrible reality: "The sexual exploitation of displaced children by humanitarian workers con-stitutes intolerable abuse of power, violation of the rights of individual children, misuse of humanitarian assistance and violation of the fundamental duty of humanitarian workers to assist refugee and displaced populations, especially children." Was this information trumpeted on the television day after day so that outraged citizens could do something about desperately poor children around the world exploited through use of their money? Was it featured on the front page of every newspaper in the United States? We only found it once, buried on page 22A of the Houston Chronicle (June 29, 2002). Failure of a System The abuse of children is nothing new in the history of fallen humanity. What is new and devastating is the discovery in very recent times of the seriousness of the damage caused by child abuse. This is not only true in the Catholic Church, but throughout society. The change in understanding has exacerbated the guilt of the Church, a triple whammy: a sin, a crime, now psychological damage. The seriousness of this crisis was slow in sinking into the mindset of some of us Catholics and churchmen The media attacks have been successful in forcing the Church today to take a strong response in confronting pedophilia. The methods utilized by Catholic prelates in the last 20 to 30 years to deal with pedophilia have been largely unsuccessful. The Bishops did all the right things, according to the dominant culture. They hired the best lawyers to defend the reputation of the Church, sent offending clergy to the best psychiatrists and psychologists for treatment and cure. This was the logic followed When victims sued the Church, lawyers arranged for payment to the victims so that they might go away. Litigation replaced reparation. However, victims broke the silence and broke the bad news that millions were spent to buy off the victims. Some are critical of the Church for putting the pedophilia problem in the hands of lawyers, but that was society's solution. Bishops not only lost millions and the silence of the victims, but also their reputations. Lawyers for the victims were the only winners, harking back to the great windfalls of the tobacco lawyers. No one has challenged the issue of victims of abuse and their lawyers receiving great amounts of money. Victims need healing, and a cure and reconciliation, not large sums of money. Litigation for massive amounts seems foreign to the spirit of the Gospel and the lives of the Saints, and even an abuse. Many criticize the Church for not utilizing lay people in responding to problems such as pedophilia As Our Sunday Visitor said recently, it was lay people-lawyers and doctors-who got us into this mess in the first place. Do doctors and lawyers call on lay people to tell them what to do? Money and Voluntary Poverty The blackmailing of the Archbishop of Milwaukee brought to the fore the issue of where all the money for victims and their lawyers was coming from. What would have happened if the Bishops didn't have money? What would have happened if the Bishops had given excess money to the poor or to Catholic schools, very much like the West Coast Franciscans did under the leadership of Allan McCoy, OFM? At the end of each year they gave away all the funds left (Fr. McCoy personally told the editors of this.) Some priests follow the custom of giving all of their stipends to Casa Juan Diego or the poor (See also "The Dead Priests' Society," HCW, July-August 2000, where priests have been responsible for a debt-free Catholic Worker house.) Voluntary poverty emerges more and more as a necessary component to celibacy. While celibacy is a tremendous witness-to a Dorothy Day strength and power-in which people give their lives in total love and service without the compensation of human affection, it cannot stand alone. It needs voluntary poverty. Dorothy rarely criticized the clergy (outside of Cardinal Spellman on war and workers), but was uncomfortable with very comfortable rectories. She, along with Peter Maurin, believed that voluntary poverty was a powerful tool in bringing the Gospel to people. Frequently, she referred to the spirit of St. Francis, who not only thought that poverty was the basis of all other virtues, but allowed for a better practice of chastity. Along with St. Teresa of Avila, Francis believed that if the rule of poverty is truly kept, chastity and all the other virtues are fortified. The Beatitudes begin, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, Blessed are the poor." It is hard to preach the Gospel from a mansion. Our culture disagrees with the Gospel. A person's status and recognition depends on the size of one's house and one's possessions and one's portfolio in the stock market. It takes a tremendous commitment to live according to the values of the Gospel rather than those of the advertising world. Some have criticized pastors for not being worldly-minded and not knowing about the business world. Unfortunately, we have never met a pastor who wasn't a good businessman. The problem has been parlaying business skills into being good spiritual directors. When Virgil Michel, OSB, famed liturgist and social ethicist, told us that "the bourgeois spirit of capitalism in American society had the power to reach into the very sanctuaries of Christian churches and influence the preaching of the Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist," he was echoing the denunciations of the prophets of Israel who spoke so strongly about God rejecting the worship of those who bring sacrifices but oppress the poor. After a visit to San Antonio in 1965, Dorothy wrote in The Catholic Worker about the contrast there between the very poor areas and the wealth spent on military bases and continued on with the contrast that sometimes exists in the Church itself: "'The poor are the first children of the church,' Bossuet said, but to look at the unequal distribution of the Church wealth one would never know it. The amount spent on wall to wall carpeting and expensive furnishings in the offices which have to deal with the fact of destitution is a scandal in the Church, which cries out to heaven. As I see it, I think with refreshment of the barracks used as a convent by the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity in Gadsden, Alabama, and of the two slum priests in Oklahoma City, and of the Benedictine Monastery at Weston, Vermont, and of the Little Brothers in Detroit, and the Little Sisters in Boston, Chicago, Washington, and Montreal, and all the others working among the poor and not trying to get hunks of government money with which to begin from top down to alleviate poverty." Culture of the Priesthood To understand the present crisis, and how some cases might have gone unreported, we must understand not only the secular culture since the 1960s, but also the Catholic milieu a generation ago. Priests were very special, held in great esteem, and treated with the greatest respect. This was especially true of the Irish Catholics who had suffered so much from the English Protestants because of their Catholic faith. (The English hunted down Catholic priests like dogs and martyred them.) Priests had a unique role in society and were surrounded with a special awe. They were educate (at least eight years of university training, and now more) whereas most parishioners were not. They were welcome in any home at any time. They were ordained according to the order of Melchizideck (See the book of Genesis and the Letter to the Hebrews) and as the famous Domincan preacher Lacordaire said, "It is yours, oh priest of God. My God, what a life!" In this climate to have a son a priest was much more important than, "my son the doctor." Catholics wrote about "mothers of priests," a special lot, and about spoiled priests. In the immigrant community the priest was especially important in welcoming people. These communities gathered around a parish where the priest was the center of all activity. The priests were from the immigrant communities also, and there was a great tie between them as they gained status in a society dominated by Protestants. Policemen were immigrants or children of immigrants and were Catholic (to this day, 85% of policemen in New York City are Catholic). They had a bond with the clergy and were close to the Church. The police of New York even had their own Catholic retreat movement or Holy Name Society. They felt that being a good policeman meant protecting the clergy, not arresting them. If a Catholic priest ran into the back of a Rabbi's Cadillac and destroyed the rear end, the first question, so the story goes, was always, "How fast was he going when he backed into you, Father?" If a judge was Catholic, he might let the Bishop make the call if a priest was in trouble with the Law. Above all, in Catholicism the priest upon ordination receives a special mark in his soul similar to the mark or character of baptism. Ordination is a sacrament. He cannot stop being a priest, only stop acting like a priest. "Once a priest, always a priest," was the common parlance, from the Scriptures. The Bishop had to do something with him. This also meant that his functions as a priest did not depend on his holiness. The character of ordination guaranteed the validity of whatever he did sacramentally. Being ordained meant that whatever sacrament he celebrated would be valid, no matter what. Since his priesthood worked automatically, he might not have seen holiness as something necessary or even helpful. The priest was sent to a parish, not chosen by the people as in Protestantism,
and only the Bishop could remove him. There were no "throwaway ministers"
in Catholicism. There wasn't much space for the concern of those who were abused. They apparently were an irritant. The focus was on the priest. As Bishop Galante of Dallas asked, "Were they above the Law? The problem, Bishop Galante said, is that "the sense of responsibility we had to the priest has failed to be balanced with the responsibility we have to the rest of the people. Do Priests Have Any Rights? The Bishops have made a strong commitment to remove any priests in the future who are involved in pedophilia and have set up a national commission to implement and oversee the problem. That is a step in the right direction. The appointment of Governor Keating to head that commission--a person who has refused to accept Church teaching regarding the death penalty, however, was a let-down. Gov. Keating has been in conflict with the Bishops on Church about capital punish-ment, which he strongly favors, and has recently refused to grant clemency to people on death row. Will he try to impose support for the death penalty on all Catholics? At the rate things are going, any rights the priest's rights have pretty much gone out the window. In the policy adopted by the Bishops in Dallas in June, the question of false accusations and the rights of the accused were not addressed satisfactorily. As Our Sunday Visitor editorialized, "Priests increasingly feel that they are one accusation away from ruin." How will their rights be protected, and what kind of evidentiary process will both protect the accuser and the accused? How Catholic is this entire process? The Pope described child abuse as a crime, and it most certainly is. But he also discussed the importance of repentance and forgiveness, core Christian concepts that seem to have become irrelevant in this new policy. Is a bishop's apology for years of secrecy and deception regarding a serial pedophile to be taken on face value, but a priest's repentance and reform after a solitary incident of abuse years ago to count for naught?" (OSV, June 30, 2002) Secular Society Requires Free Sex for All-It May Soon be International Law At the same time as the Catholic Church is being presented as a center of criminal sexual activity, there has been a United Nations international campaign, called CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) since 1979 which outlaws any prohibitions against sexual activity, including with children. John Leo has pointed out that this Convention, already signed by 167 nations, was written in very broad language, which then is changed after the nations have signed it: "CEDAW did not announce that women's 'right to free choice of profession and employment' would turn out to mean (as the CEDAW committee now says) that prostitution must be decriminalized around the world. Similarly, CEDAW's ban on 'any distinction, exclusion, or restriction made on the basis of sex' seems to make legal approval of homosexual marriage mandatory. Some analysts think CEDAW's ban on 'orientation' bias will make pedophile sex legal, since some people are 'oriented' towards children. Linguistic sinkholes are so common that Muslim women wanted assurance that the term 'sexual slavery' would not be defined later as including marriage.'" This Convention is at this moment in the U. S. Congress for approval (U. S. News and World Report 7/1/2002). Our work with immigrants and awareness of the exportation of foundation money and corporations in the U.S. and Europe to poor countries to limit the birth of babies of color and poverty makes us wonder if this Convention will also be used to continue and expand the already prevalent practices of and forced sterilization and forced abortion related to global economics. Future Catholics who receive succor, nourishment and inspiration from their Catholic faith have been bowled over by the scandal of pedophilia and the harm done to children. They have been especially cut to the deep by the media presentation of second-rate reporters who reek of ignorance about religion. Practicing Catholics keep wanting to jump and shout, "No! No!" That's not Catholicism, when certain things are said. Would anyone allow the same kind of ignorance of sports on the Sports Page? The media is recommending that Catholics embrace democracy (e.g., Aaron Brown on CNN et al). Others are recommending joining other faiths and still others are quoted as swearing they will never give another penny to the Roman Catholic Church. First, the only kind of democracy needed is the democracy of the freedom of the sons and daughters of God to live out the Gospels, the Nicene creed, and give up all and follow Jesus-as recommended by Jesus. Second, the Protestantization of the Church may be the answer to some, but they will have to face pedophilia all over again, as Protestants, and insist on celibacy for their clergy, since Protestant pedophile clergy are married. To Whom Shall We Go? The question remains, however, how can Catholics respond to the crisis in the Church? A response to this scandal is very difficult. The credibility of the Church is in jeopardy. Maybe it is time to go on our knees and really pray about the kind of Catholic we should be. (Someone asked recently, how do you start a Catholic Worker house? On your knees.) Nicholas Berdyaev, a philosopher who influenced the Catholic Worker movement very much, believed that Christianity not only gives one the strength and vision to go beyond the mores and demands of one's society, not to live in "blind obedience" to them (for example the sexual revolution), but that it is the very essence of Christianity to do so (Berdyaev wrote at a time when the term "man" was understood to man a human being): "The essence and meaning of Christianity is that it sets man free from despondency, fear, and slavery. In doing this Christianity liberates the creative activity of man, re-establishes his lost dignity. Man is called to act in the midst of society; but he can manifest his activity, dominate his social environment, subject his social relations and make them serve spiritual ends, only if his activity is not blind obedience to the commands of that same environment and those social relations but an answer to the call of a deeper, inner, spiritual power. In order to be able to act, he must begin by clearly establishing which are the highest value, aim, and meaning of his life, and he cannot gain a true understanding of them from his environment, either social or natural, for it is to them that he has to impart this value, aim, and meaning. Christianity teaches us wherein lies their highest eternal source, thereby spiritually raising man to a higher level than that of his environment: he can no longer be enslaved by it. It becomes possible for him to change, improve and transfigure this environment, to subject it to the human spirit, to realize within it the highest value and meaning. More important still, Christianity gives a meaning and value to the personal existence of man. This is something that no merely social teaching can do" (Berdyaev, The Bourgeois Mind and Other Essays). Archbishop Flores of San Antonio made an intervention at the recent meeting of the U. S. Bishops in Dallas. He seemed so out of place in what he said, in lieu of arguing about the charter of the Bishops, but as is often the case, was right on the button. Archbishop Flores insisted that we should remember not only the victims, but what had been done to Jesus (as described in Matthew 25:31ff.), that it was Jesus himself who had been hurt in the persons of the victims of abuse. We must make reparation, he said, not one day, but daily for months, recite the Divine Office, pray the Rosary, and fast and abstain for the harm that had been done also to the Lord. Berdyaev, to whom the Catholic Worker owes much of its profound understanding of human freedom, knew that suffering and the Cross are a part of Christian life and that the incredible freedom of the sons and daughters of God does not find its expression in hedonistic morality, but in embracing the way of the Crucified: "Unenlightened suffering, the most terrible of all, is that which man does not accept, against which he rebels and feels vindictive. But when he accepts suffering as having a higher meaning, it regenerates him. This is the meaning of the Cross. "Take up thy cross and follow me." That means, "accept suffering, understand its mean-ing and bear it graciously. And if you are given your cross, do not compare it with, and measure it against, other people's crosses." To try to avoid suffering and run away from it is self-deception and one of the greatest illusions of life. Suffering tracks our steps, even the happiest of us. There is only one way open to man, the way of light and regeneration-to accept suffering as the cross which every one must bear following the Crucified. This is the deepest mystery of Christianity and of Christian ethics. Suffering is bound up with sin and evil, just as death is-the last of man's trials. But it is also the way of redemption, of light and regeneration… Suffering is closely connected with freedom. To seek a life in which there will be no more suffering is to seek a life in which there will be no more freedom. Hence all hedonistic morality is opposed to freedom (Berdyaev, The Destiny of Man). Celibacy Many cannot understand celibacy as a way of life, because they equate the denial of sexual expression with the denial of being totally human or denying something we can't possibly do without. There is the impression that not all could have the gift of celibacy even if they tried. It requires a special charism. Celibacy sets the priest apart and enhances his status within the Church and the world. It is one of the most powerful witnesses in Catholicism. It is one reason that secularists attack the Church and the priesthood so strongly. This subliminal commitment tells all that heaven is worth waiting for and maybe worth dying for. Dorothy Day criticized the Kinsey Report for its reporting on sexuality in her 1948 book, On Pilgrimage (Eerdmans, 1999), with its descriptions of the kind of sexuality which has been advocated by many in recent years. This type of reporting influences those who might be tempted to embrace a sexuality unacceptable to society. Dorothy was horrified by it: "I have just read a review of the Kinsey report, which appeared in the spring number of Politics… Here are some of the things I was thinking about the book. "In the first place, I remembered how I came across Havelock Ellis's
Sexual Pathology at the age of seventeen, in the home of a professor at
the University of Illinois, where I was working my way through-cleaning,
cooking, caring for children-for my room and board. It was an ugly shock
to me. I had been as knowing as most children, speculating about the things
of sex at an early age indeed. (I can remember talking about it when I was
six.) One might also say that an ugly tide rose in me, a poisonous tide,
a blackness of evil, at reading there so many things that certainly do not
need to be known by other than doctor or priest, by those who are schooled
to bear it and trained to help in relation to it. Dr. Von Hildebrand writes
about the poisonous fascination of sex, its deadly allure in the abstract.
I felt it then in its most hideous form, and there was no beauty in it,
no love, but it was like the uncoiling of a dank and ugly serpent in my
breast. These may be extreme ways of expressing myself, but I am sure that
at times there has been this consciousness of evil in us all. Evil as a
negation, as an absence of good, as a blackness, a glimpse of hell 'where
everlasting horror dwelleth, and no order is.' Dorothy goes on in her book to present at length Catholic theology on the beauty of human sexuality, quoting Fr. John Hugo, who gave the famous Retreat at the Catholic Worker: "Jesus, when He appeared, described Himself as "the Bridegroom." A bridegroom is a man having a bride: who is the bride of Jesus? Obviously, He was speaking in a spiritual or mystical sense: He was fulfilling the prophecy of the Canticle. So, Catholic nuns speak of themselves as brides of Christ. But not nuns alone-every Christian soul is the bride of Jesus. Hence every Christian soul can find in the sexual union of bride and groom the best analogy and most perfect illustration of the relationship existing between himself and God. In his Biography William Miller quotes Dorothy on the dangers and tragedies of the sexual revolution: "'I must say the new morality is depressing,' Dorothy wrote to Sister Peter Claver. 'How much sorrow is being laid up for these young ones.'" With Dorothy Day, we not only have nowhere else to go but the Church, but find our sustenance there, even though it is very imperfect on the human side. Miller shares Dorothy's reflection late in life on the Church and people's disillusionment with it: "One morning, when she was at First Street, Dorothy lay abed to make some notes. Someone brought in the mail, and in it was a letter from a person who had once been close to the Worker movement but who now seemed to despise the Church. The letter was 'a stab in the heart'-the bitterness, hatred of the Church poured out and to think that this venom has been piling in him--this poison he is spewing out, from some terrible wound. It is appalling when to me my faith, my feeling that the Church is Christ on earth, is my joy, my delight, my solace. "It is enough to say that during these last years of her life there were others, some of whom, she had felt, would do great things for the Worker movement and for the Faith but who had left. 'Sick of the Church, sick of religion,' she seemed to hear at every hand. 'The Desert Fathers themselves complained of it and called it acedia, defined in the dictionary as spiritual sloth and indifference. And the remedy for that, according to spiritual writers is faithfulness as the means to overcome it, recitation of the Psalms each day, prayer and solitude, and by these means arriving or hoping to achieve a state of well-being.'" Casa Juan Diego will join with Archbishop Flores and offer its recitation
of the Divine Office in reparation for the sins of all of us. Houston Catholic Worker, Vol. XXII, No. 4, July-August 2002.  |
