Catholic, unapologetic

EGO SUM Catholicus et exaltabitur cor meum. I am Catholic and my heart is exalted.

More than plain sloganeering, much less a political statement, but in fact a reaffirmation of faith, that emblazoned on plain white T-shirts we, alumni of the Mater Boni Consilii Seminary, have come to wear proudly, as defiantly, at every instance of unpresidential ululation Rodrigo Roa Duterte spews against our Mother Church.

Ego sum Catholicus…Greater that reaffirmation all the more with the recent spate of sex scandals rising to the heights…rather, descending to the depths of episcopal abuse.

There is nothing holy in this evil-strangled Catholic Church. So, what is there for you to stay? Asked a non-Catholic friend, hardly concealing some malicious glee.

I could only say: Bless you, my righteous brother. But didn’t Jesus Himself say He came to call not the righteous but the sinners?

But in my heart of hearts did indeed rise that indignation at this epidemic of clerical pederasty, and impelled the instinct to instantly denounce the predatory priests and complacent, if not complicit, bishops for their blasphemies, for their betrayal of the Church.

But then, blasphemer as I was for sometime, sinful as I am, who am I to join those who cast the first, second, tenth, hundredth, thousandth stone? Fittingly yet, will not the muck that I shall throw come from my own muddy hands?

Have I not myself maculated the Church as much?

Providential that while wrestling with my conscience over my own unholiness, came I across what can now be – in the wake of the current crisis besetting the Church – inspired prophecy of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in his Introduction to Christianity, written in 1968 – all 37 years before he assumed the Petrine ministry as Pope Benedict XVI.

The holiness of the Church consists in that power of sanctification which God exerts in her in spite of human sinfulness. It is the expression of God’s love, which will not let itself be defeated by man’s incapacity but always remains well disposed toward him, welcomes him again and again precisely because he is sinful, turns to him, sanctifies him, and loves him.

…This holiness expressed itself precisely as mingling with the sinners whom Jesus drew into his vicinity; as mingling to the point where he himself was made ‘to be sin’ and bore the curse of the law in execution as a criminal—complete community of fate with the lost… and so revealed what true ‘holiness’ is: not separation, but union; not judgment, but redeeming love.

Anew, Luke 5:27-32 – of Jesus’ call, not to the righteous but to the sinners for repentance:        

Is the Church not simply the continuation of God’s deliberate plunge into human wretchedness; is she not simply the continuation of Jesus’ habit of sitting at table with sinners, of his mingling with the misery of sin to the point where he actually seems to sink under its weight? Is there not revealed in the unholy holiness of the Church, as opposed to man’s expectation of purity, God’s true holiness, which is love, love that does not keep its distance in a sort of aristocratic, untouchable purity but mixes with the dirt of the world, in order thus to overcome it? Can, therefore, the holiness of the Church be anything else but the bearing with one another that comes, of course, from the fact that all of us are borne up by Christ?

I am a sinner. In a Church of sinners, called – and answering – to repentance. Thus, Ratzinger of the Church:  

She lives from the struggle of the unholy to attain holiness, just as of course this struggle lives from the gift of God, without which it could not exist. But this effort only becomes fruitful and constructive if it is inspired by the spirit of forbearance, by real love.

I am a Catholic. As one --

I believe in God the Father Almighty,
Creator of Heaven and earth;
I believe in Jesus Christ,
His only Son, our Lord,
He was conceived by the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day He rose again.
He ascended into Heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the Holy Catholic Church,
the communion of Saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

 Amen.