Theology and Vanity*
What to do when your spiritual heroes turn out to be no-good, very-bad, rotten heaps of sin and scandal.
I’m writing this morning having just read a thorough, balanced, fairly-reported exposé on a low-level scandal in a particular Catholic subculture. I could probably say that about once a week? It’s as if the Church didn’t insert the penitential rite as Mass-filler, she knows we’re going to show up sinful and wretched and needing to apologize and start again.
It’s not just the Church, by the way. Sin is everywhere. We just hate it extra when it happens among Christians because we know better.
And you know what? This stuff hurts people.
So my message this morning is about keeping your head on straight and holding onto your faith when some corner of the church you previously considered a guiding light has now imploded like the collapsing star that it is.
The thing is: You were getting something good from those people, or at least you were trying to. It’s healthy to acknowledge that, respect that about yourself, and retain the good as you move forward in your faith.
The reality of the Catholic Faith is that our dogmas — those clearly-defined elements of our faith that must be assented to by anyone claiming the name Catholic — are comparatively few. Sure, with two thousand years of discernment you can rack up a respectable list, but compared to everything we humans wonder about? The minimal framework of faith is astonishingly spare.
Likewise, the very clear moral teachings of the Church, though unfailing in the dividends to be reaped by following them, are nonetheless only (“only”) a foundation for prudential judgment. We still have to use prayerful discernment to know how to live out the finer details of our day-to-day lives.
All this to say: It’s normal and healthy to seek out the examples and wisdom of those around us who seem ardent in their pursuit of truth and holiness.
Invariably, though, sometimes those people are going to sin. Sometimes they are going to be (innocently or otherwise) wrong about some opinion they hold. Often in small ways, but sometimes spectacularly and devastatingly so.
When this happens, it is very, very easy to think: How could I have been so deceived? I can’t believe I used to think this person or movement was right about _______. I can’t believe I used to think ________ was an essential practice in our faith. I can’t believe I used to count _______ as my friends and spiritual supporters.
And on and on.
We risk hating ourselves for not being omniscient. We risk hating ourselves for trying to do something good — discover God’s calling and the path of truth — and it turns out we did that imperfectly. And in that self-hatred, we risk deciding the whole faith is just one big sham.
Yikes.
Ask yourself instead: What is the foundation of my faith?
Is my trust in the wisdom and goodness of some earthly spiritual guru? Or is it in the wisdom of Almighty God and the love of our Divine Savior?
Maybe you’ve never honestly really handed yourself over to Jesus Christ in a relationship of intimacy and love.
Maybe your faith was, perhaps through no fault of your own, really just centered in a pretty-good experience of finding a group of people who seemed to be living life well and accomplishing an important work in the world. Okay. That was a place to start. Now it’s time to move on.
Time to dig deeper, into God who created all the good things you were seeking in that circle.
Maybe you really screwed up. Maybe looking back there were warning signs you ignored. Stupid things you did or believed that now you realize were horribly wrong.
So be it. Go to confession. Change your life. Jesus is waiting with open arms, eager to trade your sin for His forgiveness and mercy and light of joy and peace. You can be a brand new person in five minutes, done.
It’s normal for these incidents to hurt. You have a heart. That’s good.
Jesus has a heart, too. He has a heart that loves you completely and which burns with desire to be close to you, and to heal you, and to take this dark moment and transform it into the time when your life took a sudden and unexpected turn towards closer union with Him.
Give it a shot. You’re worth it.
*Yes, the title of this post is absolutely a play on Frank Sheed’s Theology and Sanity. Great book, recommended, but start with Theology for Beginners if you are a normal person. If you like that one, you’ll have an idea of whether you want to read the bigger, longer book. Cover art for Theology and Sanity courtesy of Ignatius Press.