How Can I Still Be Catholic?

The corpse of Pope Formosus, exhumed to face charges of corruption.

My left coast comrade Darius, brought up Catholic, has recently fled to the Unitarians.

The reason is clerical abuse.

“What do you think?” he asks. “Do you think it is all made up?”

No, it is certainly not all made up.

Another friend, raised Catholic, became Muslim for the same reason. He too wondered how I could stay Catholic.

All of this scandal is deeply disturbing, but it says nothing about the faith. It is not an argument to leave the church. It is pure ad hominem.

There must be some special punishment for such clerics in the next world. Dante puts them in the eighth circle of Hell.

But note that: Dante knew very well of corrupt clerics, corrupt bishops, corrupt cardinals, corrupt popes, in his day.

And the New Testament knew well. That’s who the Pharisees were. They are the gospel’s chief villains.

So this is no new thing.

Some of the worst human beings I have encountered have been Catholic priests.

Nor is it a peculiarly Catholic thing. I was educated, undergrad and grad, mostly by Protestant ministers: United Church and Baptist. I doubt that many of them believed in the existence of God.

I once explained to my friend Xerxes, prominent in the United Church, that the reason I had not become a priest was that when I was choosing a career I was not yet sure enough of my faith.

“Why would that matter?” he asked.

It is simply human nature, inevitable, that bad people will masquerade as good people. How could it not be so? If they are very bad people, they have no moral restraints compelling them to tell the truth. And pretending to be devout is an example of the general principle, that convicted liars lie 180 degrees off True North.

If my friends really imagine the situation is going to be better among the Unitarian clergy, or among Muslim imams, they are terribly naïve. And bound for a cruel awakening.

All that said, where then does one find good people? Where can one find the truly spiritual?

Jesus tells us plainly enough, and in detail:

Blessed are the poor in spirit. Blessed are those who mourn. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…