A bit on St. Catherine. I probably won't get too far, because I'm pretty tired (miserable night yesterday - I think teeth #5 and #6 must be imminent), but I'll get started.
What I'm doing is reflecting with you on parts of St. Catherine of Siena's Dialogue because it just seemed pertinent to our Catholic times (scroll down for why). In case you don't know, the Dialogues were mostly dictated by St. Catherine to associates who wrote her words as faithfully as they could. St. Catherine herself had no formal education had learned to write a little bit later in her life - there is evidence that she edited much of the material in the Dialogue herself. It is essentially the fruit of her mystical experience and is one of the classics of Catholic spiritual writing. Here, I just want to share with you some of what's said about sinful clerics.
It's in the section entitled (in the translation we have) The Mystic Body of Holy Church, and there are a couple of fundamental points being made:
First, priests are called to role of unique dignity, since they are the ministers of Word and Sacrament, particularly Eucharist. It's through them that Christ shares Himself with His people. In fact, throughout the work, God refers to priests as "my christs." Anointed.
But. There's trouble in River City. Or at least in the 14th-century Italy that was Catherine's home. Big trouble. Priests doing all sorts of bad things about which the Dialogue minces no words.
The sins of God's ministers has a dire effect, not only on their own souls, but on the souls in their care, for, as we can all imagine, those who are accepting sin in their own lives are in no great hurry to call those to whom they're ministering to greater holiness:
Thus they commit injustice against their subjects and neighbors, and do not correct them for their sins. Indeed, as if they were blind and did not know, because of their perverse fear of incurring others' displeaasure, they let them lie asleep in their sickness...Sometimes they administer correction as if to cloak themselves in this little bit of justice. But they will never correct persons of any importance, even though they may be guilty of greater sin than more lowly people, for fear that these might retaliate by standing in their way or deprive them of rank and their way of living. They will, however, correct the little people, because they are sure these cannot harm them or deprive them of their rank. Such injustice comes from their wretched selfish love for themselves. (section 122)
I like this as well. In a section which begins with an expression of one of the stronger themes of this work - the soul's essential freedom when it cleaves to God alone, Catherine relates God as saying:
Every person receives this grace, but these whom I have anointed I have freed from the world's service and appointed them to serve me alone, God eternal, by being stewards of the sacraments of holy Church.
...And do you know, dearest daughter, what thanks they give me for such a gift? This is their thanks: They hound me constantly with so many villainous sins that your tongue could never describe them, and you would faint if you heard them.
And then in the following section, a good reminder of how moral authority is lost:
How can those who are so sinful bring their subjects to justice and reproach them for their sins? They cannot, for their own sins have left them bereft of any enthusiasm or zeal for holy justice. If they do sometimes attempt it, they make their subjects...say, "Doctor, treat yourself first; then treat me, and I will take the medicine you give me. Your sin is greater than mine, yet you condemn me!" (124)It's good to consider this wisdom in light of our current Church Troubles. It's also good to consider them in light of our own lives. What makes us reluctant to speak the truth about right and wrong? Lots of things, but one of the most powerful silencers is our own sin. Of course, none of us are perfect, or will we ever be, and that fact always lends humility as we are committed to tending to the beams in our own eyes first, and never, ever presenting ourselves as better or less in need of forgiveness and grace than anyone else.
But that reality needn't paralyze us, either. Despite the fact that we are sinners, we still have an obligation to speak the truth about sin. And when we don't want to, what we might be encountering is a confrontation with our own sin. Am I silent because of a false humility? Or am I silent because I don't want to see myself condemned by my own words? So what's the good solution to this vexation - continue to be silent, or face that sin and ask God's help in rooting it out?