Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues.

"We've had enough exhortations to be silent! Cry out with a hundred thousand tongues. I see that the world is rotten because of silence." St. Catherine of Siena (1347-80).

Over the centuries our Church has survived and become stronger in the face of every evil that Satan has managed to work through weakened people. It triumphs especially though when Catholics en masse "cry out with a hundred thousand tongues." In the midst of the clergy sex scandal of today, healing cannot now be far oft for many voices are echoing all across the land.

Editor

Saint Catherine

Bringing his perspective on the scandal that is rocking the priesthood, Ralph Martin reminds us of how the great St. Catherine of Siena in the 14th century, now a Doctor of the Church, dealt with sexual corruption among the clergy of her day. In her book The Dialogue, Catherine shared insights which she received, she said, from God the Father, and she emphasized that we should always honour, respect, and value the dignity of the priesthood as an amazing gift from God but, at the same time, not cover up moral corruption when it appears:

"I have told you, dearest daughter, something of the reverence that ought to be given my anointed ones not matter how sinful they may be. For reverence should not be given for what they are in themselves but only for the authority ][ have entrusted to them. The sacramental mystery cannot be lessened or divided by their sinfulness.

"I want to show you the wretchedness of their lives so that you and my other servants will have the more reason to offer me humble and constant prayer for them. Not matter where you turn, to diocesan or religious priests or bishops, lowly or great, young or old, you see nothing but sin. The filth of deadly sin.

"They get up in the morning with their minds contaminated and their bodies corrupt. After spending the night bedded down with deadly sin, they go to celebrate Mass. O, tabernacles of the devil!

"These wretches not only do not restrain their weakness; they make it worse by committing that cursed unnatural sin. The stench reaches even up to me, supreme Purity, and is so hateful to me that, for this sin alone, five cities were struck down by my divine judgment. My divine justice could no longer tolerate it, so despicable to me is this abominable sin. How abominable this sin is to me in any person; now imagine how much more hateful it is in those I have called to live celibately.

"And sometimes, when they recognize that these religious are incarnate devils., they send them from one monastery to the next. Superiors are the cause of these and many other evils because they do not keep their eyes on their subjects. They pretend not to see their wretched behaviour."

Hope

D. Q. Mclnerny, in the June newsletter of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, says that the sobering experience Catholics have suffered by the recent revelations of sexual corruption among the clergy have deeply shocked them, but he hopes that Catholics have not been scandalized in the sense of losing faith or hope. St. Thomas Aquinas, he says, assures us that "there is an infallible remedy against the possible damaging effects of the evil behaviour of others: virtue, virtue firmly rooted in the love of God."

Those whose faith and charity are strong, he says, enjoy the kind of moral stability which will not allow them to be knocked off their feet by the presence of evil. Evil saddens them but does not discourage them, for they know the intrinsic weakness of evil. They know that the days of evil are numbered arid that God can, and invariably does, bring good out of evil. Often, the greater the evil, the greater the good which is forthcoming. The present scandal could turn out to be an opportunity for genuine restoration in the Church.

Maslow and Rogers

It is the stern truth that this scandal did not drop out of the blue, the result of pure chance. We are dealing with an effect caused by a whole array of specific and closely interrelated causes. We are but reaping the whirlwind, experiencing the outcome of several radically aberrant trends going on in the Church for almost four decades now, McInerny said. Some of these trends arose from a too permissive interpretation of Vatican II, others from changes in society at Large. And now we have the prevailing "tolerance/choice" ethos which accords every philosophy, except Christianity, a friendly welcome.

Parents with teenagers in the 60s will remember the chilling effects of the sexual revolution, with widespread rebellion, sexual license, contraception, and drug use.

Schools were deeply into the false psychology of Abraham Maslow and Carl Rogers, who repented, when it was too late, of what they had done. The young learned that in Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" sex was as important as food, drink, and shelter. In face of our protests we were condescendingly informed that we parents were too old-fashioned to understand. The new gospel reached the universities and young people fell into atheism, radical feminism, rejection of family values, and addiction to alcohol, drugs, and aberrant sexual practices.

The "gay" drive for acceptance

As some formerly secret homosexuals became more emboldened in the "new culture," they actively organized and became militant. They gained influence in our social institutions. Governments, eyeing the growing potential for votes, granted them unheard-of privileges. The poison infected the education system, which now teaches that homosexuality is normal. The judicial system, the law schools, medicine, psychiatry, and many churches have changed for the worse.

No stone has been left unturned in the promotion, advocacy, and public demonstration, of the homosexual agenda. The entertainment world and the arts long ago recognized homosexuality as acceptable. Movie stars, academics, politicians, and some clergy now openly acknowledge their homosexual lifestyle. It is thus a natural progression for militant homosexuals to attack any institution opposed to their morality. The Catholic priesthood presented them with its greatest challenge.

Homosexuals and the priesthood

Years ago homosexuals were ordained and kept their vow of chastity. But, with the increase in numbers of homosexuals admitted into seminaries, and especially with the sea-change in society in its attitude towards homosexuality, the policy of ordaining homosexuals has been questioned. The Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls has said that "people with these inclinations cannot be ordained.... That does not imply a final judgment on people with homosexuality, but they cannot be in this field" (New York Times, Mar. 3). He also suggested that ordinations of homosexual men might be null and void, just as a marriage can be annulled when a homosexual man marries a woman without telling her of his condition.

A cleansing

Ralph Martin, with whom we began, is convinced that our present crisis has been allowed to take place because a thorough cleansing is necessary, and that we will be the better for it: "While these are sad and dark days, they are also very hopeful days. For the first time since the corruption of the post-Vatican-II period set in, there is hope that honest and vigorous repentance and reform may come about." Why is the present corruption being revealed? So that a true cleansing can take place. So that proper authority may finally act. So that we may pray and that all of us may examine our own lives as well. So that obstacles to the coming of a new springtime for the Church may be removed in all of us. God is in control. He is permitting the revelation of the present corruption because it is such an abomination and is sapping the vitality of the Church. After this judgment and cleansing, our Church may be able to reflect the holiness of Christ, to be a light to the world and a fragrant aroma to the Lord.

St. Catherine would have agreed.

Millie Trainor is a retired journalist who lives in Prince Edward Island.