Today is my debut as a “Faith Perspectives” columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. I wish this wasn’t my first column, that there was no need to write this. But I write from a place of deep faith and sadness, yet hope.
You can read my column below or see the original here: http://bit.ly/RebuildChurchGivens
I write this not as an expert but as a devoted, active Catholic layperson, a father and a grandfather, a person who loves the Church and has served in a diverse number of volunteer roles for nearly 40 years: I feel like I have been kicked in the gut and betrayed by a close friend and nobody cares enough to make the systematic kicking stop.
Pope Francis recently acknowledged the “shame and repentance” of the Catholic Church’s failure to act on decades of sexual abuse by clerics against our young people. He stated emphatically that the Church “showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them.” Like many Catholics, I appreciate his words, but they are not enough.
All members of the Church — not just the little ones who were targeted and abused — have been abandoned, or at least that’s how many of us feel. Parents who have for so long encouraged their children to serve and deeply respect our priests and bishops without question feel betrayed and guilty for not paying close enough attention. We have let our children down.
During the Second Vatican Council, the Church (meaning all its members) were encouraged to “read the signs of the times” and discern their lives accordingly. So the time has come for more than words of shame and repentance, although those are a good place to start, the place where healing might begin. For as grieved as I am, I am not without hope and I am not giving up. I am not going to give up on a faith that has nurtured me in many ways because some who run it are corrupt and evil. But neither can I remain silent and simply “pray for those in authority” and hope that they change, for many of them have shown all too often that they cannot. We need real change.
We as a Church need to rethink what oversight and transparency of Church governance and decision-making means in such an ancient and entrenched institution. We need to embrace the idea that the Church really is the people within it. We need to remember that the Church is filled with thousands upon thousands of experienced and educated-in-the-faith lay and religious people (including women with doctorates in canon law) with the expertise to drive change — women and men who run large organizations, hospitals, universities, corporations, small businesses and families — and put them in positions of true influence and responsibility and not mere advisory roles. Power within the universal church needs to be shared with all the people of the Church if real change is to happen.
Then the members of the hierarchy must be willing to accept these new decision and policy makers as they would their fellow clerics, must be open to new ideas that reflect both the deep traditions of the Church and the needs of the world today. And today one of our greatest needs is for a rejuvenated Church that loves and protects its people (especially the least among them) as much as it does its reputation and standing in the world.
The Church needs to continue to remove leaders who are harming the Church by their actions and inactions and trust that God will raise up leaders to take their places — a new generation more intent on bringing Christ and his love to the world and less concerned about clerical control and protection of their and their fellow clerics legacies, false and flimsy as those may be. For it is this conspiracy (from the Latin for “breathing together”) of lies and deceit that is most dangerous of all.
It’s time to rebuild the Church again, and those who live inside the wreckage cannot be allowed to repair it on their own. This past Wednesday’s reading from the lectionary included this warning from Ezekiel: “Woe to the shepherds of Israel who have been pasturing themselves! Should not shepherds, rather, pasture sheep?”
It’s time for a Third Vatican Council, perhaps, with an eye toward creating a Church that better and more fully reflects what it means to be Christ in and for the world instead of a secretive and often corrupt organization that exists in order to maintain its moral hold on its members — for that is slipping quickly from its grasp.
In the early 13th century, St. Francis of Assisi heard a voice telling him to “rebuild my church.” Although he believed at first the voice was telling him to physically rebuild the crumbling church of St. Damiano, he eventually realized he had much more work to do as a reformer and spiritual rebuilder of the Catholic Church. Today, we need others (clerics, religious, deacons and especially laypeople) to hear that same call and respond. There is much work to be done.
13 comments On It’s Time to Rebuild the Catholic Church
Thanks, Steve. Spot on.I plan to share
This essay is Perfect! Well said, it’s about time the church included the people instead of acting as though a priest by the only qualification, is finishing seminary, then has instant and unearned authority. This has been the height of arrogance and a major fallacy of Logic. Thank you for this very precise and appropriate solution to a disgraceful epidemic that has allowed the church of Christ to be so debased.
Let’s lift our one true church out of this sewer!
Thanks, Sheila. Tougher times but a big God.
Thanks, Mary.
I agree with everything you’ve said! It’s time to bring the hierarchy out of the buildings and institutions. Time to get back to simple common sense and practical living. Time for ACTION and follow-through instead of hollow words.
Thank you, Peg, for writing and for your passion for the Church.
Bravo!
Yesterday, the second year of the 18th group of the Lay Ministry Formation Program of the Diocese of Rockford Illinois began it’s 2nd year. I am proud to say that I am among the 85 lay persons so enthusiastically taking on our final year of learning prior to moving into various ministries throughout the diocese. Steve, your writings and insights helped my discernment. Lay involvement on all levels will foster positive changes in the Church. May the Holy Spirit grant us wisdom, confidence, courage, joy and a profound love for Christ. Thank you. Pax vobis
Thank you for writing and telling me this, Jan, and thanks or your service to our Church.
Hi Steve – I agree whole heartedly with what you said. Our Church needs to be rebuilt with Christ as the focus like it originally started.
Dear Steve,
To me rebuilding starts with doubt. Having doubt about something forces you to think and honest, critical thought should lead to evaluation, measure of performance and identification of where things went wrong. Without this insight no rebuilding can start.
Sex abuse is always a symptom and not a cause. the cause in this case lies much deeper , so I feel. This rebuilding if it is to lead to something certainly has to be built first and foremost on knowing who we are not in terms of pious phrases and holy gestures, but what it really means to you and me to be a christian or a catholic. In my opinion this can only be done through study, dialogue and lots and lots of critical and therefore often unpleasant thoughts. This would have to be an ongoing process which I would be interested to partake in.
Kind regards
Wilhelm
It’s Easter 2020 and I’m extremely depressed because I no longer have any use for the Catholic church I so loved and served for many years. I’m disgusted beyond imagination and when I get physically near a church I get angry over what has happened, The church has been infiltrated over and over again by different groups with agendas. Now, they proudly brag about how liberal they are. They can’t even contain themselves and flat out insult any of us who think differently. The church supports candidates who support vicious abortion legislation and the perverts keep being exposed year after year. Each moment of each day I find myself mourning what is now gone with no hope of ever getting it back. Thank God for God. My faith in Him stands but I miss my Catholic church.
The Knights of Columbus magazine, “Columbia” had an editorial awhile ago lamenting the fact that so many young people stop going to church. The writer stressed that these twenty year old adults found services “BORING”! Talk about missing the point, as usual. Let’s deny the realization that today’s young adults will not be a captive audience,to an unprepared rambling, vague and too often arrogant male. Their concerns are not given any respect, they are supposed to sit there and take another type of abuse. Of course there are wonderful inspirational priests but why does a young adult have to search & hunt? It seems they will not do this.
My children were raised by parents who go to daily Mass as well as weekly & those parents were raised the same way. My children went to Catholic schools as did their sons and they still have left. Pope Francis, etc. does not address these issues nor does the average priest. Homilies are too often not just :boring: but insulting in their content & delivery. Christ gave us many lessons but simplified the commandments to two, that says it all! So why to we have TOMES of canon law while those two commandments are ignored? I am pretty depressed over the fading of the catholic church & the blase attitude of the hierarchy but grateful for Steve Givens– a light in this darkness! Hope seems hard to come by with this lack of leadership. Also, the church does some really fine, Christian “Acts of Mercy” but fails to make that appear as their main goal which seems to be hiding their bad behavior. Ex: Cardinal Law hidden away in Rome & assigned rewriting the Mass prayers, an absurd waste of money. Praying with and for all those who would love to see the teachings of Christ rise from the dead!