Sent as signs of
hope
In the Spring of 1989, I was
in the second semester of my first year in the major seminary. Among the prescribed courses for that
semester was an introduction to Moral Theology.
The professor was a Religious from the Congregation of Notre-Dame by the
name of Mary-Lou Cranston. It didn’t
take us long to recognize that Mary-Lou was a good teacher. In fact she started the first class by
telling us that in order to do justice to the subject matter at hand, she would
first present us the Church’s teaching on a given matter, then provide some
personal reflection and finally encourage discussion so that we ourselves could
begin to grapple with the issues.
In the Spring of 1989,
questions began to be asked and calls were issued in the Canadian media for a
public inquiry into cover-ups of allegations of sexual abuse of minors by
clergy at the Mount Cashel orphanage in Saint John’s, Newfoundland. I remember one day that Spring, while we were
on our way to class, Mary-Lou posed a question to four or five of us who were
accompanying her: Have any of you given
any thought to the effect that the revelations coming out of Newfoundland might
have on the way that you will exercise your priesthood? She liked to ask such provocative questions,
but she was a very wise woman and the question certainly got us thinking,
because at first we may have considered allegations coming from Mount Cashel to
be an isolated case, but as the years have gone on, the Church in Canada and in
other parts of the world have suffered, and I dare say the way priests, deacons
and religious sisters exercise our ministry has been coloured by these events.
I’m not sure that Jesus spoke
to his disciples about alleged abuses in particular, but he certainly was
encouraging them to recognize that the call to discipleship is never an easy
one. Saint Mark wrote his gospel
primarily for the benefit of the Christian community in Rome, so in the words
of today’s gospel passage, we see that he wanted to address two realities. First, the Christian community in Rome was in
mortal danger and under constant attack from the Romans. Second, despite this threat, they were
assured that they would always receive the help they needed in order to be
faithful to the call to love.
The words of the book of
Daniel would have known to the early Christians, so the threat of attack would
not have been something new. After all,
Daniel had foretold that there would be a
time of anguish, such as has never been seen or known before, but even in
the time of Daniel, the promise of God was known: that faithful people shall be delivered.
The revelations brought to
light by the inquiry into the Mount Cashel affair began a whole series of
revelations across this country: revelations which have been painful to hear
and even more painful to live. There is
no justifiable excuse for any type of abuse, much less that of children, yet
the wisdom born from the discussion sparked between a few seminarians and our
Moral Theology professor have also played an important part in forming the
priests we have become. Even as our
discussion was evolving, we recognized that the perpetrators were very few in
number, but the reality was and still is that every priest, every deacon, every
religious and every lay person still affiliated with the Catholic Church is
potentially painted with the same brush by onlookers.
The other reality is equally
true: Christians today, as in the early days of the Church are assured that we
will always receive the help we need in order to be faithful to the call to
love. Our Church has always preached the
importance of forgiveness of sin so
even though we may still be living in this time of trial, if we have the eyes
to see it, we can indeed discern the Son
of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory to help us be signs of
hope for our world, faithful witnesses of His enduring love and stewards of His
tender forgiveness until the hour arrives for the elect to be gathered and
taken to heaven.
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