Yesterday a man named Bob Corby called our parish wanting to speak with me about how he was abused in Pennsylvania as a child
I’m assuming almost everyone saw the news stories yesterday out of Pennsylvania where more than 300 priests names who’ve been accused of abuse were released, along with the sickening accounts of those who covered up the abuse for decades. The report contains countless first hand accounts and it will absolutely rip your soul apart and you will never unremember what is in that report. Pope Francis recently formalized a change to the Catechism on the death penalty, and I totally support that, I would just say that the thought I’ve had in what I’ve seen of the report is that if ever there was a case to be made for the death penalty, it would be for the crimes I’ve seen described from Church leaders in that report.
It is becoming quite clear that the Devil knows that the best way to try to destroy Christ’s Church and its institutions, is from the inside. And the evidence around the world suggests that he has planted many an enemy of the Church inside and at the very heart of the Catholic Church.
These scandals and the news out of Pennsylvania has caused many FAITHFUL Catholics to think about walking away, I can only imagine the havoc this garbage is wreaking in the lives of the 80% of Catholics who DON’T come to Church every week.
Almost all of the news stories yesterday out of Pennsylvania featured quotes from one victim who was willing to talk to the press. His name is Bob Corby.
Yesterday, in addition to all the stories breaking, Bob Corby called our parish and asked to speak with me, and I must say that in the midst of one of the worst days in the history of American Catholicism, Bob Corby provided for me a bright light of hope.
Bob is now 83 years old, and he shared with me that he raised his kids in the Church, and hasn’t stopped going to Mass, he still serves as an usher, but he said that the abuse 70 years ago took away all his Faith, and he wants to get it back.
Bob said he was with his counselor last week, and his counselor told him she had a video she thought he should watch. The counselor showed Bob my homily from several weeks ago, and Bob said for the first time he felt hope about the Church, that maybe there was a path back for him – that although he’d been searching for Faith these last 70 years, he said he felt like he might have a chance at getting it back now.
Let me make one observation here. The Church has much to learn from corporations – and we have lawyers and hr departments and official spokespersons trained in public relations. But the thing that Bob Corby said he was waiting 70 years for was to hear and see something from a shepherd. There are lots of wonderful lawyers and pr people in the Church, but I will say this, if we let pr people and lawyers lead the Catholic Church through this mess alone, there will be nothing left of American Catholicism. God said in Jeremiah that He would give us shepherds after His own heart. That is how He set the Church up – sinful shepherds leading but shepherds none the less. God did not say I will give you pr people after my own heart. The Church in America needs shepherds to get up, speak, and say some simple but hard things – we are sorry and we will fix this NOW. Press releases are for Microsoft when a version of Windows doesn’t quite work right. This is not that.
This also gives us as people a path forward – we can shepherd to and say to those that we know who are scandalized, those who have been hurt by crimes in the Church – we are sorry
I share this story for this reason – the Church is Marian – Mary is the mother of the Church, and she is your mother and my mother. And mother’s HEAL. Mother’s NURTURE. Mother’s FEED their children, and so those Marian characteristics are also true of the Church
The Church is meant to heal, to nurture and to feed. The Church does that through its sacraments which are Christ. Through anointing the sick, through confession, through the Eucharist the Church HEALS, it NURTURES, and it FEEDS us
We saw in Pennsylvania yesterday yet again that when anyone in the name of the Church perverts that mission, lives are SHATTERED. But Bob Corby showed me that even for someone who has had the worst of the worst crimes happen to him by those who represent the Church, even for him, he sees in the Church, the ACTUAL Catholic Church, he sees healing and Grace that come from the head and savior of the Church
In celebrating the Assumption of Mary into Heaven, we know that we have a mother who is praying for us as a Church. Mary says today in the Gospel that she knows that God “has filled the hungry with good things”. The world is hungry for Christ. I am hungry for Christ. Bob Corby is hungry for Christ. The world is hungry for Christ – and Mary, as our mother and as the embodiment of the Church, sees to it that those who are hungry are fed with the Gift of Her Son
