Looking back at the weekly messages of Father Paul Counce, first published in The Carpenter, our weekly Parish Bulletin
Published: July 31, 2018
This weekend we begin our new Sunday Mass schedule here at the Cathedral. Sunday Masses are at 8:30 am and 10:30 am. (There’s no change to the Saturday schedule: confessions are still heard at 3 pm and the “anticipated Mass” for the next day is at 4 pm.) I’ve been surprised that I’ve gotten so few “unhappy” comments. I hope that means that everyone is willing to give the new schedule a chance, and even find that it enhances Sunday mornings!
Doubtless the new Sunday schedule will take some getting used to. We will continue to offer coffee and doughnuts between (and even before and after!) the Sunday Masses. The church is our place for prayer and worship, but our Parish Hall is our place for conversation and fellowship before and afterwards!
On another but very much sadder topic, let me offer a reflection or two on the reawakened Church “crisis” of sexual misconduct and coverup. The media have rightly focused on this a lot in the past weeks, for it is news. Pope Francis took away the title and rank of cardinal from the former archbishop of Washington, Theodore McCarrick, now that McCarrick’s past, predatory sexual sins have at last come to light. Adding to the pain is that, apparently, an awful lot of people – including bishops – knew about his activities but covered it up to advance their own careers, avoid embarrassment or expense, and perhaps even hide their own complicity.
Bishop Ed Scharfenberger of Albany wrote to his flock last week, and well captured many essential points. Among other things, he noted that while “the vast majority of clergy – priests, deacons and bishops alike – live or, at least, are striving to live holy and admirable lifestyles, I am ashamed of those … who do not and have not.” He acknowledged “We should be grateful for all of those who have come forward to expose these patterns of sin in the lives of some – as well the institutional sins of denial and suppression of those brave witnesses whose warnings went unheard or unheeded, so that some of the harm might have been prevented.” Finally, he rightly noted that this isn’t “a crisis of policies and procedures.” It is “a profoundly spiritual crisis,” rooted in the modern error that merely gratifying sexual activity is acceptable. Sexuality and sexual behavior derive their meaning and purpose from the conjugal relationship, that is, from matrimony. “All of us who are ordained to preach what the Church teaches must practice what we preach and teach. We also need to uphold what our faith proclaims about the gift and beauty of human sexuality, fully lived in its essential conjugal meaning,” Bishop Scharfenberger noted.
Two weeks ago I gave what I thought was a hard-hitting homily, insisting that the fullness of God’s truth has to be uppermost in Church teaching. I noted that God’s merciful forgiveness is always available to the sinner, but also said that this never makes objectively wrong things into right things, nor does it absolve the sinner from paying for the other consequences of his or her sins. As we pray for victims hurt by abusive leaders, as well as for those guilty of crimes of assault and of coverup, we also have to somehow come up with ways of addressing the critical mistakes of morality which underlie the tragedies of the present time.
Yours always in Christ,
Fr. Paul D. Counce
