A reflection in wake of the Church’s recent sexual abuse scandal

Two weeks ago, Father Greg Boyle, S.J., came to the Chapel of Saint Joseph to talk about Homeboy Industries. His stories were well-structured and full of pauses, punchlines and literary devices, all delivered with a mix of humility and reverence.

Before and after he spoke, he shared the mic with a “homegirl,” an earnest woman who opened up about her life, her struggles and her kids.

These kinds of stories are the heart of Father G’s program and they form much of the new book, “Barking to the Choir,” he sold at the event.

Altogether, the Homeboy Industries roadshow does more than pluck heartstrings and build publicity; it affirms the dignity of the Homeboys and girls, breaks down barriers between them and us and kindles what Boyle calls radical kinship.

All around Father G., St. Joe’s turned out. Students came from every year and major, filling the upper sections of the Chapel with welcome signs and encouragements to sign up for various service programs.

This reception reminded me what kind of school St. Joe’s is. It is a community where many students and professors take things like service and faith and character seriously, where the “cool kids” have all helped someone build a house or feed their family. St. Joe’s, I’ve often said, is a good place.

To feel that vivid faith and community in the chapel was exceptional and Father G’s talk was the first time I’d been excited to go to church in some weeks.

The summer of 2018 brought fresh reminders of the Catholic Church’s generations-long cover-up of sexual, physical and emotional abuse of children.

A report from the Pennsylvania Attorney General, Josh Shapiro, showed the breadth and depth of the problem and made the Church in America look like a thoroughly rotten tooth with deep roots.

Then, when Archbishop Vigano’s letter claimed that Pope Francis knew of a Cardinal’s predatory sex, the pain became surreal.

Pope Francis used to represent a new tone for the Church, a focus on inclusion and poverty and in no small part, a Church beyond the abuse. Ordinary Catholics should have been working together against this great sin together, supporting our parishes and praying and supporting victims in any way we could. For a while it seemed we wanted to push past it all, but now we can’t.

It’s been easy to slip down a rabbit hole exploring the horrors our Church has created, from rape to murder in orphanages to, in Ireland, secret mass burials of women made to do slave labor. Being Catholic starts to feel like being enveloped in a sprawling nightmare.

Bearing all that shame and disappointment, I could just not go back to Mass. I couldn’t go to church hoping for a new flock, or pray independently. No one would blame me.

But I don’t. I still go to Mass and call myself Catholic.

There are a few reasons why. Catholicism is a part of my identity. It is in the prayers I say with my family and classmates or the hymns I sing before Eagles games. It is in the cross I sometimes wear.

Catholicism is an identity I can’t just discard; it’s something I still believe in, a worldview of sin and love and grace and dignity and a lifestyle of discipline, joy and sacrifice. But also and most importantly, it’s the vessel that showed me the best in other people.

Catholicism, for me, has always been illustrated by people who showed me traces of the character and goodness that Catholicism says God calls us to.

First, there is my mom, who wouldn’t want me to say too much praising her, but would admit to praying a lot and teaching me about God early on. Then there are the priests and Confaternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) teachers who taught me.

When I was beginning to decide what kind of adult I’d be, the Spiritan priests and brothers and lay teachers at my high school showed me that faith can be down to earth, radical and interpersonal all at once. And all the friends I’ve made at Saint Joe’s who do more service and more ministry than I ever have, have shown me what faith looks like in a busy, adult context.

These few phrases can’t begin to capture what those people have meant to me over the years. Modern life can make it hard to stay connected to the values that guide our actions and keep us from feeling dead and disconnected and dirty. Catholicism kept that connection alive for me and not through the words of bishops, but through the grace of knowing great people.

Father G. has sometimes written about the need to realize the goodness that lives in all of us; these people helped me find it by setting a lifetime’s worth of examples.

I’m not just trying to celebrate St. Joe’s, because our school is a flawed community in ways we do and don’t talk about. I’m not trying to construct a “DIY Catholicism” where popes and bishops are unwanted or unnecessary. I’m not trying to make myself sound like the perfect, woke Catholic.

I’m lazy and misguided and sinful and I’ve gone 800-some words without mentioning Jesus. This campus is full of people whose faith is deeper, sharper and smarter than mine.

And more than anything else, I’m not trying  to think around the abuse that happened. There’s no easy answer.

We can’t undo the abuse that has already happened.

It seems the only thing we can do is try to be better Catholics and better people, to think radically about how we can prioritize God and try to bring out the best in each other.

If I never prayed again or never went to Mass with my mom again, there’d be a part of my heart that would feel cold and I know I’d end up feeling and doing worse. Instead, I’m going to try to do more, actually do more, to pass on the grace people have given me.

I think about a famous story a high school theology teacher told my class once, about a statue of Christ that survived the Dresden Firebombing in WWII, minus its arms. The moral was that God has no hands in this world but ours.