The above picture is the cover of the book by Tony Campolo and his son Bart. It relates the conversations about Christianity between the Evangelical Father, and his humanist son.

COMMENTS

From Clare McGrath-Merkle,  cmm4@verizon.net

          As a young mother, I grew very dependent on our community of young families congregating in my parish basement hall. When a new idealist pastor arrived, he wanted to integrate the families in the main Church. The result was that the families felt the same lack of welcome that spurred them to create another space, a number left. 
          I soon became enamored of the New Age with its seeming lack of authority or judgment, and I left the Church for 9 years. 
          I returned through what I think of as a series of miracles, including seeing communicants return from an outdoor Mass one evening with a pink glow emanating from their hearts. All these years since, no matter how alienating the lack of community or the abuses of power can be, I hold on to the gift of the Blessed Sacrament. Yes, where else can we go?

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From William Shea wshea@holycross.edu

          "Why I left --why I stayed?"  I'm eight-three years old and in just the kind of health which would make anyone both glad to be alive and nervous. I was a seminarian from 1953 to 1961, and a parish priest from 1961 to 1973. From 1973 to 1980 I taught in the theology department of the Catholic University of America when I left to marry Helene Lutz. From 1980 to 2008 I taught in both a State university, a Jesuit university and for the last five of those years in a Catholic college.  I've been a practicing (practical and believing) Catholic all that time. I haven't been able to go to Mass for the past two years.  For the last ten years I've been happily retired, still married to the same woman, and intently following the St. Louis Cardinals.  I didn't "leave" and won't leave. I sit at my desk everyday, looking out the window, flopping around the pool, and contemplating both my sins and my approaching death.  I read a little in books (today Congar's book on reform in the church) and watch videos on Amazon.com (mostly crime stories, nature videos and WW II documentaries). Does anyone read this as an autobio of a man who would leave? I don't think so. I wouldn't even the USA under Trump and the Republican party for God's sake. I'm an old man who has been as corrupt as any of them, maybe even you. I was even excommunicated for two years. Yes, I'm a bit tired and very disgusted, but what's going to shake me now?

          Why have I stayed?  Let me mention some of the elements that would go into an answer to that part of the question.

          1. I watched my father and mother live and die. I want to live and die as they did and their living and dying was in the Catholic Church.
          2. I was taught what is true and false about living and dying by my parents and a lot of other people in the church. The church is my teacher!. What I know I know because of the church. "To whom else should we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life!"
          3. All my life I have been aware of God.  Sometimes I think I’m aware of God when I sleep. That's no small thing coming from a man whose intellectual life was very much taken up with a study of atheism.Even when for many years I didn't know how I knew that God exists and is present, I knew that God exists and is present. Even when I was living in sin I knew it.
          4. I will give you an example which must stand in for a much broader claim about the church:  When I hear the voice of Pope Francis I hear the voice of Christ. Add John XXIII.  That is also true of Paul VI, not as much but still enough of JP II and Benedict. I didn't like the latter two and their policies but they, too, were good shepherds -- just mistaken too often and too deeply. This was also true of the American bishops until they got messed up by JPII and Benedict. I tell you I hear that voice even in the many parish priests I have listened to over the past seventy years -- even when I knew their faults as I knew my own.

          Oh, and by the way: if any priest or bishop laid hand on one or my sons, I wouldn't have gone to the bishop or the cops -- I'd have gone to the rectory and beat the shit out of him.  

That's enough of an outline of the reasons for "staying." The rest can be found in my memoir, Judas Was a Bishop (Amazon.com)  

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From SimonMary Aihiokhai  aihiokhais@yahoo.co.uk

To Bill:
          I have not yet read your book even though I bought a copy. Such is the life of a junior faculty swamped with other responsibilities. However, your reflection here is truly very touching. I saw myself crying as I read. I will share details when I respond to the prompt later. Your reflection will stay with me for a very long time especially when doubt and despair knock on my door. They seem to want to be my buddies but I keep trying to chase them away. 

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From Dee Christie,  dlchristie@aol.com

          Bill, clearly you have led a life of deep spirituality. Your self accusation of being "as corrupt as any" seems not to fit.  I remember John Powell saying once that we Catholics should stop telling ourselves that--in his words--"I'm a sewer, a big old ugly sewer." God loves us so much more than we do ourselves. As you and certainly the rest of this list-serve knows, the dark mold in the institution only hides and hinders God's love. It does not define or destroy it. 

          Dick, my husband of fifty-seven years, and I have known perfidious pastors, pedophiles, alcoholic priests, good friends with multiple extra-marital affairs who with their wives gave lovely talks on the sanctity of marriage. Both of us know the sinfulness that is all over the institution and among those with whom we have recited the creed. Why do we stay?  Because we have experienced as well devoted spiritual directors (sometimes themselves flawed), deeply good and generous people who define themselves as Catholic, a community whose friendship is rooted in the church and its mission.

          As a theologian, and particularly up close and personal with CTSA leaders, I have come to know more of the same. Without mentioning names, I know prominent Catholic men and women who have been hurt beyond belief by the institution--some sanctioned as Bill describes. They stay, they love the church, its gospel, its goals and values. Even after being kicked in the gut, they continue to write, to practice, to care.  Some of the kindest, holiest people I know have been observed mentoring a young academic, or offered me comfort, cocktail, and Kleenex at a meeting when a presentation went poorly, or in the middle of an exhaustive trip and a Roman censure agreed to write a book cover comment for a budding author. These people are the flesh and blood of the church, the bruised and living body of the Christ who gathers us together at Mass. Who would leave that?

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From Marie A. Conn, mconn@chc.edu

Sadly, we have known about the priest abuse scandal for many years now. A dear friend recently confided to me that, when we were high school students on Long Island, one of our priests abused him. This priest taught our Religion class, presided at Mass, preached on Sunday, and chaperoned our dances (in the basement of the church). Much of my research focuses on women's history, with a special interest in the Magdalen laundry system, which in Ireland came under the direction of the Catholic Church and which lasted until the late 1990s. Sadly, that system, which virtually kidnapped women and dumped them in convents, resulted in women, particularly the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, being responsible for the mistreatment of other women.

And I am about to begin a new semester during which I will be teaching the Catholicism course. My students tend to trust me, so I look forward to difficult discussions about the recent report. I will probably even arrange a viewing of "Spotlight." And still I stay. As I mentioned recently, I stay as a "cafeteria Catholic," living out my faith according to my conscience. Most of my long-standing friends and even my own brother have either adopted another Christian church or have given up organized religion altogether. They are still remarkably good people who try to make the world a better place however they can. To stay or to leave is a deeply personal decision; I cannot truly explain why I stay while they leave. I just know that we all enrich each other's lives.

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From Francis Berna berna@lasalle.edu

I found yesterday's reading from Ezekiel helpful. I feel the spirit of the prophet in recent words of Pope Francis. I feel the prophet as he has repeatedly challenged clericalism. Preaching last Sunday (in Pennsylvania and New Jersey) was difficult. However, my personal reflection was on the wonderful people in the church - the women religious who have challenged and pioneered; the people who commit themselves to Catholic education; people whose fidelity in marriage bears witness to God's love; parents and grandparents who give so generously of themselves; young people who volunteer over spring break and during the school year; people who feed the hungry.... While we as church must always recognize and name sins/failures; this community called church is the place where THE Good Shepherd gives himself as food and drink for our journey through life. That's why I stay and that is why I find it to be a "humbling privilege" to minister as a priest.

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From Evelyn Augusto, evelynaugusto2012@gmail.com

I stay to fight for what is right and so I offer this battle cry as a reply to a "Faithful Catholic” to My Letter To A Priest

The "Faithful Catholic" wrote:
     "For me, though—and I’m simply responding to broaden the dialogue—priests marching on their own ‘headquarters’ would strongly intimate they are not in synch with the hierarchy of their church. That somehow the bishops and rank-and-file clergy are on separate pages when it comes to this sensitive subject. The last thing I want as a Catholic during these challenging times is a deeply impressionable visual of anarchy between priests’ and their superiors. That would suggest an unraveling of the Church founded on the ‘rock’ of St. Peter. Surely the overwhelming majority of priests, bishops, cardinals, right on up to Pope Francis consider the kind of behavior chronicled in the Pennsylvania grand jury report as hideous, disgusting and gravely sinful."  A Faithful Catholic.” 

My response:
I know that the "respectful", "supportive", "obedient", "accepting" posture toward the men in black, the ask-no-questions and do-not-judge position is what has fed the sexually deviant monster for years and years.   Abusers in the Church count on parishioners preference to not "rock the boat".

Jesus wouldn't have done that!  He'd have flipped the boat over.  Jesus knew well that:  "Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself will not stand...."   And what was he suggesting?

Jesus demolished "the temple" and rebuilt in three days.  AND WITH FAITH GOOD PRIESTS CAN DO THE SAME

This "house", let's identify as The Catholic Church must be divided to encourage its collapse so that The Body of Christ can bulldoze the debris, clean up the mess and rebuild. Lay people can fuel the wrecking ball but priests must do the real work.   Unfortunately,  there is a small "percentage of good priests" (you have grossly overestimated the % of 'good priests' -- sorry) that can effectively battle the evil inside these rectories and sacristies, only a small number of them have what is needed from The Holy Spirit to exorcise the demons that walk the aisles of our Churches.  And that is what I hope to encourage priests who read my letter to do.   The "good priest" must no longer be complicit or complacent!

The Good Priests must gird their loins and fight against corrupt bishops and pedophile "men of the cloth". 

Forget about their oath to obey their bishop!  That is a promise that has allowed the sex abuse in our Churches.

There must be:  "If you see something ... say something" practice within seminaries and places where priests gather.  Good priest must stop looking away.  And there must be a bounty on "the bad priests" heads!  These are the steps the Pope can take to save the Catholic Church.

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to Evelyn, 

I am ELCA Lutheran, not Catholic, but I am in strong solidarity with my Catholic siblings. We all need to work together to right this wrong. I'm not going anywhere. Leaving will not help solve the crisis. Working together will.

David VonSchlichten vonschlichten@setonhill.edu

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Christ never left me. It was the institutional church that left me

A theologian must begin their theological reflections always locating his/her self within the context of their reflections. The prompt for this reflection that we are invited us to explore together urges me to embrace vulnerability as a mode of authentic encounter and transformation. For this, I am thankful. This reflection is from my heart. It is not meant to sound academic. Truth has its own logic. This is my truth.

I came to the church in an unusual way. I was not born into the faith. I discovered the faith through my friends. The Eucharist and priests gave me the necessary directions I needed when I was at the crossroad of my faith journey. I was drawn to the Eucharist the first day I walked into a Catholic church in 1983. I saw that the people gathered in the church were eating and I wanted to eat that white ‘stuff.’ In the process, I encountered the priest and told him I wanted to eat the bread and be like him. I wanted to also become as happy as my parish priest. I decided to enter the minor seminary and become a priest like him in 1985. In 1992, I entered religious life. I continued to encounter wonderful priests who taught me how to love truth and the poor of our world. I also began to encounter priests who lied, lied, and lied and had lost their inner joy for what brought them to the priesthood. As I approached ordination, an event occurred at my community that called for standing for the truth and I did. I was told by some of my formators that for daring to do so, I was going to be ‘destroyed.’ I strongly believed that the truth will set one free. I had to leave religious life with a very bleak future. I began to suffer from depression.

I moved to the United States to seek a new life and perhaps seek ordination. Entering the seminary here, I realized I had lost all sense of peace and joy. I continued to experience a very strong sense of pain even while I was being formed for the priesthood in the United States. I was still in love with my religious vocation and did not see myself cut out for diocesan vocation. After leaving the diocesan seminary, I had to go for counseling and spent years doing that. I stopped going to church. Though I left the church, I continued to pray the rosary because devotion to Mary has a fundamental role in shaping my spiritual journey. Through counseling I began to understand myself and the church better. I realized that my love for God was the core of my being. My love for the church was what urged me to always seek ways that will make our church better. Above it all, I began to understand how my spirituality had been shaped by a very strong love for Mary, the Mother of Jesus.

           Many people do not know the story behind my first name. I was baptized Simon. I began going by SimonMary when I chose a new name in religion the day I was clothed with my religious habit. I chose Mary because in her I saw a woman who always looked around to see those not included and right the wrong against them. I am here thinking of the Wedding at Cana. She noticed that the hosts were running out of wine and that might bring shame to them. She intervened. All through my life, I have always had to intervene for the truth and for justice while taking the side of the marginalized. This has always brought pain and sorrow to my poor heart. 
It was the memories of my time in the church that led me back to the church. However, my time as an exile from the church taught me to abandon a slavish adherence to clericalism and toxic theologies that exclude others. I began to make a conscious choice for inclusivity. This has led me to embrace a theology of life that is grounded in truth, justice, and humility. Eighteen years after leaving religious life, I found my way back to my community but with a strong sense of self and decision to speak truth to the church always, because that is what my baptism calls me to do. It is not my place to lie for the church.

When the church sins, we must always call it out. Silence and secrecy are the two lungs the devil uses to breadth the air of discord into our church. I have seen religious, priests, bishops and even cardinals lie and pretend to be what they are not. These no longer scandalize me. My gaze is in Christ. My allegiance is with the spiritual church. The institutional church does not always get it. The scandal that continues to befall the church calls for a new vision of being church and that new vision must include the fundamental role of everyone in it. A church without women in its hierarchy will always be a sick church. A church that sees itself as exclusive will never be able to experience the breadth of our collective wisdom. May I conclude my story with a short prayer: Mary, Mother of the Church, transform and make holy again, your son’s church. Amen.

Simon Aihiokha,  aihiokhais@yahoo.co.uk

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From Linda Maloney, lmaloney@csbsju.edu

All the comments seem to be from those who have stayed, even through great difficulties. My approach has been different. I stuck it out for about 50 years before deciding there was no future in it for me, as a woman and a theologian with a strong desire to minister. There were two things that finally made me move: one was the lack of parishes in the East Bay in which I could stomach the liturgy and/or the preaching -- except for vibrant Black parishes that needed to stick with and nurture their own leadership. I was invited to a little Episcopal church where I found friends, women up front as well as in the pews, excellent liturgy, and fabulous preaching. Soon I was invited to join the preaching rota, and there I really found my voice.

   Good Shepherd Episcopal would have been perfectly content to let me go on worshiping and preaching there (and of course participating in the Eucharist as well!) without becoming a member. But then there was the other thing: the bishop came to visit, and the parish confronted him about our inability to celebrate the marriages of some couples in our church, namely, the gay and lesbian couples. Long story short, the parish and the bishop worked together to come up with a solution — long before the Episcopal Church got around to blessing such marriages, but this was one step on that path. I said to myself: aha! a church that works! And so I joined it. I did not cease to be Catholic; I did not change my theology or my spirituality, but I did sign on to what I regard as a better ecclesiology. And a few years later I became a priest of this church. Now retired, I find myself wildly in demand for "supply," because that early exercise in preaching, and subsequent work, paid off. Our people expect good sermons, and they usually get them.

  The Episcopal Church, too, had its crisis with clergy misconduct, but because of our different polity, we dealt with it pretty swiftly and with a certain degree of thoroughness. The laity just wouldn't put up with such behavior on the part of the clergy, and the church administration responded. The cynical take on our reform is that we are "a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church Insurance Corporation." The people in the pews who pony up for church expenses had no intention of paying enormous sums for settlements, on and on into the future. We had before our eyes the grim example of the RCC; case in point, the Diocese of Burlington (VT) had to sell its headquarters and move into rented space to pay the claims.

   Now, for a couple of decades so far, every clergyperson called to a new cure must undergo the "Oxford Background Check," paid for by the calling parish/diocese in most cases. We also have to do "Safer Church" training every five years. The Oxford is expensive and thorough. We also have disciplinary boards in each diocese, involving both clergy and laity, to deal with offenses or alleged offenses by both clergy and lay leaders.

   The hard part is that some clergy feel intimidated, and the worst of that is that gay men in particular consider themselves always under suspicion — less so if they are married, and now they can be, so that's progress. I'd recommend that the RCC think long and seriously about revising its stance on same-sex relationships and on the marriage of clergy in general. Having a married clergy will be more expensive in the short run, but if you save billions on abuse settlements it will be a blessing in the long run — quite apart from ending a great evil! The life of a parish priest is difficult, poverty-ridden, and lonely, all the more so now that there is fewer than one priest per parish in both our church denominations. Lonely people, if they are psychologically healthy, will seek good and supportive companions. The less healthy will probably find less-good ways of satisfying that basic human need.

   I recommend getting to know the Episcopal Church: see what works, what turns you off; make use of what's good to reform and renew the RCC. Tell us Episcopalians where you think we come up short. We'll all be better for it.