What Credibility Does Anyone Have?

I've been thinking about this a long time, and it seems whenever I do, something new happens that just increases it.  As a culture, we seem to enjoy smugly holding up people's past mistakes as reason to tell them they have no credibility, sometimes on completely unrelated issues.  The message, you did something bad, so you have a duty to keep your mouth shut and go along with everything you see, even if you think it's wrong.

The most blatant example of this is most obviously in attacks against the Church.  People claim left and right that the Catholic Church is this judgmental institution labeled as everything from homophobic (which as a relative of people with REAL phobias I find truly insensitive to their plight) to an unscriptural whore of Babylon (ironic that we're called unscriptural when it was the Catholic Church that assembled the books that now make up the Bible).  To bring down this judgmental institution, they love to bring up our past faults, completely blind to their own judgmental finger pointing.  If I had a penny for every time I heard the Church had no right to speak out on issues like abortion because of the sex abuse scandal, a tithe from me would probably fund my parish's entire operational budget.  But is it the sex abuse scandal, the abuse of children that truly concerns these people?  Is what they're saying that the Church has no credibility because of abuse of children, but that we'll somehow gain credibility by being silent on the daily slaughter of thousands of children daily?  Or do they just simply hate the Catholic Church's teachings?  If so, they should be delighted whenever there is scandal within the Church, as every scandal throughout our 2,000 year history has come not when we lived up to Catholic teaching, but when we fell short of it.  I know this is true of myself.  I'm not embarrassed over the rare occasions that I've managed to let go, let God and live up to my beliefs as a result.  Now the times I've messed up, the times I've failed, yes, the times I have greatly sinned, those make for some embarrassing, horrifying, heartbreaking and disgusting stories.

This judgmental attitude is of course not only directed at the Church from outside, but also from within the Church at non-Catholics and fellow Catholics alike.  One of the people I follow on Facebook is Abby Johnson, who, for those who don't know, is a former director of a Planned Parenthood facility.  One day, by the grace of God, she walked away from it, unable to continue on with what she was doing.  God had reached in, changed her heart, and has now made her one of the more outspoken voices in defense of the unborn.  She runs a ministry called, "Then There Were None," which helps people who are leaving the abortion industry to find work.  I never met her, but her story inspires me as a true example of God's mercy and His ability to bring about change within people's hearts.  When I read recently on her wall that there were people claiming to be Christians saying that abortionists and women who had abortions deserved the same fate as their victims, I was filled with a mix of emotions - annoyance, rage, pity, sadness - that after two millennia, we still don't get it.  I mean, who among us has not sinned?  Who among us truly deserves to walk this earth with its abundant beauty and natural treasures?  Who really has the right to cast the first stone.  Yes, we are called to make a proper judgment of actions, but we are not called to judge the state of a person's soul, as only God knows.  Our actions can be disgusting, but our deep down, intrinsic, unchangeable value as children of God never goes away.  I was once told the Church has the best self esteem program around that could be summed up in a couple sentences.  You are a child of God.  There is nothing so good you could ever do to deserve it, and nothing so evil you could ever do to change it.  Imagine for a moment if we separated the sin from the sinner, and instead of saying, "That person is scum because [insert sin here]," we shouted in alarm, "That child of God is poisoning his/her soul with [insert sin here]!  Warn that person and offer prayers for his/her conversion!"

This thinking that has been swirling around in my head was solidified yesterday at Mass as I was listening to the readings.  The first reading has Isaiah standing before the very presence and glory of God, and realizing his sinful state, he laments, "Woe is me!  For I am a man of unclean lips!"  When his lips are made clean, not by his own efforts, but by the grace of God, represented by an ember, God asks, "Whom shall I send?"  Isaiah responds, "Here I am.  Send me."  By today's finger pointing, I suppose we should say of Isaiah, whose book is one of the longest in the Bible, "What place does he have saying so much, that man of unclean lips?  He should just shut up instead of prophesying like he does."  The second reading has Paul talking about the commission given to the Apostles, and he mentions his own unworthiness.  This is fitting, as before he became a Christian, he persecuted and was responsible for the jailing and killing of many believers.  What credibility did he have?  Maybe he deserved the same fate as he gave to so many other Christians.  In the Gospel, Jesus begins calling men to be his Apostles, and asks Simon, son of John, to cast his nets out for a catch.  Simon, who has been at it all day, says he hasn't caught a thing all day, but does as Jesus says.  After catching a major haul, he begs Jesus, "Depart from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man."  Even after he joins Jesus, he says and does a number of stupid things, always putting his foot in his mouth, recklessly rushing with a single sword to try to fight off the crowd that has come to arrest Jesus, and finally denying Him three times that same day.  This is Peter?  Cephas?  The rock on whom Jesus builds His Church?  But surely he lost that station when he denied Christ three times, as I've seen claimed by some fundamentalists, right?  Some even claim the first "papal encyclical" was, "I don't know him!  I don't know him!  I don't know him!"  But read on, because it appears they missed something.  After the Resurrection, what was it that Peter said, not on his own, but with Jesus' prompting?  "I love You.  I love You.  I love You."  After each time, Jesus gives him a command, a responsibility to carry out, a commission that on one hand could be looked at as authority, or on the other as a duty to serve...or perhaps both.

The point is we're not doomed once we sin and fall short of the goal.  We have to get up and try again.  We're also not absolved from speaking out against immorality, injustice and sin in general just because of our own sins.  In fact, it is often the most sinful God calls to be the greatest saints.  Peter, Paul, Augustine, Francis, Mary Magdalene, and a host of others.  The Church is not some social club for those who have reached perfection and can now suddenly join now that they are pure.  The Church is a refinery, where people are in the process of being purified of their sins, and living in New Jersey and having driven through industrial areas in places like Newark, I know what refineries can smell like.  There must be the constant reminder that those who may appear better or worse than we are also have to go through that purification.  I sometimes get a spiritual inferiority complex when I'm around other people at Church, or wonder, "What if they saw my soul and my sins?  What would they think?"  That thinking is actually just as judgmental as considering myself better than others because I might not have some of the sins they have.  Considering the fact that in some ways it doesn't give credit where credit is truly due, it could even be considered idolatrous.  After all, if they have fewer sins and are more advanced in virtue than I, isn't it by the grace of the same God I turn to in order to overcome my own sins and advance in virtue?  And if they happen to see where I've fallen short, I pray they'll have the courage to call me on it.

One final thought that might not be a popular reminder, but it has to be said anyway.  At a time when "the 1%" are demonized in the media, they too are children of God.  Jesus had something to say about the 99 and the 1, and we would do well to heed it, for He would leave the 99 to bring back the 1 lost sheep.  And when that lost one is brought back, there is more rejoicing than over those who had no need of repentance.  I've had many times when I've gotten lost, and Jesus has brought me back every time.  Though I don't deserve it, Heaven rejoices over the likes of me.  I am a repentant sinner.  I am the 1%.