Personal call to holiness a necessary response

By Peter Finney Jr.
Clarion Herald

It’s 2020.

Pandemic, Chapter 11, more hurricanes than the English alphabet can handle, and, for all we know, locusts lying in wait in a muddy crawfish hole somewhere south of Pointe a la Hache.

It’s easy to understand why Catholics in the Archdiocese of New Orleans see nothing but plague and pestilence.

Oct. 1 was about as bad as it gets for our local church. On that day, Archbishop Aymond removed two respected pastors from ministry – one following his admission that he had sexually abused a minor in December 2013 and the other following his arrest on charges of obscenity with women inside a church.

Such revelations can crater even deeply held religious beliefs and practices, and they extend far beyond the local Catholic community, which is reeling and gasping for breath.

Sexual sin between adults inside a church is horrific, as is the sexual abuse of a minor by a trusted, authority figure who represents the church. As pro-life Catholics, we affirm human life and dignity, only to be confronted with the sobering reality that a young person’s life may have been destroyed through the actions of a priest.

The fact that this was the first case of clerical sexual abuse of a minor in decades in the Archdiocese of New Orleans is no solace.

The lay faithful are hurting. Priests are hurting. The wounds are deep.

The devil is alive.

Father Colm Cahill, a young priest with energy and savvy who serves as director of vocations for the archdiocese, isn’t afraid to verbalize how bewildering the last three weeks have been for him and his brother priests.

Asked if his “morale” and the morale of his colleagues had been affected by the shocking revelations, Father Cahill thumbed through the Oxford dictionary for a definition of morale: “The confidence, enthusiasm and discipline of a person or group at a particular time.”

“Is my confidence low right now? Yes, it sure is,” Father Cahill said. “It is becoming harder and harder not to feel very insecure in this Roman collar. It is difficult to say that I work in administration and vocations at the archdiocese, in some way responsible for the screening, vetting and selection of candidates for the priesthood.”

What he is clinging to now are those second and third descriptions of morale.

“I believe what is called of me right now is an unwavering level of discipline and enthusiasm in the face of shaken confidence,” Father Cahill said. “Should I find myself unable to be enthusiastic and disciplined in ministry, then that is a grave matter that needs reflection and remedy. Am I the right person for this ministry?”

Sometimes we look for facile answers and make sweeping generalizations, he said.

“My bad day, month, year or pandemic is not my morale,” Father Cahill said. “I don’t speak of some false optimism or ignorance of factors that discourage me, but rather a level of dedication that despite waves, storms, scandals and heartbreaks keeps fixed on the path of what the Lord has invited me to do.”

Knowing how much his brother priests had been affected, Archbishop Aymond gathered with them last week for prayer and frank talk about what has happened. He called for a day of atonement, prayer and fasting on Oct. 23.

It can be boiled down to this: The devil is alive, and if anyone has any doubts about that, open your eyes.

Father Cahill is praying for God to keep him “enthusiastic” and “disciplined” in God’s “vineyard as my confidence is restored.”

“God is faithful,” Father Cahill said. “My examination of conscience has recently become a simple question: ‘Am I faithful?’”

That, in a nutshell, is what all Catholics can do right now: Look within.

If there is anything to be gained from facing evil in the face, it is a personal examination of conscience and how each of us can grow in holiness. We know what the obstacles to living a life of holiness are. The challenge is to have the humility to admit what needs to change.

Father Cahill’s call for a personal examination of conscience is crystallized in an African-American spiritual that speaks directly to our 2020 existence:

It’s me, it’s me, it’s me O Lord/ Standin’ in the need of prayer;

Not my father, not my mother, but it’s me O Lord/ Standin’ in the need of prayer.

Not my brother, not my sister, but it’s me O Lord/ Standin’ in the need of prayer.

In the wake of these scandals, now is the time for us to plead: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

We pray for victims. We pray for priests. We pray to remain faithful, in 2020 and beyond.

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