Faith remains in the church; leadership not so much

I write to commend Elizabeth Bruenig for her fine analysis of the laity’s loss of trust in Catholic bishops because of the failure of their recent conference meeting. As she says, they not only failed in attempts to make further changes to deal with the abuse crisis, but more generally have a history of promising reforms and then failing to correct those bishops involved in actual abuse.

Yet I want to suggest one correction and a more important criticism.

She asserts that the Vatican has remained “airily removed” from this summer’s reports. I’d say we just don’t know yet what is happening in the Vatican, and especially about what Pope Francis is trying to do.

My larger criticism concerns her views about the faith of folks in the pews. She’s right that recent revelations have shocked even the staunchest so called “orthodox” Catholics. And it is true that many will leave the Catholic Church. Yet it is important to note that Catholic faith is not fundamentally faith in “the Church,” meaning faith in the priesthood and in structures of leadership, but faith in God and the Christian Creed, and above all faith in the Gospel. The leaders are not the Church, only an important part of it. And they are certainly not “the faith.”

Bruenig suggests that the faithful can leave the Church behind, “if anyone has the moral fortitude to simply walk out.”

I believe that her statement slanders those of us who have the “moral fortitude” to stay in the church. Neither my faith nor my trust are in the institutional Catholic church; rather, both are in the one who started the church.

Bruenig unfairly accuses the Catholic bishops of refusing to address the sex abuse scandal. In fact, most dioceses have been addressing it since the early 2000s or earlier, and our Denver Archdiocese has been foremost among them.

In fairness to the U.S. bishops, their attempt to take action was put on hold by the Vatican, which intends to deal with the issue at a February gathering in Rome.

This has to be settled justly and honestly, and not in a hasty “heads have got to roll” fashion.