Bishop Bernard J. Sheil in 1953

In one of his colorful narratives, Catholic author Eddie Doherty describes how he explained the “divine origin of the Church” to a gathering of Hollywood people in the early 1940s.

A starlet complained to Doherty that she had left the Church because of a priest who acted without much holiness. Others in the group agreed with her, but Doherty told the group that a bishop who was a friend of his had explained that bad priests were proof of the “divine origin of the Church.” The Hollywood folk were puzzled, but Doherty explained what his friend the bishop had meant by that curious statement. Doherty’s friend happened to be Bishop Bernard Sheil of Chicago, who had founded the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) that entertained many of us who attended parochial schools in other decades.

Through the centuries, there have been bad priests, bishops who acted in shameful ways and even Popes that no decent person would invite to his or her home, Bishop Sheil had said. More damage had been done to the Church from within its membership throughout history than from its enemies, and yet none of its truth or luster had been tarnished. The Bishop said, “Doesn’t that prove the divine origin of the Church?” It can have scandal, and yet it continues because it was founded by Jesus upon the Rock that is Peter.

Pope Benedict XVI ordered an investigation of the Legion of Christ last month. The order’s founder, Father Marcial Maciel,  died at 87 in 2008. Two years before,  the Pope had ordered Maciel to leave the ministry and to spend the rest of his life “in prayer and penitence” after allegations of pedophilia, homosexual acts and an illegitimate child with a mistress. The investigation now in progress will look into allegations against other Legion of Christ members.  

No doubt there are many who will look at the scandal of Father Maciel and leave the Church or take his case as a symptom of a sick, flawed institution. Neither should be the response from faithful Catholics. Despite sinners and depraved members in ministry or in the pews, the Church is still of divine origin. It will continue today as it has yesterday and as it will tomorrow–from the Alpha to the Omega.

Satan gains more from tempting those within the divine Church founded by Jesus Christ than he does from tempting those outside it. Let us offer a prayer for the healing of the victims of the Church’s scandals and for the forgiveness of those who commit monstrous acts while representing our Church.

St. Therese of Lisieux

Newspaperman Eddie Doherty’s autobiography, Gall and Honey, details his career and his return to the Catholic Church after an absence of many years. One of the books that began to turn him back to God was The Story of a Soul, St. Therese of Lisieux’s slight volume of spiritual writings.

Eddie, the tough son of an Irish cop in Chicago, had covered crime and corruption for decades. There was nothing he hadn’t seen, but the Little Flower’s writings left him in awe. He speaks of the power of the words written by “a little nun freezing in her cell.”

Thomas Merton also found himself amazed when he read this simple little book. He had not wanted to read it because he feared it would be sentimental claptrap. He was wrong. In his diaries, he refers to St. Therese as “the greatest of saints.”

I had avoided reading The Story of a Soul for many of the same reasons that Eddie Doherty and Thomas Merton had avoided it: fear of sentimentality. For better or worse (usually worse), I tend to cast a jaundiced eye on treacle and sap. My sister, who cries during gushy TV commercials, could never understand why I didn’t find chick flicks and novels about doomed romances worth a good cry.

After finishing Doherty’s autobiography, the Holy Spirit led me to the copy of The Story of a Soul that was on our bookshelves. I had always loved the photographs of St. Therese, whose sweet smile spoke of a sweet nature, but  disliked the paintings of her by her sisters,  who made little Therese look like a Victorian postcard or a Gibson Girl old beyond her age. (In fact, the edition of St. Therese’s book that I read has one of those paintings on the cover. Luckily, a photo of Therese in her habit faces the title page.)

St. Therese’s writings are simple, yes. They speak of her “Little Way,” of frail souls who are the “little flowers” in a garden that may be dominated by beautiful, stately roses.

“Striking deeds are forbidden me. I cannot preach the gospel; I cannot shed my blood, but what matter? My brothers do it for me, while I, a little child, stay close beside the royal throne and love for those who are fighting.”

The closer she is to her early death of tuberculosis at the age of 24, the more she distills the entire essence of the Gospels and theology into one concept:  love. This young girl who didn’t see much of the outside world knew so much about the rich interior world of the soul that she always deserved the honor of being named a Doctor of the Church.

St. Therese couldn’t read theology very well, she fell asleep at prayers and often performed the most basic duties at the Carmel. It was her deep, elemental understanding of God and His love that made her a saint.

Because of her spiritual strength, she was tortured by periods of darkness and silence. She heard demonic voices asking her how she knew God loved her:

“When, weary of being enveloped by nothing but darkness, I try to comfort and encourage myself with the thought of eternal life to come, it only makes matters worse. The very darkness seems to echo the voices of those who do not believe and mocks at me: ‘You dream of light and of a fragrant land; you dream that the Creator of this loveliness will be your own for all eternity; you dream of escaping one day from these mists in which you languish! Dream on, welcome death: it will not bring you what you hope; it will bring an even darker night, the night of nothingness!’”

Where is the sentimental claptrap in that? This young girl was a spiritual warrior, as battle-hardened as a gladiator, a Hun or a Viking. She knew the dark night and lived in it despite her youth. Eddie Doherty, Thomas Merton and I could recognize the bravest soldier in this frail little girl.

St. Therese would have been only 32 when she was canonized in 1925. Pope John Paul II made her the only Doctor of the Church during his Pontificate.  Great men with swords or intellect cannot help but marvel at St. Therese’s grasp of the nature of God.

The last word of The Story of a Soul and of her earthly life are the same:  love. How many of us couldn’t hope to die with the same word on our lips?

St. Therese wrote that her mission was to call sinners back to God. More than a century after her death, she continues her work. Read The Story of a Soul and see why St. Therese truly is the greatest of saints.

"Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane" by Sebastiano Conca

Cradle Catholics can remember the naive view we held our our religion when we were children. Being Catholic meant the anticipation of First Communion, the dread of confessing to our parish priest that we had indeed snatched forbidden candy, eating fish on Friday and the conviction that every nun was at least six feet tall.

We grew up and Catholicism changed for us because we changed. It may have become something to rebel against in our teens or something that continued to be a part of our lives out of habit.

At some point as we matured, we confronted what it really means to call oneself a member of one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Surprise:  Catholicism demands a lot more of us than eating haddock on Friday. Being truly Catholic means drinking the cup Jesus offers in Matthew 20.

To follow the example of Jesus, we must risk being scorned and laughed at by the secular world. We must resist the temptation to behave in the unethical ways considered good business or “I got mine” by society. We must navigate a culture that rewards lewdness and mediocrity while it takes the easy way out of problems via divorce, abortion, anti-depressants or illegal drugs.

We drink the cup that others pass up when they refuse to forgive, when they judge harshly and when they mock God. We drink deeply from a cup that is sometimes filled with gall and at other times with honey. (Gall and Honey is the title of journalist Eddie Doherty’s biography that I’m reading now; the title is a wonderful metaphor for the bitter and the sweet in our lives.)

Sometimes we ask God not to offer us the cup, as Jesus did at Gethsemane: We also say, as Jesus did, ”Yet, not as I will, but as you will.” We find that our drinking the cup is His will even though it may be gall on our tongues. The cup is the sacrifice offered to us in return for eternal life, but it’s a hard draught sometimes. We may fall in a trap of thanking God when the cup has honey and cursing Him when it’s gall, yet He offers us both according to His divine will.

I once had a co-worker who belonged to a Christian church that had social activities all during the week. There were singles groups, youth groups, senior groups, dances, picnics, concerts and more fun than a carnival midway. The church advertised its services on a billboard near my house. Against a photo of a woman at the beach with her arms behind her head, the billboard read “We want you to feel comfortable.”

I couldn’t imagine why God would want any of us to worship Him feeling as if we were propped up in an easy chair sipping iced tea. When did Christianity become a religion for wusses? It’s no surprise that my co-worker proved herself a coward when the opportunity to be brave was presented to her.

Catholicism that is muscular and can overcome the world requires drinking many bitter cups. It’s not for those seeking an earthly La-Z-Boy. We work to be better, we fail, we get up again, we fall, we repent, we ascend Mount Carmel with St. John of the Cross and a whole host of saints and sinners asking to be saints.

Being Catholic is difficult, but there’s nothing else I would rather be. When we’re Catholic, God is for us and, if He is, who can be against us?

What will separate us from the love of Christ? Will anguish, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or the sword?

As it is written: “For your sake we are being slain all the day; we are looked upon as sheep to be slaughtered.”

No, in all these things we conquer overwhelmingly through him who loved us.