Dear Friends,
Social media and network news all covered an event in Washington this past week where a group of
Catholic High School students were in a confrontation with two different groups protesting at the Lincoln
Memorial as they waited for their bus to pick them up and take them home. Each side in the confrontation played
a role in making the situation much worse than it should have been. But what was even more disturbing were the
negative comments in social media and network news, on both sides of the spectrum, about the high school
students and the Native American drum player. Some of the comments were quite ugly.
I am regularly shocked by people’s judgmental comments online about these kind of events. Shocked
because of people’s willingness to make a judgement about the situation without having been present or knowing
anyone involved, but I am even more shocked because of the self-righteous approach rather than an attitude of
care for others and a humility about themselves.
Hopefully, Christianity is teaching something different. Hopefully, those young men at the Lincoln
Memorial learned through the encounter. As Christians, we know we are all sinners. We all fail. We do not
stand above others, but admit that we may have harmed others in our own attitudes and actions. That admittance
of our sin is the first step in changing the world. If the church is to speak to our society and challenge it to be
better, then it can only do so by being humbly aware of its own limitations and shortcomings, rather than trying
to speak as if we had some kind of flawless purity.
A starting point for repentance means taking seriously the pain of those who have suffered because of
our sinfulness or the sinfulness of others. Theologians have referred to the life of Jesus as a “dangerous
memory”. The Christian practice of remembering the shocking death of Christ leads to a community of memory
that preserves the Christ-like suffering of those who have been victims of the violence of others. The memory of
Christ’s death, and the memories of all innocent victims, are “dangerous” in that they challenge current systems
of dominance and oppression. This is the constant teaching of Pope Francis in regard to immigrants and the poor
and how the world needs to open their doors to them. As some theologians have said, “To remember the losers of
history is a negative awareness which demands that their suffering not be in vain but, rather, that it motivate
efforts to build a future that is characterized by freedom and the vanquishing of such suffering.” God’s solidarity
with all victims of suffering and oppression assures the final, still unrealized, deliverance of the victims.
Knowledge of our past mistakes can lead to change and is therefore seen by the Church as a good thing –
as Good News. We come to know that we are forgivable, and with God’s help, can be better, more loving,
people. Acknowledging our failures is the grace of God at work; for we come to know ourselves and our God in
an ever deeper way. To say that we are sorry, does not make us less. It brings us closer to God.
I suppose some of the hype this week came from the fact that the high school boys came from a Catholic
School. Similar to the reaction of people to the failure of the bishops to protect children from priests who abused
them, when the Church fails it seems to be worse. Years ago, the theologian Karl Rahner wrote about why it is so
much worse when the Church fails as an institution, “the church can be sinful in a way in which she alone can be
sinful…for she alone can distort by her sin the eternal visible presence of Christ in the world which she is and so
wrap a shroud about him – and do this in the face of men who must seek him as a matter of life and death.”
When the Church sins it makes it harder for people to find Jesus and to hear about the Good News he has for
them.
May we strive to be witnesses of the truth Jesus brings and be willing to go humbly into the human
community; for when we, Christians, fail it is possible that we are keeping people away from God.
Peace,
Fr. Damian