Articles
Faith or Institution?
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Not that we have dominion over your faith, but are fellow workers for your joy; for by faith you stand. (2 Cor. 1:24)
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In 2018, a Pennsylvania grand jury released a report on sexual abuse by Catholic priests across the state. The report identified over a thousand children who had been victims of abuse by over three hundred priests.
For Salena Zito, a Washington Examiner news reporter, this news was hard to take. Growing up as a Catholic herself, she was personally acquainted with at least one of the abusive priests. The revelation was a shock to her faith. She wrote, “I will stand by my faith — a faith that has guided and shaped me at my core and is difficult to square with the corrupt institution that allowed sick men to steal my classmates' lives and then facilitated them to do the same elsewhere.” (Read the full article here.)
We can relate to Zito's struggle to maintain her faith in the face of a failed leadership. We, too, have experienced the bitter disappointment of seeing preachers, elders, or other spiritual stalwarts commit grievous sins in violation of the very standard they profess to defend.
However, as much as we appreciate Zito's determination to cling to her faith despite her disillusionment, we must ask: faith in what? What if the faith IS the institution? Catholicism insists that the Church--meaning, the organization built around a highly centralized hierarchy of command-and-control--is the sole means of access to God. It is the Church that makes and enforces the rules. It is the priest--in some cases, the same priest who is abusing little boys--through whom one must confess sin in order to be forgiven. It is only through loyalty to the Church that one can approach God.
"But," someone might counter, "our faith is in something higher and holier than the corrupt institution." Fine, but that raises an obvious retort: Why do we need the institution?
Authentic Christianity is not an earthly institution, but a personal relationship between each individual and his or her Savior. The role of the church and its leaders is not to mediate that relationship, but to nurture it. In the end, each one of us will be judged based on our fidelity to the Lord, not loyalty to a human system of domination.
If we cannot "square our faith with the corrupt institution," then one or the other needs to go. At least on this point, Zito has it right: "I will stand by my faith."
--David
