Book Review: Papal Teaching on Private Property – 1891 to 1981
Mark Shea had a response to some of the anti-Catholicism in the recent Church scandal, mainly the idea that an Institution must be wrong if its leadership is sinful. It reminded me of Tolstoy:
…”What about you…You preach very well, but do you carry out what you preach?” This to me is the most natural of questions and one that is always asked of me; it is usually asked victoriously, as though it were a way of stopping my mouth. “You preach, but how do you live?” And I answer that I do not preach, that I am not able to preach, although I passionately wish to. I can preach only through my actions, and my actions are vile…And I answer that I am guilty and vile, and worthy of contempt for my failure to carry them out.
At the same time, not in order to justify, but simply in order to explain my lack of consistency, I say: “Look at my present life and then at my former life, and you will see that I do attempt to carry them out. It is true that I have not fulfilled one thousandth part of them [Christian precepts], and I am ashamed of this, but I have failed to fulfill them not because I did not wish to, but because I was unable to. Teach me how to escape from the net of temptations that surrounds me, help me and I will fulfill them; even without help I wish and hope to fulfill them.
“Attack me; I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side?! If it is not the right way, then show me another way; but if I stagger and lose the way, you must help me, you must keep me on the true path, just as I am ready to support you. Do not mislead me, do not be glad that I have got lost, do not shout out joyfully: ‘Look at him! He said he was going home but he is crawling into a bog!’ No, do not gloat, but give me your help and support.”
I am still wading through it all. But the Church needs to stop being so defensive. This act is tired…
Note: This quote is why I don’t get involved in the mudslinging of the MSM on most issues. Sure, Obama uses a teleprompter sometimes (As does Palin, unless she is using her hand). But to criticize that is not criticizing the causes which he supports that I strongly oppose, and it really says nothing about the underlying framework of big government programs or anything else I disagree with him on. So just a hint, and one I wish journalists would take more often: Don’t attack the man; attack the ideals… If you wish to criticize the Church, attack its ideals and we can defend them. But attacking the leadership’s sin is something else entirely…