July 20, 2007
Dust
Jesus sent out the original twelve two by two with a commission to show folk a better Way and to show daemons the door.
He charged them “to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics.” He said that if anybody wouldn’t join them in walking their talk, then “to shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them” (Mk 6.7-9,11b).
A couple of thousand years later of what some think of more or less as apostolic success, some of that dust has come home to settle out in Los Angeles. The RC church has had to fork over 660 million bucks from its archdiocesan belts to 500 folk who’ve claimed sexual abuse by clergy. The Cardinal apologized “to anyone who has been offended, to anyone who has been abused.” To any of you 500 who haven’t been, I suppose, take the money anyway and run. We’ll even give you one of our spare tunics to remember us by.
It’s been a long walk since that’s worn out lots of sandals, and those originally empty belts have somehow got mighty full. Holy Image of Caesar! Where’d all that cash come from?
Money surely brings comfort to the church’s surviving victims, but the report on all this claims that the full truth and accountability has yet to be satisfied. It’s like a phony sacrament, the outward and visible signs minus the inward and spiritual realities. Three years after that historic meeting of the RC bishops out in Dallas resolving to set their house in order, the spirit of openness, humility, and reconciliation has failed to take root. But of course, as any of us churchers know, they’re not alone.
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