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To those who would sniff derisively at the Catholic Church
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote an interesting op-ed piece called Who Can Mock This Church? (New York Times, May 1, 2010).
It’s a tough read in the sense that he makes some rather pointed statements about the church’s sex abuse scandals and a church teaching or two. But, his message is that those who wish to “sniff derisively” at the church as a whole ought to first take a look at the “brave souls” who work tirelessly, and many times in very dangerous situations, to live truly the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Among the fine examples is Sister Cathy Arata, a nun from New Jersey. Kristof writes:
Photo by Nicholas D. Kristof/The New York Times. Sister Cathy Arata, a nun from New Jersey who now works with a Catholic project called Solidarity With Southern Sudan.
In the city of Juba, I met Cathy Arata, a nun from New Jersey who spent years working with battered women in Appalachia. Then she moved to El Salvador during the brutal civil war there, putting her life on the line to protect peasants. Two years ago, she came here on behalf of a terrific Catholic project called Solidarity With Southern Sudan.
Sister Cathy and the others in the project have trained 600 schoolteachers. They are fighting hunger not with handouts but with help for villagers to improve agricultural techniques. They are also establishing a school for health workers, with a special focus on midwifery to reduce deaths in childbirth.
At the hospital attached to that school, the surgeon is a nun from Italy. The other doctor is a 72-year-old nun from Rhode Island. Nuns rock.
Sister Cathy would like to see more decentralization in the church, a greater role for women, and more emphasis on public service. She says she worries sometimes that if Jesus returned he would say, “Oh, they got it all wrong!”
She would make a great pope, too.
Check out the full article and let us know what you think. What challenges you about the article? What insights popped into your mind?
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Thank you Sister Julie for sharing an article I would not have seen otherwise. I am grateful to Mr. Kristof for acknowledging the selfless work of priests and nuns throughout the world. There have been investigations of allegations of abuse in my area and people are leaving the Church. They forget that it is not the Church we worship, it is Jesus. My faith and my love are for Jesus. It is stories like that of Mr. Kristof that shine a light on Jesus’ commandment to love others. To truly live the gospel we must do as Mother Theresa said, ordinary things with extraordinary love. This is exactly what these priests and nuns are doing and they should be held up as an example to the world of what the Catholic Church is really about. God bless you Sister Julie and all other priests and nuns who do wonderful work for the love of Christ.
Nicholas Kristof’s column brought me back to my first 2 years in seminary when, within less that a year, first, in March 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero and later, in December of the same year, 4 US women religious workers — Maura Clarke, Jean Donovan, Ita Ford, and Dorothy Kazell — were murdered by members of the El Salvadoran government-sponsored death squads. The deaths of these 5 martyrs were 5 whose names we knew amidst the thousands of El Salvador’s poor who were brutally murdered by that country’s government during its long civil war. I learned from these 5 deaths what true discipleship really could cost. I was young — barely 30 — and barely 5 years a Roman Catholic, having converted at age 25 from Reform Judaism via radical politics. What the murder of Archbishop Romero taught me was that no one who speaks truth to power is safe from the worst those powers could do. What I learned from the 4 US women was that Christ’s disciples looked like me, looked like us — my sister- and brother-seminarians. And I know that at the Memorial Mass held at St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Cathedral for the 4 women (3 members of religious orders & 1 lay worker), most of us who attended from the seminaries were asking ourselves, “Am I called as they were? Is Christ calling me to that love, to that justice, to giving that much?” Knowing my friends as I did, I suspected that most, if not all of us, weren’t sure, however, we were open to saying our “Yes” to Christ.
Now, nearly 30 years after that Memorial Mass, one of my best friends, and the friend with whom I cried that day, has been ordained for over 25 years and has spent most of those years teaching and counseling in Lima, Peru. He ministers with members of one of the most economically depressed neighborhoods in Lima. He loves his ministry; he loves the people, especially those who are poor, because their faith inspires him every day. While we were in seminary, he risked his life when he spent 3 weeks during Lent in an El Salvadoran refugee camp in Honduras, helping to protect the refugees from the Salvadoran army that would cross the border and try to kidnap people to force them into the military. He does all of this because he chooses to follow the “new commandment” that Jesus gave to His disciples; we heard it in today’s Gospel reading from John: “Love one another as I have loved you.”
Had Nicholas Kristof gone to Lima, Peru and met my friend, he would have found another priest who is truly serving the People of God. And I know that my friend is one of hundreds, if not thousands, of priests, nuns, sisters, and lay persons who are living this same discipleship.