HE NEVER PROMISED US A ROSE GARDEN

The  Church  has  been  a  special  challenge  to  us  all,  especially  me.   The  priest  sex  cases  are  a  terrible  stumbling  block  for  millions.  And  I  struggled  to  find  a  parish  which  would  sponsor  --  give  us  a  meeting  room  for  --  un-programmed  Bible  study.   If  no  priest  or  deacon  is  avaible  to  mentor  the  Bible  study  in  a  hands-on  way,  all  the  Church  will  tolerate  anymore  is  watching  television  --  watching  Bible  study  experts  giving  recorded  speeches.

Respecting  the  priest  sex  cases,   Father  Judge  High  School  --  my  high  school  --  in  the  early  1970s  was  one  of  the  first  cases  to  hit  the  headlines  with  news  of  cases  involving  sexual  abuses  in  our  era.  The  football  coach,  Mr.  Degnan,    and  a  priest  named  Fr.  Robert  Hermley  were  arrested  for  sharing   male  students  between  themselves.  I  at  first  had  trouble  believing  Philadelphia  Bulletin  and  Inquirer  descriptions  of  case  after  case  in  the  Phildelphia  area,  but  I  finally  became  a  "believer,"  when  it  dawned  on  me  that  no  one  is  going  to  falsely  volunteer  that  he  dropped  his  pants  and  bent  over  for  a  priest,  in  the  hope  of  winning  money  in  a  lawsuit.  Such  a  life-changing  admission  just  isn't  worth  it.

I've  tried  to  talk  to  priests  about  the  whole  phenomenon,  but  there  seems  to  be  a  general  policy  of  silence  on  the  subject  in  place,  consistent  with  diocesan  offices'  dishonest  denials  and  settlement  payments  in  return  for  silence  --  an  overall  policy  of  endless  stonewalling  with  explosive,  highly  destructive  results.

Damage  to  the  Church  from  the  phenomenon  seems  massive.   I  have  been  looked-at  like  I  am  crazy  when  I  tell  people,  "I  am  Catholic."

During  this  time,  I  fell  in  love  with  the  Bible  and  with  Bible  study.  I  ran  Bible  study  for  about  15  years  at  St.  Gregory's  Church  in  Magnolia.  The  pastor  tried  to  derail  our  group  a  few  times,  but  failed.  (There  were  about  30  of  us  in  the  group,  too  many  to  disrupt  easily.)  Finally,  he  simply  banned  us  from  the  church  premises  just  before  a  new  pastor  took  over,  as  though  sorely  embarrassed  at  our  utterly  orthodox  program.  (The  pastor  used  to  sit  in  on  the  sessions,  waiting  for  doctrinal  errors  to  crop  up.  Once,  when  I  said  that  Mary  "died"  before  her  assumption,  he  thought  he  had  me  and  he  stood  and  accused  me  of  "heresy"  in  public,  to  the  Bible  study  group.    I  privately  read  to  the  pastor  the  verses  from  the  assumption  encyclical  verifying  that  Pope  Pius  XII  affirmatively  taught  that  Mary  "died," using  that  word  in  the  official  Vatican  translation,   and  he  privately  acknowledged  his  error.)  For  several  years  I  searched  for  a  parish  interested  in  Bible  study,  without  success.   Lying  was  the  chief  tool  used  to  put  me  off  while  I  paid  my  parish  envelope --  "Pete,  I'll  meet  with  you  next  week ..."  "Pete,  I  have  to  break  my  appointment ..."  One  pastor  broke  his  appointment  about  18  times.

So,  why  do  I  call  myself  "Catholic"?

Well,  first,  Christ  foreshadowed  a  few  times  that  the  Church  would  generate  evil.  He  said  to  Peter,  5  minutes  after  appointing  him  head  of  the  Church  ("You  are  Peter  and  upon  this  rock etc."),  "GET  BEHIND  ME,  YOU  SATAN!"  When  Peter  tried  to  walk  on  water  he  succeeded  for  a  few  seconds  and  then  sank  in.  Sinking  into  water  is  a  typological  symbol  of  being  sinful.  (Remember  the  story  of demonically  possessed  pigs  drowning  themselves.)  And  then  Peter  denies  Christ  3  times  shortly  AFTER  a  clear  warning  to  him  that  he  would.

Also,  in  2  Thessalonians  2  Paul  warns  of  "the  apostasy"  to  precede  the  end  of  time.  Since  Paul  was  surrounded  by  "apostasies"  at  the  time,  Bible  commentators  assume  that  Paul  is  referring  to  something  enormous.  In  our  current  day  and  age,  vocations  have  plummeted.   Millions  whose  faith  has  been  made  cold  by  the  media  generally  and  the  sex  cases  in  particular  are  leaving  the  Church  annually.  Catholic  schools  --  the  Church's  biggest  evangelizing  tool  --  and  churches  are  shutting  down  everywhere.   I  believe  that  we  are  experiencing  "the  apostasy"  --  what  our  Fundamentalist  brethren  refer  to  as  "the  great  falling  away"  --  right  now,  as  I  write  this.

Nonetheless,   Christ's  purpose,  in  giving  us  an  imperfect  Church,  and  in  predicting  its  sins  and  through  Paul  its  eclipse,  was  to  prepare  us  for  the  future,  not  to  de-commission  the  Church.  It  has  to  do  with  the  nature  of  the  sacraments.  The  sacraments  can  operate  despite  the  imperfections  of  the  Church,  even  in  the  process  of  collapse,  despite  our  era's  ignorant,  mean-spirited  priests.  The  sacraments  are  a  generous  gift,  by  God,  of  shortcuts  to  salvation,  administered  by  His  officially  commissioned  organization,  the  Church  --  as  easy  as  it  can  get.  I  have  no  interest  in  leaving  the  "salvation  machine"  established  by  Christ.

I NEEDED A GYNECOLOGIST FOR MY EAR

Years  ago,  the  virulent  disease  MRSA  entered  our  house.  I  was  last  in  the  family  to  get  it.  It  nearly  killed  me.  The  powerful  antibiotics  given  to  me  at  the  hospital  to  save  my  life  killed  every  germ  in  my  body.  When  that  happens,  it  opens  the  floodgates  for  mold  infections  --  unaffected  by  antibiotics.  Suddenly,  I  had  a  wicked  ear  infection.

Dr.  Todd  Schachter,  DO,  our  family  doctor,  referred  me  to  an  ear,  nose  and  throat  specialist  in  Voorhees,  New  Jersey.  The  latter  doctor's  treatment  dragged  on  and  on  and  on,  for  week  after  week.  I'd  come  in   for  my  appointment,  shell-out  my  deductible,  bend  my  head  sideways  for  carefully-administered  eardrops,  and  go  home  with  cotton  in  my  ears  and  a  prescription  for  ear  drops  at  home.

When  this  went  on  for  3  months,  I  became  suspicious.  Was  the  ears,  nose  and  throat  specialist  just  running  up  the  tab?  I  had  listened  carefully  when  he  said  that  I  had  a  Candida  albicans  infection  in  my  ear  --  a  common  yeast  infection.  I  checked  the  label  on  my  ear  drops  --  the  concentration  of  anti-yeast  medication  was  1%  of  that  if  my  wife's  vaginal  medication.  I  thought,  "WHAAAAAAT?"

So,  I  put  a  single  dab  of  vaginal  yeast  medication  of  a  cotton  swab,  spread  the  medication  in  my  ear  canal,  and  slept  on  it.

The  next  day,  my  Candida  infection  was  cured.

One  day  after  that,  I  had  my  appointment  with  the  ear,  nose  and  throat  specialist.  "Huh!"  he  said  as  he  examined  me,  "Your  infection's  all  gone!  How?"  As  though  he  knew  that  it  shouldn't  have  been.

When  I  told  Dr.  Schachter  the  story,  he  burst  out  laughing  and  said,   "I  should  have  referred  you  to  a  gynecologist."