Cosmos-Liturgy-Sex

Most people probably have heard the very sad news about an assistant chaplain at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center in Champaign so I will not rehash them here.  I am particularly close to this situation.  I know Fr. Layden fairly well.  We have worked together on many projects and he was an associate of our Institute.  This perhaps makes me unqualified to offer perspective.  However, that has not stopped me before.

From the moment when I arrived at about 0645 on Thursday morning and received the news, the situation has been somewhat surreal.  We began the week still on an emotional high, having just dedicated a $40M new building and renovation project of an existing dorm, expanding our dorm capacity to almost 600 students and opening a new school of theology.

The frictions that come from working in close quarters for several months, from the stress of trying to get finished in time for the start of school, and from when one’s own aspects of the overall mission seem to be more important than the other guy’s and he is getting the needed resources, all of these disappeared and a renewed unity again showed forth as we all came together for last weekend’s celebration.  The end of the week brought us crashing down from the heights when the alleged sins of one of our trusted leaders and friends was revealed to us and the rest of the world at the same time.

I say sin because that is what it is.  Hopefully, we all realize that priests are sinners too.  That is not to excuse his alleged actions.  Certainly cocaine addiction is not like alcohol addiction in that the initial choices that lead to this must be much more deliberate and are in themselves, sinful.  This is perhaps the part that makes the public revelation of the sin more difficult.

Another source of pain is the backhanded compliment which comes from the press when a priest is held up to greater scrutiny and ridicule for his sin than almost anyone else because of his failures.  The failures get much more airtime than the good deeds.  That is to be expected.

However, the coverage exacerbates the shock, sadness, and disbelief that comes when one who leads us, who stands beside us, and who encourages us while we work together to spread the gospel to a disbelieving and cynical world is branded as a hypocrite.  I often wonder what the difference is between a hypocrite and a sinner.  I suppose one thing is that the hypocrite dares to publicly profess the truth; otherwise, he could not be branded as such.  Another is that the hypocrite’s sins must become manifest to be labeled one.  A third is perhaps that a hypocrite, if he is authentically one, is so because he has not yet acknowledged and begun his attempt to repent and turn away from his sins.

Fr. Layden preached the truth, but no one knows if Fr. Layden can be called a hypocrite.  This is of course, the question that is on the minds of the news media.  It is the question on the minds of some of our students.  It is not clear how to answer this question.  However, it seems to me that this is not an important question.  The question I suggest arises from Satan’s temptation against the possibility of living a pure life after the manner of Jesus Christ. He claims that those who would dare to witness to this message cannot do so themselves and so are not to be deemed credible.  It is also clear to me that this apparent success on Satan’s part, is again becoming the catalyst for his undoing.

It appears to me that most of our students have dismissed this question as irrelevant, as it is.  Our students have begun to come together to offer prayers for healing and reparation, students and staff have instituted weekly fasts for the same purpose, the students have spontaneously begun to say the St. Michael prayer after Mass.  The unity that began with feelings of joy and accomplishment at the beginning of the week has begun to take deeper root in a solidarity borne in shock, sadness, and concern for our fallen spiritual father and Christian brother, but one that is nourished by faith.

We are again reminded that our faith may be strengthened by our brothers, sisters, and spiritual fathers, but our faith ultimately is in no man.  We believe in the Father, Creator of heaven and earth who always keeps His promises.  We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, Who suffered and died to win these promises for us.  We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of life who brings us all to His grace: the fallen and the repenting.

St. John, pray for us!