Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   EDITORIAL Friday, April 09, 2004 150,000 and more put aside scandals, embrace beacon of hope A recent Catholic News Service story reported that more than 150,000 persons across the country will join the Catholic Church this weekend at the Easter Vigil Saturday night. The figures, which come from the U.S. Bishops’ Secretariat on Evangelization, do not reflect the more than one million infant baptisms expected to take place in the nation’s nearly 19,000 parishes this year. As Easter nears, it is appropriate to reflect that, as a church, we have endured our own passion. Like our Savior before us, though in a far different context, we have been bloodied, bruised, and beaten in the court of public opinion, perhaps more so in the past few years than in the past 500. It has been a difficult time of retrenchment and self-analysis as we have sought to root out the great evil of clergy sex abuse of minors from our midst. Some among us have despaired as to whether the Church can ever again be the influence for good in our society that it has been in generations past. Can we, many have asked, overcome these scandals? Do we retain any credibility within the American populace? In response to that question, consider this. In the midst of every possible bit of negative news imaginable about the Catholic Church in America, pasted across the pages of newspapers and repeated endlessly on the nation’s television screens and radio dials in the past few years, more than 150,000 persons have chosen to become Catholic this very week. More than 150,000 persons have moved beyond our all-too-visible failures as a Church to embrace what we have to offer to seekers: Word and sacrament, Real Presence and unchangeable Truth. This is all the more remarkable when one considers that joining the Catholic Church these days is no mere matter of attending a service or two before signing a membership form. Those who wish to join their local Catholic parish must participate in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) process of prayer, study and discernment, a lengthy process which lasts many months. Becoming Catholic in our era, then, is no mere whim of the moment. To do so reflects a serious desire to embrace a Church whose traditions stretch back 20 centuries and more. In that time, we have had our share of saints and sinners, from the humblest peasants to the throne of Peter. In every era, we have stumbled and fallen, endured innumerable tragedies and celebrated countless triumphs as we have struggled to bring the unadulterated Gospel to peoples around the globe. We have been, in every age, a haven of grace for the downtrodden, the powerless, those without hope, and those drawn to embrace the Cross and the highly counter-cultural message of Jesus Christ. It is a message which we have never diluted in an effort to attract more members or increase our popularity among the masses. Numbers alone never tell the complete story. This week, however, America’s bishops and average Catholics alike can take comfort in the knowledge that, even in the midst of our darkest scandals, the Catholic Church remains a beacon of hope to so many. If Catholicism has been battered by the repeated negative news of recent years in this country, which it has, and if Catholicism needs to continue the work of healing those who have been gravely injured by the mistakes of priests who have betrayed their vows, as it must, these new statistics remind us that our human mistakes can only slow the good work that God will bring to fruition in His people. Let us welcome into our midst this weekend with special joy, then, those who have completed the challenging journey through the RCIA process and who now stand ready, tomorrow night, to make a public commitment before their faith communities, sealing with their words this decision they have embraced with their hearts. May their energy, enthusiasm and commitment give all in the Church renewed cause for optimism. These 150,000 and more are tangible evidence, Jesus Christ be praised, that the Lord will never forsake his Church. — Lou Jacquet/Editor   Back to Exponent Menu Printer Friendly Page   Other Articles of 2004   Democrats’ consideration of modified abortion stance welcome   Coach’s dismissal gives some insight into America’s psyche   Arafat’s death an opening, but Middle East peace remains elusive   The presidential campaign: ‘A pox on both their houses’?   150,000 and more put aside scandals, embrace beacon of hope   When Catholic schools close, parents must shoulder some of the blame   Jews, Christians respect one another across great divide of faith   Latest ‘civil war’ pits defenders of marriage against courts   Civility in short supply as nation faces a barroom brawl   Catholic publications ‘speak truth to power’ nationwide, up north   Past Articles From 2003