Recognizing and Resisting the Sifting
by Fr. Roger Landry - April 2, 2010
Today the whole Church somberly meditates on the Passion of the Lord Jesus. We focus anew on how the chief priests of the temple and others plotted to get him killed: how they put Jesus on a mock trial, suborning lies and intentionally taking statements he had made out of context to frame him not only for blasphemy but for sedition. We see how they recruited and whipped into a frenzy a mob to choose the murderer Barabbas over him and to amplify their calls to have Jesus crucified. We witness how Pontius Pilate, even though he knew that the chief priests were framing a totally innocent man, washed his hands of the situation for personal and political expediency. And we see how many of the Roman soldiers, in their squalid spiritual state, took sadistic delight in torturing, mocking and crucifying a good man who had done nothing wrong. Today is a day in which we witness, in all its ugliness, the evil of which man is capable.
Jesus, however, had repeatedly warned his followers that what they did to him, they would also do to them (Lk 21:12-17). For that reason, on the night he was betrayed, Jesus turned to Simon Peter and said, "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift all of you like wheat, but I have prayed for you [in particular] that your faith may not fail; and when you have turned again, you will strengthen your brethren" (Lk 22:31). Jesus wanted Simon Peter in particular to know that the evil one would seek to shake the Church to its foundation not just through getting people to become unconscious collaborators in the crucifixion of the Son of God but through a deliberate attack on Peter. This is why Christ prayed in particular for Peter, that his faith may not fail and that he might strengthen the faith of his brothers and sisters.
Satan's game plan hasn't changed. To sift the Church like wheat, he seeks to go after Peter and his successors, the living rock on whom the Church of Christ is constructed and the source and sign of unity in the Church. As Church history amply attests, if the papacy is weakened, the whole Church is weakened. Occasionally Satan has triumphed in debilitating the papacy through the personal moral weaknesses of popes. On other occasions, when he has failed to make the pope fall inwardly, he has sought to replay a page out of the playbook he used to bring an Innocent Man to crucifixion on Good Friday.
This is the largest context in which to view the recent campaign of attacks on Pope Benedict. Just as with the framing of Christ, it begins with some facts that are then totally taken out of context, to pretend as if the future Pope were really guilty of something terrible. Next there is a summary verdict of adversarial experts long convinced a priori of the accused man's guilt. Then the mob is roused to paroxyms, so that they will join the leaders in calling for the person's head. Finally the clamors become so loud and the anger so strong that even those smart enough to recognize that the leaders are plotting to lynch an innocent man wash their hands of the situation lest the mob turn on them, too. All of it begins, however, with mendacity, which is exactly how the "father of lies" (Jn 8:44) always begins.
We print on page 4 of this edition a formidable article by Fr. Raymond de Souza about the coordinated campaign by the New York Times, an interested lawyer and a disgraced prelate to manufacture a story to make Pope Benedict appear more concerned with a priest who abused 200 deaf boys in Wisconsin decades ago than with justice for the boys themselves. Please study it, not just for the facts involved but for the method.
Those methodological observations will help you to decipher a similar campaign being waged by German publications, insinuating that the future Pope Benedict was personally involved in reassigning an abusive priest during his tenure as Archbishop of Munich-Freising.
Just as with the New York Times, the German publications first describe the despicable things that the priest in question did in another German diocese before coming to Munich, so that every reader begins with (totally justifiable) outrage. Next the publications make a weak and tendentious connection to the Cardinal Ratzinger, establishing that the priest was given permission by the Archbishop's office to live in Munich while undergoing treatment. Then the publications note that the same priest was given permission to return to duty in the Archdiocese of Munich where he abused again — which only adds to the righteous indignation — with the suggestion that Cardinal Ratzinger must have known all that we know now about the priest in question and callously enabled him to continue to use his collar to abuse children. The fact that the-then vicar general of the Archdiocese of Munich-Freising released a statement admitting he alone was totally responsible for the judgment calls in question did not matter. The fact that the time line shows that Cardinal Ratzinger was already in Rome for four years before the terrible decision was made to allow the priest to resume pastoral duties did not matter. The story line had already been chosen and they were determined to continue to portray the future pope as holding a smoking gun, the facts notwithstanding.
Why would the New York Times and other publications choose to engage in tabloid journalism of this sort, and many other news media just echo the same pseudo-historical fiction? It's much more than a desire to sensationalize in order to sell newspapers; if that's all it was, there are many more well-documented scandals of politicians, famous athletes and Hollywood celebrities upon which to focus. It seems to be much more than a desire simply to try to attack a big name or institution, which is an historically-proven path toward Pulitzers.
It seems to be an attempt — conscious in some, unconscious in others — to destroy the Church's moral credibility by trying to portray her leaders as scoundrels rather than saints, as hypocrites rather than heroes, as people evidently unworthy to be believed or followed. Such an attack on the Church would weaken the ability of the Church to mount a potent defense against various editorial priorities that the Church will always vigorously oppose, like "reproductive rights," or "marriage equality," or various of the other euphemisms for particular evils secular elites desire. As George Weigel wrote in an op-ed earlier this week on First Things online, "The narrative that has been constructed is often less about the protection of the young (for whom the Catholic Church is, by empirical measure, the safest environment for young people in America today) than it is about taking the Church down — and, eventually, out, both financially and as a credible voice in the public debate over public policy. For if the Church is a global criminal conspiracy of sexual abusers and their protectors, then the Catholic Church has no claim to a place at the table of public moral argument."
None of this is to imply that all criticism of Pope Benedict, of the Vatican, or of the Church hierarchy is illegitimate and part of an effort to impair the Church. Pope Benedict is not, nor ever has been, morally infallible and obviously could have made disastrous judgment calls. None, however, is in evidence. Likewise, the whole structure of the Vatican, and ultimately the Pope, should be legitimately held responsible for the selection and supervision of bishops, several of whom failed in their elemental episcopal duty to protect Christ's lambs from wolves. But there's a world of difference between constructive criticism that seeks to help the Church become truer to the Gospel, and the destructive, even diabolical attacks that aim to damage or destroy the Church.
Satan continues to seek to sift the Church like wheat by attacking the successor of St. Peter. All Catholics should join Christ in praying for Pope Benedict, that his faith may not fail and that he may continue courageously to fulfill his office of strengthening us all.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
