My dear friends in
Christ. You’re all aware I’m sure that
the next few weeks we’ll have the Republican and Democratic National
Conventions to chose the candidates for President of the
The Roman Catholic Church
has never considered itself a democratic institution. The Pope has called bishops to
I don’t know if you ever
read the National Catholic Reporter, or even heard of it. It’s a paper that is like a yapping dog. It’s constantly biting at the heels of the
institutional or hierarchical church. If
they like what the Pope does and says then they are all for him. If they don’t like what the Pope does and
says then they are against him. So they
doubt that Jesus meant the church to be as patriarchal as it is today. And so do many other people. When we consider the prominent women that are
mentioned in the gospels, in the Acts of the Apostles and the letters of
It is encouraging to me that
Pope Benedict has indicated that he intends to appoint women to positions of
influence in the Curia, that’s the legislative body, or the governing body of
the church. We might even see women as
cardinals in our lifetime. At one time
in the church lay people could become cardinals. Pope John XXIII changed that that only
bishops could become cardinals but any Pope can change that and lay people
again could become cardinals. One of the
most famous lay cardinals was Cardinal Antonelli in the last century who was
Secretary of State for the
It’s kind of ironic that John
XXIII was the one that changed that because by and large he is considered kind
of a liberal pope but in actuality he wasn’t.
He tightened a lot of things in the church.
Assuming that the church has
correctly read Jesus’ mind in continuing it’s hierarchical structure, and I
think we have to assume that,
You know, we should really
be content in being followers because it does not necessarily mean that we are
completely passive members of the Body of Christ. We can be and we should be active members of
that body. Now if you are going to be a
leader it means you have to have at least one follower. There is no reason to obsess about leadership
and spurn follower-ship because focussing too much on leadership is not only
misguided, it is mistaken.
Just think if we depended on
everything on the President of the
You can go all through
history. You can just think of the
American and French Revolution. Their
rallying cry was “Workers of the world unite.”
The 20th century civil rights and women’s movement, they all
came from the ground up. Each of these
movements was about the redistribution of powers from those higher up to those
lower down. That trend has not
ceased. We have abundant evidence in
modern times to believe that followers matter more now than ever.
We’ll just take one of the
great scandals in the Catholic Church, the sexual abuse cover-up that
unfortunately some bishops allowed to happen.
It was the people who rose up against that and the bishops had to
reconstruct all kind of guidelines and had to be more careful in what they were
doing. They might have been
well-intentioned in time trying to defend priests but in the same token you
can’t cover-up a crime and misdeeds.
Increased follow power is
not only about toppling ineffective leaders but sometimes we even have to
circumvent them. When I think of
follower-ship I think of the great volunteerism that goes on not only in this
country, not only in the Catholic Church, but in our own parish. Now it stands to reason that when you have
5000 to 7000 people in a parish you can’t all come together at one because you
start trampling each other. But there is
always an opportunity to do something, to be a real follower in the sense of
being an active member of the church.
You’ll be reading in the
bulletin now about the Parish Get-Together and how important that is for the
parish, not only financially but socially and spiritually. There we can do positive things. Every member, all 5000 to 7000 can do
something. I notice there was for
instance a request for baskets, so if some people don’t have them and they do
things, make things for the church, and they need baskets. There is an opportunity the bulletin says to
see chances. Do all kinds of
things.
Certainly money is a part of
the reason for this because we know we can’t operate a family and we can’t
operate a church, we can’t operate a parish without financial means.
One of the holiest, at least
one of the most prayerful women I ever met.
I knew her quite well said to me, “You know Father.” Out of the clear blue sky she said this to
me, “You know Father, you’re nothing without money.” And I thought, what a curious statement but
when I analyzed it, you know it’s true.
You know you can go to a gas station and they’re not going to give you
$50.00 worth of gas free. You can go on
and on and on, so you see how important that is. She is such a prayerful lady that I thought
that this had to be an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in her words because there
was so much wisdom and so much truth in it.
One of my favorite quotes
are from an Austrian author named Franz Kotsu.
He lived from 1883 to 1924. In
one of his writing he said, “Even the merest gesture is holy if it is filled
with faith.” “Even the merest
gesture.” Sometimes we think what we do
is insignificant or not important but even the merest gesture, even bringing a
basket for the parish festival is important.
There is abundant evidence
of course of the follower power as I said.
There are all kinds of movements in the church today. There is what we call the green movement,
ecology. There are all kinds of programs
for the ethical treatment of animals even.
There is gender prejudice. All
those things have people marching and parading and doing something positive so
that people enjoy their rights.
The anti-abortion movement
has been strongly supported by the hierarchy but the intensity of that movement
is due for the most part to the passion of its followers. It’s the lay people who go out and protest
and throw up lines around abortion centers and so forth that do so much to help
people who are facing very tough decisions in pregnancy.
Food shelves that are so
important to the poor, especially today.
They are generally operated completely by lay people. We can just take Caring and Sharing Hands
that have its beginnings, at least quite a bit of its beginnings in this parish
and continues to do great work to help people, it’s mostly lay run. They have some nuns now, just sisters that
help, but my and large it’s run by the laity.
Not all followers are alike
of course. Some subordinates go along
mindlessly while others are completely committed and actively involved. A wit once said, “There are three kinds of
people. Those who make things
happen. Those who watch things happen. And those who wonder what happened.” Lets not be people who wonder what
happened. Let’s do things.
The considerable attention
that Jesus gives to the training of His disciples makes it clear that He does
not want passive disciples. St. Paul,
using the metaphor of the body emphasizes that every member has a part to play
in the live of the Body of Christ. We
all know that dead, lifeless members do not contribute to the proper
functioning of the body but in fact they can sometimes be a burden and a
hindrance to it. So we can’t be passive,
and we are not passive if we are a praying and sacramental people, if we are a
kind and charitable people.
And as we celebrate the
Eucharist today we declare ourselves united to Jesus and to each other in
making God’s love a reality in the world around us. And we can make that love a reality by the
kinds that we show, the activity that we show, and the interest that we have in
bettering humankind and in serving Christ better.