• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Catholic Review

Catholic Review

Inspiring the Archdiocese of Baltimore

Menu
  • Home
  • News
        • Local News
        • World News
        • Vatican News
        • Obituaries
        • Featured Video
        • En Español
        • Sports News
        • Official Clergy Assignments
        • Schools News
  • Commentary
        • Contributors
          • Question Corner
          • George Weigel
          • Effie Caldarola
          • John Garvey
          • Father Ed Dougherty, M.M.
          • Guest Commentary
        • CR Columnists
          • Archbishop William E. Lori
          • Rita Buettner
          • Christopher Gunty
          • George Matysek Jr.
          • Father Joseph Breighner
          • Father Collin Poston
          • Robyn Barberry
          • Hanael Bianchi
          • Amen Columns
  • Entertainment
        • Events
        • Movie & Television Reviews
        • Arts & Culture
        • Books
        • Recipes
  • About Us
        • Contact Us
        • Our History
        • Meet Our Staff
        • Photos to own
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
        • CR Media platforms
        • Electronic Edition
  • Advertising
  • Shop
        • Purchase Photos
        • Books/CDs/Prayer Cards
  • CR Radio
  • News Tips
  • Subscribe
The dome of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican is framed by trees June 14. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Getting real about our challenges

October 25, 2018
By Greg Erlandson
Filed Under: Commentary, Guest Commentary

Tracking the Catholic zeitgeist these days can be a dizzying experience. It helps to have a sense of history, and perhaps a sense of irony as well.

Once upon a time, it was liberal Catholics who were upset at the pope, who wanted more democracy in the church, who railed against the Curia and wanted a return to forgotten practices like the election of bishops by the priests and people of the diocese.

Today we have conservative Catholics upset at the pope, wanting more democracy in the church, railing against the Curia and wanting a return to forgotten practices like the election of bishops by the priests and people of the diocese.

A friend of mine has commented on the strange turn of events where liberal publications are now defenders of the papacy and conservative publications publish a steady drumbeat of criticism. A few decades ago, renegade bishops became heroes to some progressives. Now a renegade papal nuncio is a hero to some conservatives.

And all of this is occurring against a backdrop that unfortunately hasn’t changed — news reports of sexual abuse, accusations that a pope is not taking it seriously, divisions among bishops and between bishops and Rome.

Maybe this is business as usual, but it is surely wearying.

We are facing serious problems, there is no doubt, but they aren’t just the problems getting the headlines.

That some priests, most but not all of them from years ago, violated their vows and committed grievous sins against young people is undeniable. Equally undeniable is that the majority of priests have done no such thing and still deserve our respect.

That some bishops — through cowardice or bad advice from lay lawyers and lay counselors, or cruel insensitivity and personal corruption — moved abusers instead of removing them or tolerated sinfulness so as to avoid scandal, there is no doubt. That there were bishops who did the right thing, who called a sin a sin, who might even have risked their episcopal careers to do so, there also is no doubt.

And while there are Catholics who are planning to boycott bishop appeals and parish collections as acts of protest, such gestures don’t hurt the wicked.

They hurt Catholic schools and hospitals and aid organizations. They hurt the priests who show up at hospitals to comfort the dying, who say Mass and hear confessions and also raise money from stingy parishioners to run complex and expensive parish plants. They hurt bishops who are increasingly forced to be more CEOs than shepherds and who are being scrutinized and second-guessed every step of the way.

We do face great challenges, all of us.

The church is still in the midst of an epochal change it does not fully understand. Laymen and laywomen need to be more fully incorporated into the life of the church to do the work at hand, and there is much work to do.

We need to know how better to hand on the faith to the next generation. We need to know how best to encourage vocations that will stick. We need to know how to evangelize a hurting world that has lost its faith and lost its way.

We need a church that recovers what it means to be a family, a family that can disagree and argue passionately about things, but also that loves one another.

We need most of all to be missionary witnesses: showing the world that knowing and loving Jesus makes all the difference. And if that is not true for us now, then that is our biggest problem by far.

– – –

Erlandson, director and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service, can be reached at gerlandson@catholicnews.com.

 

Copyright ©2018 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Print Print

Primary Sidebar

Greg Erlandson

Greg Erlandson is the director and editor-in-chief of Catholic News Service. He writes the CNS column "Amid the Fray."

View all posts from this author

| Recent Commentary |

Question Corner: Burning or burying sacramentals? And why use holy water?

Centered on Christ

Resolution Revival: Assemble a team to get back to your goals

Happy Chinese New Year! Welcome to the Year of the Rabbit (7 Quick Takes)

How is God like a flyswatter? (answered by ChatGPT and a human)

| Recent Local News |

Mercy delivers Magic show in ‘Classic’ victory over Maryvale

Catholic Charities assists in counting Baltimore’s homeless population

Gov. Moore’s budget cuts BOOST, proposes phase-out of scholarship program

‘I love you, Papa!’: Maryland Catholics recall encounters with Pope Benedict XVI

RADIO INTERVIEW: Catholic Charities of Baltimore

| Catholic Review Radio |

CatholicReview · Catholic Review Radio

Footer

Our Vision

Real Life. Real Faith. 

Catholic Review Media communicates the Gospel and its impact on people’s lives in the Archdiocese of Baltimore and beyond.

Our Mission

Catholic Review Media provides intergenerational communications that inform, teach, inspire and engage Catholics and all of good will in the mission of Christ through diverse forms of media.

Contact

Catholic Review
320 Cathedral Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
443-524-3150
mail@CatholicReview.org

 

Social Media

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent

  • Mercy delivers Magic show in ‘Classic’ victory over Maryvale
  • Former priest Frank Pavone, head of Priests for Life, faces sexual misconduct allegations
  • Analysis: As GOP primary season nears, will pro-lifers embrace Trump or hold out for a new hero?
  • Mission begins by meeting Jesus in the Scriptures and Eucharist, pope says
  • Catholic Charities assists in counting Baltimore’s homeless population
  • Bishop’s heroic crusade against America’s suicide epidemic is personal
  • Gov. Moore’s budget cuts BOOST, proposes phase-out of scholarship program
  • Ukraine’s religious leaders renew invitation to pope to visit Kyiv
  • ‘I love you, Papa!’: Maryland Catholics recall encounters with Pope Benedict XVI

Search

Membership

Catholic Press Association of the United States and Canada

Maryland-Delaware-DC Press Association

The Associated Church Press

© 2023 CATHOLIC REVIEW MEDIA, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED