More than once since the Chapter 11 announcement, I’ve been asked, “With so many challenges and obstacles, how will we continue the church’s mission here in the Archdiocese of Baltimore?” This earnest question deserves a good answer, an answer found in the Advent and Christmas seasons we’re celebrating.
But let’s begin with this.
The challenges facing the archdiocese are formidable. With the passage of a new Maryland law, we expect a flood of lawsuits for civil claims arising from sexual abuse committed in the past by church representatives. Filing for Chapter 11 provides a path to compensate financially as many victim-survivors as possible and to continue the mission and ministry of our parishes, schools, charities and the support services offered by the archdiocese itself. The process will be difficult, but it was deemed the best available way forward, as I explain in more detail elsewhere (see bit.ly/aob_america).
Along with this is the challenge of reengaging members who no longer practice the faith. Some are angry, others are indifferent. Many young people are disaffiliating from the church, some while still in elementary school.
And all of us could pile on all kinds of other problems and challenges we are facing. How indeed shall we continue?
At the outset of his papacy, at a time when the universal church was facing immense problems, St. John Paul II wrote in his first encyclical, “How and in what manner should we continue?” He answered, “Our spirit is set in one direction, the only direction for intellect, will and heart is – toward Christ our Redeemer, toward Christ the Redeemer of man” (“Redemptor Hominis,” 7).
So too, Pope Benedict XVI reminded us that being a Christian is not merely a matter of following a code of ethics but rather results from an encounter with a person – the person of Christ – who gives our lives its direction and a horizon of hope.
In the same vein, Pope Francis wrote about encountering Christ and the joy of evangelizing, a church that goes forth, not hiding or shrinking from challenges, but embracing them in openness and love to all.
During Advent and Christmas, the church’s liturgy re-presents a fact of faith. By sending his Son into the world, conceived in the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary, God definitively intervened in our world, in our history and in our lives. “The word became flesh and dwelt among us.” Becoming one of us, Jesus, though without sin, embraced every facet of our lives, uniting himself in some way with each person, and offering redeeming love and hope for every time, place and culture. St. Paul teaches that Christ “is before all things” and that “in him all things hold together” (Col 1:17) while the Book of Revelation celebrates Christ as “the Alpha and the Omega” (Rev 1:18).
In a word, God is with us in Christ Jesus, Emmanuel.
If we believe this to be true, our problems, divisions, challenges, weaknesses and sins will not automatically disappear, nor will we be absolved from addressing them forthrightly, resolutely as we journey together in this phase of the history of the Premier See. But we will most assuredly stumble and fall if we fail to unite with one another in professing the Name above every other name and in begging the Holy Spirit to shower upon us the redeeming love of the Savior, who loves us and who gave his life for us (see Gal 2:20).
At Christmas, when you peer into the crèche, see not only the image of a baby but indeed the Lord of History, the Eternal Son of God, in whom we find life, joy, hope and salvation. May our hearts be set in one direction!
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