Good Friday

I was at a standing room only funeral for a Catholic priest the day Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was elected to the Papacy. The deceased had been the pastor at my father's parish. Eight months before Father W.'s death from a sudden heart attack, he sat with us one late September afternoon at St. Mary's Hospital while my father lay dying from a stroke he had suffered just that morning. Father W. stayed with us until Dad died, a great kindness.

I never saw him again after Dad's funeral, but attending Father W.'s own funeral was a way of bearing witness to his gift of himself to our family that September afternoon. Just before the final blessing, a priest slipped a note to the bishop who was presiding at the Mass; Detroit's cardinal, of course, was in Rome for the papal election. The bishop broke into a big smile and announced, "Habemus Papam, we have a Pope! But we don't know who it is yet!" The congregation clapped and cheered, an odd occurrence at a funeral, but one that Father W. would have enjoyed.

Five years later, the arrogant behavior of the man who was elected Pope that day and the institution he leads has restarted the nightmares I suffered for many years. I have personally experienced the flabbergasting hostility and arctic chill of the Church closing ranks against children who were abused while in its care, particularly when those children return as adults to finally tell their stories. (In my case, two decades later.)

No wonder I feel that Christ's assertion, "Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?" doesn't apply to me.