The Church Will Not Be Saved by Bureaucrats Who Think Everything Must Change
There is a peculiar mistake common among modern people: when they discover that the Church is full of sinners, they conclude that Christianity has failed. This is rather like discovering that a hospital is full of sick people and concluding that medicine does not work.
The Church has never claimed to be an association of perfect people. She has claimed something far stranger: that God has decided to entrust His perfect truth to extraordinarily imperfect people. Those who find this implausible should look at the Apostles. Peter denied Christ. Thomas refused to believe his friends. James and John quarreled over who would get the best seat in the Kingdom. Judas managed the finances — which, in retrospect, may have been an unfortunate appointment. And yet Christ began with them. That is probably the first reason why I would not worry too much when someone points out that popes, bishops, and pastors say strange things. The Catholic Church has survived worse.
The revolution within the Church is peculiar because it is almost always carried out by people who insist that no revolution is taking place. The old-style revolutionary at least mounted a barricade. The modern revolutionary takes a seat on a committee. He does not say: "We will change the doctrine." He says: "Of course the doctrine does not change; we are simply going to apply it in an entirely different way."
This is how it goes. The liberal sees mercy and forgets judgment. The rigorist sees judgment and forgets mercy. The revolutionary sees change and forgets continuity. The reactionary sees continuity and forgets that living things grow. The orthodox believer sees something else: the Church must be simultaneously unchanging and alive; she must simultaneously obey and resist the abuse of authority; she must be simultaneously universal and particular; she must simultaneously defend Peter and permit Paul to withstand Peter "to his face."
The modern answer is always: we must devise something new. The Catholic answer is usually: we must rediscover what we have forgotten. If Catholics no longer know their faith, give them the catechism. If priests no longer know what the priesthood is, give them the Mass. If bishops forget that they are successors of the Apostles, remind them that nearly all the Apostles died as martyrs and not as chairmen of a synodal commission. If the liturgy becomes banal, make it sacred again. If morality becomes blurred, speak clearly again. If young people no longer find anything worth dying for, finally give them something worth living for.
What then of Rome? One need not believe that every thought of a pope has fallen directly from heaven — not even when he is sitting in an airplane. Nor need one believe that the Church ceases to be Catholic the moment a pope does something unwise. How do I know this? Know your Church history.
The Pope is not the successor of Jesus but of Peter — just as Pope Leo is not the successor of Pope Francis but of Peter. We believe that a divine institution can be governed by human beings who sometimes make extraordinarily human decisions. This is not an argument against Catholicism. It is an argument for Catholicism. For only an institution that truly comes from God could survive two thousand years of its own clergy. The Church will not be saved by those who continuously cry that all is lost. Nor will she be saved by bureaucrats who think everything must change. She will be renewed in the same way she has always been renewed: by saints.
It is sometimes forgotten that Francis of Assisi did not reform the Church by writing a document on ecclesial renewal. He became a saint. Teresa of Ávila did not organize a congress on contemplative participation. She prayed. Thomas Aquinas did not make the faith relevant by making it simpler. He thought more deeply about it. And Philip Neri knew something we sometimes forget: that a person can be entirely orthodox and still laugh. That may even be a sign of orthodoxy.
Christ said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the Church. He did not say the gates of hell would make no noise. And it sometimes seems as though the devil in particular has a very good communications department. But the Catholic knows something the devil constantly forgets: the Church does not belong to us. She belongs to Christ. That is extraordinarily good news — especially for bishops. We do not need to save the Church. We simply must not betray her. We do not need to reinvent the truth. We simply need to hand it on. We do not need to build a new Christianity. We simply need to become Catholic again.
And when someone asks me whether I have hope for the future of the Church, I would answer: of course. Not because I place my trust in ecclesiastical commissions, sociological predictions, or strategic policy plans. But because on Easter morning the tomb was empty. And that is, as far as I know, still the most important piece of news ever reported.
