\u2026made timely again by the various calls from various sectors for us to do penance and pray for the Church in this hour of monstrous scandal:<\/p>\n
Doing Penance for Others<\/p>\n
A reader asks:<\/p>\n
\nMy question is, and I am asking you in email because I just am not sure how to word it to pick-up the right stuff through site searches, how are we as Catholics (or Christians in general if that is a more correct way to put it) supposed to feel about sins that we have not committed? One of the priests at our parish spoke about the pedophile scandals and how we should confess our sins (and he said it like that \u2013 sounding like it implied we should as a group ask for forgiveness as Catholics for these terrible crimes) and seek forgiveness for allowing this to happen. Even though I think that these are horrible, awful, abominable events, and pray for both those who have been damaged by these sins, and as difficult as it is, those people who committed these sins, don\u2019t exactly feel responsible for doing this myself so am having a hard time wrapping my head around repentance for the sins of others. I have sinned in a multitude of other ways but do I need to carry the burden of other people\u2019s sins as well? Do I need to ask forgiveness for this myself? Are we supposed to ask forgiveness as Catholics even though we individually didn\u2019t have anything to do with it? I really want to be thinking right on this and am confused about it or maybe the language used is just going right over my head. I can be dense but am super confused about this and am sincerely trying to understand as the Church teaches. Even if we can offer acts of penance as reparation for the sins of others (knowing that everyone is a sinner, or even in the circumstance of offering reparation for those who have entered into a specific sin,) we can\u2019t actually repent for anyone but ourselves can we?<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
The notion of doing penance for others is a tricky one, particularly when those others are fellow Catholics who have wronged us by their sin and especially when those others are, in fact, the very priests who have been entrusted with the Tradition that bids us to do penance for others.\u00a0 It\u2019s incredibly easy for the guilty parties to use such things as penance as a sort of tool for dissolving their actual guilt for actual sins in a sort of collective pool of \u201cWell, we\u2019re all sinners\u201d or even \u201cHey!\u00a0 You are to blame for letting me sin!\u201d or some other blame-shifting nonsense.\u00a0 One of the common themes to emerge from the scandal has been that monsters like Fr. Maciel would indeed abuse their victims and then lay the guilt for the abuse\u00a0on\u00a0<\/i>the victim.\u00a0 And depending on how psychologically strong the victim was, that burden of guilt would often be accepted.\u00a0 It is not the least of that man\u2019s crimes and may God have mercy on his soul for it.<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s not too surprising that calls for Catholics to do penance for these sins often get interpreted as blame-shifting.\u00a0 However, I would submit that this is not, properly understood, how we who bear no personal responsibility for the Scandal should understand the call to penance.\u00a0 Penance does not mean \u201ctake the fall and bear the blame so that guilty people can skate or dissolve their sense of responsibility for the crimes in the Collective\u201d.\u00a0 Penance is, in the Christian tradition, our participation in the innocent suffering of Jesus Christ for the sins of the world.\u00a0 Our tradition tells us that Christ who knew no sin, became sin for our sake so that we might become the righteousness of God.\u00a0 He\u00a0bore\u00a0<\/i>the sins of the world, but he did not\u00a0commit\u00a0<\/i>the sins of the world.\u00a0 He was blameless, and opened not his mouth, says Isaiah.\u00a0 Similarly, in Christ, Paul declares that he fills up in his flesh what is lacking with respect to the suffering of Christ for the sake of His Body, the Church (Colossians 1:24).\u00a0 That doesn\u2019t mean \u201cJesus didn\u2019t do enough so I have to make up for his well-meaning but inadequate effort on the Cross.\u201d\u00a0 Rather, it means that as Christians, we bear the cross with Jesus and offer our innocent sufferings in union with His for the good of others\u2013including others who are sinners as guilty as hell.<\/p>\n
It is a radical misreading of the Tradition to say that, for instance, you are somehow personally guilty for some sin committed by a pervert priest or negligent bishop.\u00a0 Don\u2019t approach penance for their sins as though you must somehow feel guilty for crimes and sins you did not commit.\u00a0 Therefore, you also cannot and should not try to \u201crepent\u201d for sins and crimes you did not commit.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, part of the nature of the Christian faith is that it recognizes the fact of human solidarity.\u00a0 You neither personally ate from the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, nor handled the hammers that drove nails through the flesh of the Son of God.\u00a0 Yet, in some mysterious sense, when these sins were committed, we were all implicated in them.\u00a0 This is why it doesn\u2019t do (as many Catholics have done over the centuries) to say that \u201cthe Jews killed Jesus\u201d (with the convenient suggestion that I most certainly had nothing to do with it).\u00a0 The fact is, Jesus\u2019 death occurred because we, the human race, killed Jesus\u2013and therefore, by the miracle of grace, Jesus died for us all and now offers his grace to us all.\u00a0 It is in the awareness of our radical solidarity with each other and with Jesus that we can offer penance for one another.\u00a0 Such penance does not mean that some guilty cleric is saying, \u201cIt\u2019s not my fault!\u00a0 It\u2019s your fault!\u201d\u00a0 It means rather, that as members of the Body of Christ in union with the innocent Christ crucified, we can offer our innocent sufferings and acts of self-denial and prayer so that the evil of these sins can be purged from the Church and the world.\u00a0 Our prayers and sacrifices, offered in penance, become\u00a0sacramental<\/i>, not simply isolated events that have nothing to do with the common good.\u00a0 Whether the sinner repents or not is not within your power to determine or make happen.\u00a0 That is between him and God.\u00a0 But whether you make an offering of your life in union with Jesus who said, \u201cForgive them\u201d is within your power.\u00a0 And such offerings, accepted by God as fragrant sacrifices can be and have been powerful instruments of conversion for sinners.\u00a0 Nobody knew that better than Paul himself, whose conversion began with Stephen\u2019s penitential offering of his very life for the men (including Saul of Tarsus) who were mad to murder him and for whom he prayed, \u201cLord, do not count this sin against them.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u2026made timely again by the various calls from various sectors for us to do penance and pray for the Church in this hour of monstrous scandal: Doing Penance for Others A reader asks: My question is, and I am asking you in email because I just am not sure how to word it to pick-up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":92,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[421],"class_list":["post-105351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sheavings"],"yoast_head":"\n
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