Thomas Ramey Watson

What needs to die in the Catholic Church

Rev. James Martin, S.J. writes:

“What needs to die is a clerical culture that long fostered power, privilege and secrecy. What needs to die is an attitude that had placed concern for a priest’s reputation above that of a child’s welfare. What needs to die is mindset in which investigations of dissident theologians and American Catholic sisters were more swiftly prosecuted than

investigations of abusive priests.

What needs to die is, in a word, a certain pride.

All of this needs to be surrendered.

And it needs to be surrendered even if we don’t know what will come of that surrendering.”

Excellent article. Read it.

What Martin says applies to all Christian churches–and to all who would truly be spiritual.

Eric Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran pastor and theologian, whom the Nazis put to death for standing up for the faith, wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, that Jesus says to all of us, “Come and die.”  He rightly points out the dangers of cheap discipleship that was preached then and is even more prevalent now.  If we would follow Jesus,

follow any true spiritual path, we must make sacrifices, starting with ourselves and all

we have, are, and will be.

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