Driving a Wedge Between God and God's People

It's a mystery.

That's apparently what Pope Benedict XVI had to say about the 50+ years of documented sex abuse scandals in a videotaped message played to an assembled multitude of 75,000 Irish Catholics over the weekend.

Meanwhile, the Guardian newspaper ran a scathing, and sadly accurate, commentary by Nick Cohen titled, "A Church Fit Only for Bigots and Hypocrites."   Cohen was speaking of the Church of England, "the Mother Church" of Anglicanism, which has been bound and determined to dig its heels into the quick sand of prejudice against gays and women.   The result:  a church that is teetering on the edge of going over the waterfall of total irrelevancy.

For me, the worst part about all of these articles (which are getting posted multiple times on social networking sites) is that it further undermines the efforts of those of us who know that the institution, and the hierarchies of these institutions, are not--repeat, not--God.   Too often, people associate what they see and hear coming from these supposed spiritual leaders for being the word of the Creator, Redeemer and Sustainer.  Rather than take the time to establish their own relationship with God, and taste and see how good that really is, they look at the Pope, or the Archbishop of Canterbury, and think that's what God is.

Really, no, they are not God.

At the same time, the continued crucifixion of Christ by both the Pope and the Archbishop of Canterbury is appalling.  Who is Christ, gentlemen, but the very people that you refuse to see!  Christ is the child who suffered abuse.  Christ is the woman seeking to follow her calling.  Christ is the gay man wanting to marry his beloved, not simply be "civilly partnered."  Have you forgotten your lesson from Matthew 25:

Then he will say to those at his left hand, “You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.” Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.” And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.’ 

Don't speak: I already know the answer to my own question.


I really do wonder if Hollywood shouldn't put in a call to the Vatican and Lambeth Palace and ask if the two would like to participate in a new reality TV show in which the two contestants compete for who can drive a further wedge between God and God's People.

Perhaps that reality is a little too real.