Dear Parish Family,

  How can we reconcile having faith with the faults and failings of the Church that have been done over time? It can be a tough proposition, as we hear the Church proclaim the news of a good and loving God, but then hear and see a very human Church living that divine mission out, to reconcile the two. There is no denying that there have been times in the course of history that evil acts have been committed against other people, sometimes in the name of God. And it really isn’t that there have been times either, be- cause while some of these stories are stories of the past, there are, unfortunately other terrible acts that continue to be done today. All too often we are con- fronted with the reality that we are as a Church, an institution with a divine mission and mandate, but also a very human institution as well, filled with some very fallible and imperfect individuals.

  So, then, how do we have faith, how do we keep faith, when we are all too often confronted with the stark reality that the Church that we belong to is any- thing but perfect? There are many ways that the Church does great good in our society and there are many ways that evil has been done in the name of the Church. I’m sure many of us can share or know stories of people who have walked away from the Church, not because they don’t love God or because they don’t want to live as a faithful Catholic, but be- cause of acts that have been done and words that have been said, many times in the name of God, that seem to and often times are contradictory to the love and mercy of God.

 So what can we do then? I think that the first thing that we should do is pray. Pray for our Church, pray for the leaders of our Church, pray for each other. Pray that we may truly reflect the love of God in our world, pray that sin may be exposed for what it is, pray for the grace of conversion, not just in oth- ers, but also in yourself. Second, be holy! While we rightly expect holiness from our Church in general and those who lead it, we should do our best to make sure that we are growing in holiness our- selves. Third, don’t be complacent. We don’t want to go around being the “holiness police,” calling out every single fault that we might see in someone else, but when sin is happening, that reality needs to be challenged and brought to light in an appropriate way. We can’t keep silent when evil is happening, but we also can’t allow the actions of some who aren’t acting very Christian to lose our faith in the Church, and in God, as a whole.