This week, I read the story of a 55yo Filipino Monsignor who was arrested for procuring a 13yo girl for sex. The story gets even worse when you read that the priest was using the services of a 16yo male pimp. The police were actually after the pimp and got the priest as a surprising added bonus. He was found with a gun which he tried to pull on the police. Now I would be willing to doubt the veracity of this story but I read it on the official website of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of the Phillipines. I was just shocked to read such a story. I will not try to excuse or explain it. It is just an evil act and definitely should never happen with a priest as the main player. As the Filipino Archbishop talking on this matter rightly counselled, we are all capable of evil.
Reading this, I am once again assured of my conclusion that the Church is ripe for reform and even for much more - transformation. Reason is that the Church needs much more than just a makeover or new structures. I would add that we are all ripe for such a radical life changing path. This transformation is for me and not just for an institution, hitting us at the very core of who we are and affecting us all. This is the transformation offered by the gospel, and it is just what we need right now.
Transformation is poignantly described for me in a small book I just discovered through a good friend. It is called "The Bells of Nagasaki". It is the story of a Japanese doctor and university researcher in Nagasaki at the time of the dropping of the bomb. He did survive the explosion but he suffered terribly and died a few years later of leukemia. Despite all, he and his surviving colleagues immediately got up and went out to respond to the suffering of the people around them. Everyone, including them, was in dire straits and shock but this small group of medical professionals purposefully chose to use their skills to help their fellow sufferers.
As this doctor, a good man of strong Christian faith, describes - within days of the devastation of Nagasaki, he had gone from working to help Japanese suffering in the war to reaching out to a suffering humanity; he had gone from believing in peace through a victory for a Japan at war to believing in peace for the whole world. Through this experience of horror, his basic life stance naturally turned round to believing that this man made devastation could never happen again. Such an awful and barbaric tragedy was the catalyst for his transformation - seemingly complete and immediate.
What will be our catalyst? Transformation is for you and me.
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