The Church is beautiful but compromised. 

During the most intense time of the media’s coverage of the clergy sex abuse scandal, a very wise Franciscan observed,

“If you find a perfect church, join it. But remember that as soon as you join it, that church will no longer be perfect. No church is perfect whose members are imperfect, sinful people like all of us.”

Bishop Robert Barron makes a similar point by quoting from an address by Pope Benedict XVI to members of the papal household in 2010 at the end of a particularly difficult and painful year.

“The face of the Church is stained with dust, and this is how we have seen it. Her garment is torn—by the sins of priests”  (Pope Benedict XVI).

According to Bishop Barron in Vibrant Paradoxes: The Both/And of Catholicism, “Wise Words from the Bishop of Rome Concerning the Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal,” the pope was using an image of the Church proposed by the twelfth century mystic Hildegard of Bingen who had a vision.

“She saw an incomparably beautiful woman stretching from earth to heaven, clothed in luminous vestments. But the woman’s radiant face was covered in dust, her vesture was ripped on one side, and her shoes were blackened. Then the mystic heard a voice from heaven announcing that this was a vision of the Church, beautiful but compromised.”

Beautiful but compromised is the mystic’s vision of the Church. It is also an apt image of all forms of sexual abuse—taking something that is pure and beautiful in itself and corrupting it, making it ugly and torn, “covered in dust.”

The Church is not the only place where sex abuse occurs (in fact it’s everywhere that you care to look) but in clergy sex abuse the ugliness is magnified in direct proportion to the expectations of purity and trustworthiness that we have for priests and bishops who were ordained to take the place of Jesus among us.

It is horrible, inexcusable and unforgivable when a family member or coach or any trusted adult abuses a child, but when the predator is a priest, it is all those things intensified to the point of pure evil. Satan is at work here, violating two sacred things (the innocence of the child and the holiness of the priest). What God intends to be beautiful is stained by selfishness and sin.

What’s the answer? To forgive the unforgivable is the first step. Hatred and vengeance intensify the wounds allowing them to fester and making healing impossible. But forgiveness is not enough. There must also be vigilance—“zero tolerance” for behavior that cooperates with the devil’s efforts to corrupt the innocence and holiness of God’s children.

Never again should the sin of sexual abuse be hidden, minimized or excused no matter who the perpetrators are. Never again should the Church or society tolerate behavior that is intolerable.

We are all beautiful but compromised. We are all people intended by God to be perfect, but sadly, we are not. Let’s ask God to forgive us all the unforgivable things we have said and done. Let’s also forgive others—while refusing to tolerate others’ intolerable attitudes and behavior especially toward our children.