Randall Smith: Where Else Shall We Go?

By Randall Smith, First Things, September 30, 2018

Some say that people are leaving the Catholic Church over the current scandals.  This confuses me. In whom did you have faith?  The priest?  The bishop?  Or God?  If your faith was in a priest, a bishop, or even the pope, then what you professed was idolatry, not Christian faith.

Am I downplaying the seriousness of the scandal or the damage it has done?  No, but let’s put things into perspective.  If you ask, “How can I continue to have faith in the Catholic Church considering all these horrible acts?” you might put yourself in the place of the Jewish community after the Holocaust. They had to ask themselves: “How can I continue to have faith in God considering all these horrible acts?”

How can we continue to dedicate ourselves to a community so unfaithful to God?  Moses asked the same question when he saw the infidelity of his fellow Jews in the desert. The prophets asked the same question when they saw the injustices of the people in the Promised Land.  The early apostles must have asked themselves the same question when they saw that it was one of their own company who handed Jesus over to His enemies.  And Peter himself, the “rock” on which the Church was to be built, denied he even knew the Lord in His most desperate hour of need.  What could anyone do to compete with that?…Read entire article…https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/09/30/where-else-shall-we-go/