David Quinn
Too often the Vatican has become a byword for corruption. Photo: CNS Catholics need a constant reminder that the grace of God is greater than our sin, writes David Quinn
Sometimes we need to remind ourselves why we are Catholics. We are Catholics because we believe Catholicism is true. We are not Catholics because all Catholics behave well, or because the Church is or is not in good standing at any given point in time. We should not give up on being Catholics because some Catholics behave abominably, or terrible things have been carried out in the name of the Church. To repeat; we are Catholics because we believe our religion is true.
I say this because the Vatican once again finds itself mired in scandal, and hardly for the first time in its history. There have been plenty of corrupt cardinals, and indeed, a few corrupt popes, down the ages.
This time, a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, once a close associate of Pope Francis, faces trial in the Vatican itself. He was Chief of Staff at the Secretariat of State from 2011 to 2018 and one of his responsibilities was the investment of Vatican funds, including monies raised from ‘Peter’s Pence’, the collection for which takes place all over the world every year with the donations going to the Pope’s favourite charitable causes.
Fraud
Dr Becciu is now among 10 officials charged by the Vatican with fraud, embezzlement, abuse of office, appropriation of funds, money laundering, among others.
At the centre of this is a disastrous property investment in London which cost the Vatican €412 million and has lost a huge amount of money.
The trial is to begin properly in October. Dr Becciu is the most senior Vatican official in centuries to face trial inside the Vatican itself, which is a State in its own right, with its own laws.
He denies any wrong-doing.
Another Vatican official is also implicated in scandal. More low-ranking than Dr Becciu, the scandal itself is worse because it involves allegations of the sexual abuse of seminarians.
The accused cleric is Argentine bishop, Gustavo Zanchetta, who had been working as an assessor at the Vatican’s Administration of the Patrimony of the Holy See, another financial role.
He has also been accused of fraud and mismanagement of funds. Like Dr Becciu, he denies all the allegations.
Nonetheless, the charges are another blow to the reputation of the Vatican, and the Church overall, especially when they are added to the terrible sex abuse scandals that have rocked the Church from top to bottom for several decades now.
One of the reasons Pope Benedict abdicated from his office, is reportedly that he felt he was not the man to clean up the Vatican, that a stronger, younger person needed to do it.
Struggling
Pope Francis is now finding how big the problem is, and he is also struggling to get on top of it.
All of this will be disappointing for ordinary Catholics. They want to be able to look up to the leadership of the Church, and hope that they will be an example to other organisations, but a lot of the time the opposite is the case. That can lead to cynicism, disillusionment, low morale, and sometimes loss of faith.
Unfortunately, at various points in its history, the Vatican has been a by-word for low standards and has provided the Church’s critics with plenty of ammunition.
Remind
This is why we sometimes need to remind ourselves why we are Catholics because if Catholicism is true, then we can no more give up on it, then we can give up on our own country because it has let us down. In fact, far less so, because a country embodies far less important truths than religion.
When we attend Mass each week, or each day as the case may be, we are remembering events that took place in Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. That is a remarkable fact even on its own terms. We remember the Last Supper and the death and resurrection of Jesus.
We believe in God. We do not believe that nothing made everything, as atheists do, and which always seems to me to take far more faith than believing in God.
If God exists, then that is by far and away the single more important fact there is. Everything else pales into insignificance compared with it.
If God exists, all the scandals in the world cannot alter this fact one iota.
If God exists, then we must orientate our lives towards him. Nothing else makes sense, and again all the scandals in the world should not deter us from our goal.
If God exists and we are made in his Image, then orientating ourselves towards him makes the greatest sense of all because we are orientating ourselves towards our Creator in accordance with our design.
We also believe that God provided us with the perfect example and guide to life in his Son, Jesus Christ.
In fact, the history of the Church, and humankind in general, is proof of the Christian view that sin is endemic in human affairs, it is ineradicable, we cannot ultimately save ourselves from its effects and its consequences and therefore we need a Saviour. That Saviour is Jesus Christ.
Again, not all the scandals in the world can detract from this fact one iota. Indeed, they reinforce it and at any one time we must hope that within the Church the grace of God is stronger than our sins.
Fortunately, in many parts of the Church and in the lives of countless individual Christians this is, indeed, the case.
Across the world, Catholic organisations run 5,000 hospitals, 16,000 health clinics and tens of thousands of schools giving help and sustenance and education to tens of millions who would otherwise have no-one to turn to.
Kindness
Countless Christians carry out small and big acts of kindness and compassion in their own families and neighbourhoods, sometimes by joining organisations like St Vincent de Paul, and often simply by dropping into a lonely neighbour or standing by a particularly difficult family member.
As George Elliot puts it in Middlemarch: “..for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life, and rest in unvisited tombs.”
We know there is scandal in the world and in the Church, but still we must live out our Christian lives as best we can and know that that those who have “lived faithfully a hidden life” prevail in the end, because ultimately, we live in a just order of creation with a just Creator, no matter how it may feel at times.