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Speaking Truth to Power with Passion

This is a summary of a Fr. Gerry Creedon homily delivered at St. Charles on February 29, 2004, 1st Sunday of Lent

Crowds for Mass have increased. Perhaps it is Lent, or maybe Mel Gibson's new movie, The Passion of the Christ, that is inspiring people. Among many questions raised about the movie is the question of context. What was it about Christ that provokes such a reaction?

Today's readings provide part of that answer. Jesus was not just someone who preached a simple message of God's love. That would not seem to merit crucifixion. Like the prophets of old he spoke God's truth to power. He pointed out the hypocrisy of civil and religious leadership. He followed the footsteps of Moses in his message of deliverance from the abusive power of the Pharaoh.

The Gospel places Jesus in the desert "For forty days," connecting him with the exodus journey of forty years in the wilderness. This was a passage from slavery to freedom. "When the Egyptians maltreated and oppressed us, imposing hard labor upon us, we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and he heard our dry and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. He brought us out of Egypt." Egypt is a code word in the Bible for all that oppresses human dignity and the human spirit. In the Gospel Jesus withstands the temptation to bow down to all the forms of corrupting power in the kingdoms of this world or on the temple parapet. For his critique and his prophetic defiance he suffered.

The report on child abuse within the Catholic Church describes a larger sin and a greater crime committed by the hands of our clergy than previously admitted. Some would defend our church by asserting that we are the only institution that has conducted such a study. I believe comparisons are odious and only serve to avoid responsibility. We will not make amends for these crimes and sins by perpetuating a culture of deference to religious authority that allows deceit and denial to go unmasked. We will need a prophetic stance that calls for renewal of every element of our church and especially accountability for our leadership. This admission we make on Ash Wednesday when every member takes on the ashen cross from the most recently baptized to the pope himself.

Amends may take the form of denunciation. I prefer the shape of outreach and corrective action. A parishioner, Celia Coronado, who is battling a serious illness, came to me last week. She did not come for consolation in her illness. She came because she had a vision. She wants to expand a project she helped found, The Philippine Medical Mission. She wants to raise almost $200,000 to build a shelter for children between the age of 6 and 16 in the Philippines who have been abused. The problem of sexual abuse is larger than the Catholic Church. We will redeem ourselves as a faith community when we turn this crisis into an opportunity to lead our world to a new recognition of the crime of sexual exploitation of children and lead initiatives to heal the wound.

The news is also filled with the crisis in Haiti, our poorest neighbor to whom we are bound in parish-to-parish solidarity. It is not enough to provide services to them: clinics, chapels, and schools. We also need to question the systemic problems in the political and economic order that have perpetuated so much oppression. We need to have a second thought about the facile answers that absolve us of complicity.

The headlines to day blame Aristide. I am sure he is no saint. However, nobody denies that he was popularly elected. To appear to support a bloody coup is a blow to democracy and freedom and a victory for violence. Among Aristide's alleged sins was his unwillingness to privatize the economy, when 1% of the people already control 45% of the wealth. Irregularities in elections became a reason for the US and other international bodies to embargo $500 million of dedicated funds for development. Hospitals without medicine are breeding grounds for disease of all kinds, physical and social. Some of the leaders of this recent coup had been imprisoned for massacres. They are featured by our press as freedom fighters. The prophets among us today need to call for a deeper commitment of our country to provide principled, non-violent, democratically sensitive support to neighbors who have been the subject of a history of repression by their own rulers and exploitation by others. An option for the poor and the vulnerable calls for long-term commitments to development, fair trade and participation.

A church that is committed to the prophetic Christ does not retreat to the sanctuary of family and private devotion. Church and state wield authority at their own risk when truth is not spoken to power.

  or  2004 Homilies