As he, and his cronies, were approaching the famed city, an extremely bright light along with a loud sound as if a mini-whirlwind had encircled Saul, and knocked him off his donkey. The men travelling with him were confused and scared, but they didn't see all that was affecting their companion, and they certainly didn't hear what Saul heard: (a voice from out of the clear blue sky) Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?
Saul was stunned beyond comprehension, then blinded.
He exclaimed something to the effect: who are you? What do you mean I'm persecuting you? I don't even know you?
All this while in sort of a drunken stupor, flailing around on the ground, reaching for thin air...
What was the source of the voice from above? It was the "dead" Christ.
Saul wondered why he was accused of persecuting this Christ, when he never even met Him?
The point of this encounter was two-fold: one, this was the beginning of the transformation of Saul of Tarsus, to becoming St. Paul, the great Apostle to the Gentiles. And, two, to indicate to Saul of Tarsus, that when he was persecuting the nascent Christian Church, he was, in reality, persecuting Christ Himself!
In other words, Saul had been persecuting Christ! The Head of the Mystical Body, the Church.
Fast forward to today...
There is another persecution of the Church going on right now on a massive scale. Not only from without, but also this time, from within by the very shepherds designated to lead the flock to their eternal destiny, but instead are scandalizing and corrupting their charges in the most heinous of ways: infidelity, in the form of sexual deviancy. Not just personal sexual deviancy, but in many cases overt homosexual deviancy.
Information has come to light of a vast and widespread network of corruption and scandal among some of the rotten apples in the clergy. Of course, even the good guys wearing the Roman collar are now lumped in with the same rotting fruit that has fallen from the evil tree, confusing even more, the lay faithful.
Whom can they trust? Whom can WE trust?
Let me now harken back to the now-converted Saul, renamed Paul, and with the "St." in front of his name...
It seemed there was a controversy bubbling just below the surface among the hierarchical structure of the new Christian Church, with Peter (St. Peter) concerning some of the old customs of the new Jewish converts, causing confusion -- and scandal -- between those very same Jewish converts and the Gentiles that had entered the Church. Basically, should those old customs be carried over into the new Christian traditions?
St. Paul attempted to iron-out the controversy, but how?
By resisting St. Peter to his face (as reported in Scripture).
Remember, St. Peter had been a weak and sinful man who denied Christ not once, but three times. And yet, Christ selected and appointed him to be the head of His Church! It should be easy to see, that the reason for the Church in the first place, is for sinful men and women; the just have no need of penance.
The point of my short article is to point out that today we lay faithful and those clergy who abhor the vast scandal affecting the flock, and remain in solidarity with Scripture and Tradition, must fight those rotten apples and pray for their conversion or defeat. Even if that means going all the way up to the pope; to resist him to his face!
We faithful Catholics want our Church back!
Right now, we are in a period of severe testing, perhaps like no other in its 2,000 year history. Will the Church survive this crises?
The answer is YES! How do I know? Because we have Christ's own words: the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
I ask those of good will to pray for the Catholic Church, and to pray of our country.
Gene DeLalla
Excellent article; keep up the good work, Gene.
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