Why Catholics?

 I just browsed through Yahoo! News this afternoon and saw a really shocking report about "nuns" in Colombia who were arrested due to illegal possession of cocaine. If you did not have the time to see the video or read about it, perhaps you may get the perception that they were genuine nuns indeed--but they were not. They were a bunch of ladies who were just pretending to be nuns to bypass the guards perhaps due to the "good" reputation of the religious.

This incident has created an eerie feeling within me. Well, maybe because nowadays, the Catholic Church has suffered great damage, especially in the sector of the religious. It's reputation has been greatly stained due to the many errors committed by priests, nuns, monks, seminarians, etc. that is not only against their religious vows but against the federal law as well. Some extreme examples are child abuse and rape cases. There is also the issue of homosexuality, of female priests, married priests, and rampant addiction of various kinds. Now to add to it all, there are people who pretend to be priests and nuns (just like the news I mentioned) that further add insult to injury. There was even a case in our country where a certain man pretended to be a seminarian and went about collecting donations in a certain town or city.

These facts, some people argue, are some of the major reasons for the slow decline or shift in religion of many Catholics in the contemporary world. And indeed, they are the examples used by those against the Church to lambast it. 

I can only sigh. First of all, being a Catholic or a Christian, for that matter, (since Catholic means "universal" and was meant to cover those who "universally believe in Christ's teachings") means more than looking at the religious. True enough that they have vowed certain things that they were suppose to keep; however, I think we also need to understand that they, like us, are just human beings and are subject to err too. The only issue is that we think that when a person is a priest or nun, that person has to be "perfect" whether we admit it or not. But sometimes I ask myself, aren't we, the lay people, suppose to adhere to our Catholic beliefs as well? I mean, aren't we suppose to avoid sin as much as they do? Why would we bother so much on looking at their mistakes if we know that like them, we are also equally expected to live up to the life and teachings of Christ? It's just really unfair, I think--or at least, that is my opinion and we all have a say, anyway. I mean being a religious is just one vocation. Isn't it as equally as important as marriage? Then how come that when a mother lies to her friends, it is neglect-able than when a nun does so? I did not mean that it was okay to lie, okay. I mean it's just really not okay to make the mistakes of the religious seem gigantic while we somehow minimize to the point of tolerance those committed by ordinary people.  

The sins committed by some religious does not define the Mother Church. Let us remember that the Church is the "mystical body of Christ" and like the apostles, it is continually guided by the Holy Spirit despite temptations and sin lurking in this world. Maybe we could try something else for a change. Maybe we could try attending Holy Mass and instead of looking at the human errors of the celebrant, we will look at him as the representative of Christ and see that the value of the Mass does not depend on the sermon or the choir, but on the mystery of the transformation of bread and wine into Christ's real body and blood. Maybe instead of saying that priests and nuns are hypocrites, why don't we try correcting ourselves first, making sure that we are not hypocrites ourselves. Maybe instead of saying that prayer has no effect on the lives of those who frequently attend mass and recite prayers, let us try to imagine how worse they would have been if they did not start praying at all. Maybe instead of saying that rituals of the Church change nothing of a person's character, maybe we should start attending them and see for ourselves not its physical manifestations but be critical in knowing its true meaning on why it has been part of the Catholic tradition.

The Church in the Greco-roman period meant "an assembly of people". Today, that assembly is not only composed of the bishops who compose the Church's magisterium but is--actually--largely composed of us, the lay people who are the more influential apostles in the world. And what we are is what actually redefines the meaning of being a Catholic.