Six January has traditionally been a day when the church celebrates Epiphany. What is Epiphany? Epiphany in its origin means the manifestation of the Lord. What does it celebrate? It celebrates the revelation of God the Son as a human being in Jesus Christ. Principally, it commemorates the coming of the magi to bring homage to the newborn Christ in Bethlehem, symbolizing that salvation will come not only to Israelites, but also to the whole world.
In a contrasting way: ten years ago, 6 January 2002, marks the beginning of Boston sex abuse cover-ups, with this news story from Boston Globe. As painful as it is for us, the Catholics who happens to live in the United States, it brings to light the sinfulness of a few (<2%) catholic priest where they use their power to abuse the powerless. We know how hurtful it is to have authoritative figures abuse and hide the scandals and trust us: we have done all that we can to prevent this to ever happen again. The structural change, the architectural change, the VIRTUS program, and other necessary tweak into the church has brought an awareness and accountability to our Catholic Church. This piece of reflection by Cardinal O'Malley of Boston shows just that.
On this twelfth days of Christmas as well, the pope appointed 22 new cardinals to the college of cardinals. One to note is Cardinal-designate Tim Dolan. He has definitely been a favorite of mine, ever since he gave a talk at one of our institute back in Madison. His book, Priests for Third Millenium, is an excellent narration on what it means to be a catholic priest. The first section of this book (which has become another book: Called to be Holy), talks about what it means to be a good and well grounded catholic in all things. Listen to all these links: NYdailynews, address to NY Catholic center employee, Salt and Light TV interview, ND lecture on human dignity, NBC Today and one can see that he is a vibrant, good spirited, and articulate guy who happens to be the bishop of New York. He also has been the president of the United States Conference of the Catholic bishop, in a 2010 shocking win. What a joyful news to me personally and to the catholic church here in the US.
Lastly on this day, a sad news for the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The blue ribbon commission strategic plan, after 1 year long effort, has published its report on the future state of catholic school in the archdiocese. What to do? It has to close or merge 4 high schools and 44 elementary schools. Closing one school approximately will put ~30 people out of work. Multiply that by ~45 and you'll get 1350 people being affected by it. Really painful and bleak outlook for this one particular diocese. Let us all pray for this diocese and especially for Archbishop Chaput (one of my favorite too!) so that they may be able to weather the storm in the city of the brotherly love.
That's the four things to note on this particular day.
Why bother writing about it? Four in the biblical sense symbolizes universality of the matter. Four things in this writing: the joyous epiphany, the sex abuse scandal, the elevation of Tim Dolan, and the school closing of Phily symbolizes the complex reality of the church here today. When one sees joy, the other sees sorrow, when one sees celebration, the other sees difficult time. In all things, these four things mark the hope and challenge we will face as the church here in the US. Let us hope that the Lord will be with us, in good times and bad, in sorrow and in joy, in sickness and in health. Hear us O Lord, the prayer of your bride here on earth!
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