Thread by @HappySeminarian

A few collected thoughts on The Scandals of the past few days:

So, my family and I are all converts, former Southern Baptists. We joined the Catholic Church in 2003 - the Boston Globe articles were still painfully fresh in everyone’s minds. (1)

I was pretty young at the time; had no idea about any of that. But people did ask my parents how they could consider joining a Church that had so obviously been deeply wounded by this sin, and had such failings in its leaders. (2)

Their response: they never even let that factor into their choice to become Catholic.
Not because they denied the reality of the sin, but because the difference between the Catholic Church and where they’d come from was that both were led by human, broken, fallible people... (3)

...Only the Catholic Church had the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the sacraments.

Only the Catholic Church was founded by the Son of God.

Only the Catholic Church endured, despite that sin, despite the powers of Hell raging against it. (4)

This week I’ve felt like I’ve been asking myself a similar question: How can I contemplate becoming a priest in the face of such horrific sins and evils caused by the men I should be calling my brothers?

Because I’m not becoming a priest for them. (5)

As devastating and painful as these accounts are to read, in a way, I desire to be a priest even more for their sake because I am reminded so much of the suffering and sin that Jesus Christ came and suffered and died to redeem, and the mercy he offers every one of us. (6)

And honestly, all I can think in all of this is that I wish I was a priest already, because I want to be able to offer that healing and mercy - the graces of the Eucharist, the healing of Confession - as best as I am able, to a world that so desperately needs it. (7)

I am as human and as in need of redemption as anyone.

But I don’t want to be a priest because I think it will make me perfect, or respected, or even merely a better man. (8)

Even now, even this week, I truly hope and desire to be a priest for the love of Christ who has first loved me, and to proclaim that love to a world that needs it today as much as it ever has. (9)