What does “Keep the Faith” mean to me? In any discussion, it’s always helpful to define terms. This is
especially true in an important discussion with oneself, which this one is. So I ask myself: What does “faith”
mean to me. I also ask related questions: Faith in what? Faith in who?
I don’t believe in everything in the creed at Sunday Mass. Does that mean I don’t have faith? My newly
found mentor Marcus Borg says that in the modern era, since the Reformation, faith means belief in a set of
dogmas or in a creed. He says that wasn’t always the case. Prior to the modern era, Borg says faith meant
trust—trust in God. Borg’s definition of faith as trust, trust in God, makes sense to me.
I, like many Catholics, have tended to equate my faith (trust) in God with my faith (trust) in the church—the
institutional church. I no longer trust the institutional church. I’ve concluded that this institution is crazy and
criminal. It should be institutionalized, put away in the corporate equivalent of a mental hospital or prison.
My conscience and my common sense won’t allow me to continue to place my trust in an institutional church
that allowed its priests to sexually abuse children. In a church that had a de facto policy of covering up the
abuse and permitting, even fostering, its bishops to reassign abusing priests, giving them an opportunity to
abuse again. In a church that fails to call for the resignations of bishops who knowingly transferred sexually
abusive clergy. In a church that appoints Cardinal Law to a position of honor in Rome. In a church steeped in
a culture of control, fear, secrecy, deceit, and denial. In a church that tells you how and for whom to vote. In
a church that closes parishes and files for bankruptcy using counterfeit arguments and without consulting its
members.
So I can’t keep the faith of my youth and early adulthood, a faith in a crazy and criminal institutional church. I
must turn to God and Jesus. All I can say is come Lord Jesus and help me get to know you, love you, and
serve you, without this failed God-intermediary called the institutional Catholic Church.
November 2, 2004