Is there a right time to forgive diocese?

Michael Fitzgerald
Record (Stockton,CA)
June 09, 2013

The Catholic Diocese of Stockton announced this week that it has shelled out so many millions to victims of molester priests that it may have to file for bankruptcy.

The diocese was home to that scourge, Father Oliver O'Grady. As well as to leaders who covered for O'Grady as he molested at least 25 children, and probably more.

So it can be said that the moral bankruptcy of the diocese preceded its financial bankruptcy. It has been said. What I want to know is, when is it time to forgive?

I don't mean forgive O'Grady. Forgiving the likes of him is above my spiritual pay grade.

But what about the church, the diocese? It is, after all, home not only to the occasional cover-up cardinal but to many humble, spiritual people who sacrifice for others.

Listing the good Catholics do in this diocese alone would fill the column. Which perhaps I ought to do. I'll mention just one. The diocese's Migrant Ministry right now is helping cherry pickers who sleep in the orchards through donations of food, clothing and sleeping bags.

But the point is not that the church deserves forgiveness. The point is maybe we need to forgive the church. All people, deists and atheists alike, need to forgive, I believe.

Who taught this? They did. The sisters at Annunciation Grammar School, and the priests who seemed their captains.

For all their distasteful aversion to modernity, their cluelessness about sex, even their bigotry toward schoolmates we would later learn are gay, they opened a wellspring when they taught us the Lord's Prayer: "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us ... ."

And even when I ceased to believe all they do, I kept the core belief: If you cannot forgive, you are a stunted human.

» "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong." - Mahatma Gandhi.

» "To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." - C.S. Lewis

» "Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much." - Oscar Wilde.

I don't speak for the victims. My hope for them is that one day they can forgive. Forgiveness is the alchemy that transforms victims into survivors.

But that's their choice. The rest of us do not need to simmer in perpetual bitterness toward the church because of their hurt, any more than a juror needs to share a crime victim's grief and rage.

I think we can take a broader view. Even if some leaders erred in their arrogance or their cluelessness about sex. Or if they err today in their aversion to modernity. Even if victims continue to come forward and appall us with their heartbreaking tales.

We can at least appreciate that the diocese has also done much in our community's history to ease human suffering; and to lead people to their better angels; and maybe for a while believers can throw an extra dollar on the plate.

And this can be done even while taking profound satisfaction in hearing the jail door clang shut on the bad guys.

That is not to aspire to perfect forgiveness. Just to be better with it than without.