My Holy-Week Peace (Becoming Catholic, Part III)

When the hand-held candles light up the church, with the Paschal Candle in front of the altar, at the beginning of the Easter Vigil: Christ triumphs, and we rejoice.

The ritual of our Church gives us the meaning of all the toil and pain of this difficult mortal life.

“We owe God a death” (Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part 2, Act III, scene 2). God gave us life, and everything. And we thoroughly messed the business up, we human malefactors. We owe Him the death He calls us to.

He, however, went ahead and paid off our debt, on the Holy Cross. So now we can live under the canopy of His sky and trees; His sun, moon, and rain–we can live under His shelter, as the heavenly Father’s hopeful children.

We can light up the dark church with little candles, knowing it’s all true, His Gospel. He paid the full debt of death, and came out of it alive.

At the Vigil, a clergyman holds the big candle, the light of Christ. The flock all hold little candles. It’s the Church, Head (Jesus) and members. The Redeemer and the redeemed.

Praised be the Lord Jesus Christ: the night of Saturday, April 10, 1993, found me holding a little candle in Dahlgren Chapel in Washington, D.C.

We all owe God a death. I will gladly pay that debt anytime, whenever God wills. The heavenly grace that found me that Holy Saturday night, the grace of communion with the Church of Jesus Christ: that grace outweighs death more than a lion outweighs a flea.

—

I became a Catholic to become a priest. As a seminarian, I learned the Holy Week ceremonies, in close detail. Then I spent two decades of Holy Weeks celebrating those ceremonies.

I think I mentioned before how I served as Cardinal-Archbishop Theodore McCarrick’s deacon on a couple occasions during the Lent and Holy Week of my tenth anniversary as a Catholic.

On the First Sunday of Lent, 2003, I sat next to McCarrick at the big ceremony where the parishes present their RCIA candidates to the Archbishop.

Before the final blessing, I had a moment to whisper to the Cardinal, “Ten years ago, that was me, Your Eminence.”

He loved it. He stood up, and before giving the blessing, told the whole crowd what I had just said. Then he encouraged the young, unmarried men there to consider the seminary.

I also deaconed for McCarrick at the Chrism Mass during Holy Week that year. That’s the annual Mass when all the clergy gathers at the cathedral. The priests renew our promises, and the bishop blesses the holy oils for use during the coming year. That includes the Chrism oil, which you need for Confirmations (anointing the forehead) and Ordinations (anointing the palms).

I stood next to Cardinal McCarrick, and helped hold his chasuble back from his wrist, as he consecrated the Chrism he would use a month later at our ordination as priests.

—

We’re all sinners. No one is perfect–not even priests, bishops, popes. There’s no such thing as a Church with 100%-holy clergy. But that doesn’t mean it’s okay for criminals to hide from justice behind the altar rail.

During Holy Week 2003, a lot of people knew that McCarrick was a criminal hiding from justice. People in New Jersey knew, and people in the Vatican knew.

The Vatican ambassador was at our Chrism Mass in 2003. He knew at that very moment that multiple victims of McCarrick’s abuses had tried to report what had happened up the clerical chain of command.

And yet here McCarrick was, presiding over the sacred ceremonies, as Cardinal-Archbishop of the national capital of the most-powerful country on earth. Some other men in miters at that Mass also knew some of the secrets. But they just stood there, consummate cowards, as a criminal pederast consecrated the Holy Chrism.

Most of us there would not have tolerated the situation, had we known.

If the Vatican ambassador had somehow decided to throw the Code of Silence to the winds, and marched to the microphone, and declared to everyone in the cathedral everything he knew about what McCarrick had done; if such a miracle of truth-telling had occurred, I believe that:

We would have stood in silent shock for a moment. Then we would have applauded the whistleblower’s courage for speaking. Then we would have knelt down to pray for the patience to wait for the Lord to send us a different Archbishop, one that we could actually respect and trust.

At least that’s what I hope I would have done. Instead, though, the Code of Silence prevailed, as usual. The criminal remained hidden behind the altar rail for another 15 years.

—

Every year, the bishop invites his priests to the Chrism Mass at the cathedral. For three years running now, though, I have not been invited. I am not welcome.

The bishop here probably knew some of McCarrick’s secrets, at the Chrism Mass in 2003. (Monsignor Barry Knestout was right there, near McCarrick that day, just like me.)

If Bishop Knestout didn’t know anything that day, he certainly came to know some of it, in the subsequent few years. He dutifully kept the Code of Silence of the mitered mafia.

Now, two decades later, with some of the McCarrick truth known to the world, Knestout has left me outside, to fend for myself spiritually. Because I think the Code of Silence is bull–t.

—

I will participate in the Holy Week ceremonies this year, not as a priest celebrant, but in the back of a strange church, praying quietly among people who don’t know me.

I have peace about this.

Because: If you take all the wrongness of a criminal presiding over Holy Week as Cardinal Archbishop–if you take the whole invisible wound caused by that, and try to look at it, honestly and carefully, you see: we still owe the Lord a lot here.

We still owe Him for all the cruelty, the hypocrisy, and the cowardice, hidden behind the altar rail two decades ago.

I think of the good, honest souls with me at that Chrism Mass, 2003, in McCarrick’s cathedral. People who knew me then, and who know the truth as I know it now. I believe they think like this, about the situation as it now stands:

It’s a shame that Barry Knestout has thrown Mark White in the trash. It’s a shame, because Mark turned out to be a halfway-decent priest.

But it makes sense. It makes perfect sense that the tall, idealistic deacon then would wind up the unjustly ‘canceled’ priest now, considering all the hidden evil involved. It’s no surprise that the tall, bookish dude would find himself on the forgotten fringe of Holy Mother Church. Because it’s better to suffer in the back of the church than stand up in front and pretend everything is fine, when it isn’t.

—

If you missed the earlier posts, click for:

Becoming Catholic, Part I

Becoming Catholic Part II

Holy Week Movies + Chris O’Leary

If Jesus Christ can do what He did, entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday to a certain and known fate, then I can do this.

–Chris O’Leary, priest sex-abuse survivor and podcaster

Many of us Catholics have the annual ritual of watching The Passion of the Christ during Holy Week.

Mel Gibson said that he made his movie as a cinematic Stations of the Cross. Some Jews have taken offense at Gibson’s depiction of the high priests, especially the way the movie connects them with Satan. Also, Gibson included numerous allusions to Anne Catherine Emmerich’s visions of the Passion. I don’t think that aspect of the movie has aged well; it makes some scenes needlessly difficult to understand.

We can recognize the movie’s shortcomings, though, and still appreciate it as an aid to our devotion. After I saw the movie for the first time, in Lent 2004, I spent hours on my knees. During my teens and twenties, I meditated on the Passion over and over and over again–and still I had to reproach myself for how abysmally I had failed to do it justice. The movie left me overwhelmed with gratitude and love.

Some Christians find Gibson’s movie too violent to watch. Who can blame them? I nearly faint every time I watch it.

But The Passion is certainly not more violent than the reality. They really did practically beat and scourge Him to death, before they made Him carry the 165-pound cross and then nailed Him to it. Death by crucifixion involved physical sufferings we can hardly even begin to imagine.

The movie also captures the pivotal moment of the Passion as well as any work of art I have ever seen.

“Are you the Messiah?” (Jim Caviezel deserved an Oscar just for the way he used his one open eye in this one scene.)

—

Now, allow me humbly to suggest: our Holy Week routine also ought to include watching a second movie. Spotlight. The cinematic account of the Boston-Globe investigation into the sex-abuse cover-up in the Archdiocese of Boston.

Mel Gibson gave us a gift. So did the Boston Globe, and the movie-makers who depicted the journalists’ work. Seems to me like the honest Catholic, trying to keep Holy Week in AD 2021, should meditate carefully on all the reality depicted in both movies.

…Speaking of keeping reality firmly in mind: Mr. Chris O’Leary has also given us a great, great gift. His podcast series, Sacrificed. (He also kindly publishes the text, if you prefer to read, rather than listen.)

Call me grandiose to say this, but I know it to be true: Someday we will look back at this period in Church history in which we now live (hopefully, please God, from heaven), and Chris O’Leary’s Sacrificed will stand out as the most honest and insightful document that any of us have produced.

Listening to Chris tell his story–and I hope he doesn’t mind me calling him Chris–is like watching The Passion, only more painful and more real.

As ‘cover art,’ Chris has a picture of himself outside the cathedral, taken by a photo-journalist. He is being shunned by a line of concelebrating priests. The occasion was the “Mass of Reparation,” after the Pennsylvania grand-jury report came out in 2018.

The priests were there to reckon with the reality of sexual abuse by clergy. And there was a survivor, holding photos of himself with the priest who had abused him. They all ignored him. The Archbishop ignored him.

I had Chris in mind when we went to our cathedral for the Chrism Mass last year. We received the same treatment.

There we were, at the annual Mass dedicated to the communion of priests and people with the bishop. I had been unjustly suspended from ministry for publishing this blog, and our parishes had been deeply wounded. We stood outside the cathedral.

The bishop and concelebrating priests ignored us. (Two priests came to shake my hand, for which I remain grateful. Otherwise: ignored.)

—

At this time of year, many Catholics return to the Church. Holy Mother Church endures everything, and remains there for us to come back to.

That has always been the most deeply gratifying thing for me, as a priest: to be a part of that, to represent the Mother who is always there for everyone to come back to, including all us poor prodigals who have wandered far, far away. To represent the place where God opens His merciful door to His children.

Who preaches this Gospel these days, with the most eloquence? Not the higher clergy, to be sure. They seem only to know how to isolate the Church from the world, making our community look like some kind of indefensible cult.

No, the evangelical heroes of our day are the dogged alter Christuses who have suffered in the flesh with Jesus, and have lived to tell their tale.

Mr. Chris O’Leary and Co. The survivors.

 

Family, Not Feudalism

Come to Me, all you who are burdened, and I will refresh you. (Matthew 11:28) The tender, compassionate Heart of Christ. The loving kindness of God. [Spanish]

What hope do we have–we little, disoriented moles, zigging and zagging around our little patches of semi-hospitable earth? We have no hope; we have no solace and no refuge—without the loving kindness of God, the compassion and succor of our Creator. The Sacred Heart of God’s only-begotten Son offers us the love we need, the love that can sustain us. From His Heart flows all-conquering gentleness, understanding, true peace.

The Apostles who founded our Church shared that mystery of divine love with the world. And they met with cruelty and death.

The Roman emperors despised the cult of the Nazarene rabbi. They ordered the wholesale slaughter of Christians, including the two great founders of the Church in Rome, Saints Peter and Paul.

The one, holy, apostolic Roman Catholic Church began in the blood of these Apostles, and their fellow martyred Christians. They went to death in union with the divine Lamb, Who had revealed the tender love of the Creator on His cross.

To this day, the blood shed by Sts. Peter and Paul gives us the true meaning of the phrase “Roman Catholic.” A Roman Catholic lives in Christian communion with the successor of the Apostle who hung upside down on a cross on Vatican hill, condemned by Emperor Nero. A Roman Catholic inherits the holy Tradition of faith, for which St. Peter and St. Paul died in Rome.

The Catholic Church. The tender and compassionate Christ abides, in unadulterated holiness, in His Church, in the Host and Chalice, and in His holy words. We will always find Christ in the Mass.

For me, the great gift of priesthood of this mystery—being able to celebrate Mass—it began in the ugliness of Theodore McCarrick’s destructiveness. But that does not adulterate the gift. It’s still Jesus, every time. Even now, in the solitude of my private Masses as an unjustly suspended priest. Even in my confusion, distraction, and uncertainty about the future—He remains, His open Heart, on the altar.

We seek divine love, divine compassion, in the Church. We find Him, in pure holiness, in the Blessed Sacrament and in His Word. And we find Him, in varying degrees of luminosity, and of eclipse, in all the human aspects of the Church.

Saints Peter and Paul

Feudalism. A political system in which only the privileged few get to make decisions. Only they have human rights. The rest of the society labors in miserable obscurity as beasts of burden.

The lords never think of their society as “feudal.” They think it’s normal. But the peasants suffer, and they recognize the violent injustice of it.

For many of us, the Catholic Church appears to operate in this way, at this point in history. Having power in the Church makes you “right.” Not having any power means you’re not supposed to talk. When you do–when you have something to say, no matter how reasonable it may be—that spells trouble for you. Because your “duty” is to show fealty to your feudal lord.

Now, no one ever said our Church is a democracy. No vote taken by human beings could ever have given us Jesus Christ. And He didn’t take a poll of His Apostles to determine how many sacraments He should institute. They didn’t elect St. Peter as the chief by secret ballot. God gave us everything that makes the Church the Church; none of that lies open to parliamentary discussion.

So: not a democracy. But surely the Church can’t operate as a feudal regime, either. We can’t bow down silently to let the lords put their feet on our necks willy nilly. We come to church seeking the compassion of God, not a soul-warping dysfunctional family.

In a loving family, mom and dad want to sit at the kitchen table with the children and listen to what all the kids have to say. In a loving family, everyone counts as a child of God, worthy of a patient and sympathetic hearing.

Not a democracy. But not feudalism, either.

That is why we will go to Richmond next Friday. Something terribly wrong has happened in the Catholic Church in these parts. The “lord of the manor” has grievously wounded two healthy Christian communities, for no good reason, and he continues to pour salt on the wound. He ran over the flower garden with a bulldozer, rather than confront some lamentable facts that we, as a Church, must confront.

We have to hold on to our faith in the compassionate Heart of Jesus, because we lose all hope without that faith. And we know He lives in our Church. We knew He awaits us in church.

We won’t enter the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart next Friday evening. Because the Mass is invitation-only, owing to the virus. And I’m not allowed to concelebrate, owing to the unjust suspension Bishop Knestout has imposed upon me.

But we will make our pilgrimage to the cathedral anyway, seeking the love of Jesus’ Sacred Heart there. And we know we will find that love. He lives. He lives in His Church.

—

English:

Spanish:

Peaceful Demonstration: Plan to Join Me

—

Every year, the bishop and priests gather to celebrate Mass together. We priests re-affirm our solemn promises. It’s called the Chrism Mass, after the holy oil consecrated during the liturgy.

This year, our Chrism Mass will occur in the evening of Friday, July 10, at the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, 823 Cathedral Place, Richmond VA 23220.

On May 5, Bishop Knestout prohibited me from publicly celebrating the sacraments, so I cannot participate. The injustice cries to heaven.

I will stand in silent vigil on the sidewalk immediately outside the Cathedral, beginning at 5:00pm.

Please stand with me. Acompañame, por favor.

—

Plan to take all necessary precautions to prevent the spread of the virus.

Justice for Father Mark will offer free transportation by van from both Rocky Mount and Martinsville, departing at 11:45am and returning about 11pm. Join the facebook group page to receive further information.

Chrism Mass on the Titanic

Here is My servant, upon Whom I have put my Spirit. (Isaiah 42:1)

Mary of Bethany anointed Him. He pointed out: It’s for My burial.

“Christ” means… same as “Messiah”… Anointed. Almighty God put His Spirit on this man. Mary of Bethany anointed Him at the beginning of Holy Week, for burial. But the triune God anointed the Christ at the moment of His conception in His mother Mary’s womb. Jesus always was, and always will be, The Christ.

All Christians revere Holy Week and keep it sacred. But of course it is especially sacred for us priests. The Lord drew us intimately into His work of salvation by choosing all of us, as He sat at table with His Apostles. And gave the world the Holy Mass.

All Christians receive the anointing of the Spirit in Baptism and Confirmation. But we priests have also received an anointing on our hands. We have to use our minds and our voices to do our work, to be sure. But also: the hands. To hold the Host and Chalice.

In our Liturgy, the symbol of the heavenly anointing is an oil called… Sacred Chrism. Every Holy Week, we priests concelebrate Mass with our bishop to consecrate new Chrism for the year to come.

Baptized babies will receive anointing with the Chrism on the crowns of their heads. Christians ready to spread the reign of Christ will receive anointing with the Chrism on their foreheads. And the priests to be ordained in June will receive anointing with it on their hands.

Now, one hundred seven years ago today, the Titanic sank. Last year, Holy Mother Church struck an iceberg. And by all worldly estimations, She’s going down.

I never thought I would walk into the cathedral for a Chrism Mass, with the reasonable man in the back of my head thinking: Dude, you’re like one of those violinists on the deck of the Titanic.

But here I go, up the road to Richmond, knowing full well what all reasonable observers know, during Holy Week 2019: Holy Mother Church is sinking. And the men on the bridge have no idea how to save the ship.

But we have more than worldly estimations to consider in this Church. We have Jesus, the Christ.

Holy Father

gave a Chrism-Mass homily today that has given me mucho consolation. Thank you, Papa Francesco. Viva!

Beautiful Richmond Painting of the Day

…Beautiful prayer of the day (consecration of holy Chrism):

God our maker, source of all growth in holiness, accept the joyful thanks and praise we offer in the name of Your Church. In the beginning, at Your command, the earth produced fruit-bearing trees. From the fruit of the olive tree you have provided us with oil for holy chrism. The prophet David sang of the life and joy that the oil would bring us in the sacraments of Your love.

After the avenging flood, the dove returning to Noah with an olive branch announced Your gift of peace. This was a sign of a greater gift to come. Now the waters of baptism wash away the sins of men, and by the anointing with olive oil You make us radiant with Your joy. At Your command, Aaron was washed with water and Your servant Moses, his brother, anointed him Priest. This, too, foreshadowed greater things to come. After Your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, asked John for baptism in the waters of the Jordan, You sent the Spirit upon Him in the form of a dove and by the witness of Your own voice You declared Him to be Your only, well-beloved Son. In this You clearly fulfilled the prophecy of David, that Christ should be anointed with the oil of gladness beyond His fellow men.

And so Father, we ask You to bless + this oil You have created. Fill it with the power of Your Holy Spirit through Christ Your Son. It is from Him that chrism takes its name, and with chrism You have anointed for Yourself priests and kings, prophets and martyrs.
Make this chrism a sign of life and salvation for those who are to be born again in the waters of baptism. Wash away the evil they have inherited from sinful Adam, and when they are anointed with this holy oil make them temples of Your glory, radiant with the
goodness of life that has its source in You. Through the sign of chrism grant them royal, priestly, and prophetic honor, and clothe them with incorruption. Let this be indeed the chrism of salvation for those who will be born again of water and the Holy Spirit. May
they come to share eternal life in the glory of Your Kingdom. We ask this through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Baptized people are anointed with Chrism to be confirmed. Men’s hands are anointed with Chrism to become priests. Altars are anointed with Chrism to be consecrated.

The Truth is a Confusing Thing

Did Blessed Pope Pius IX weave a crown of thorns and send it to Jefferson Davis’ post-war prison cell as a gesture of sympathy?

–Keeping the anniversary of Virginia’s secession by caressing the Davis’ wartime home with my eyes, I eagerly anticipated the sight of the relic.

To my chagrin, I learned that the crown had only been temporarily displayed in Richmond. The crown resides permanently in New Orleans.

Not only that: A thoroughly well-educated young man told me that Mrs. Varina Davis wove the crown, not the Pope.

Buzzkill. (I did lay eyes on the Holy Father’s 1863 letter to East Clay Street!)

My opinion: The arguments for Varina’s having woven the crown do not convince. Could have been the Pope…

…For our meditation: the Pontifical prayer for the consecration of the Holy Chrism, used to anoint in Holy Baptism, Confirmation, and Holy Orders…

God our maker, source of all growth in holiness, accept the joyful thanks and praise we offer in the name of your Church. In the beginning, at your command, the earth produced fruit-bearing trees.

From the fruit of the olive tree you have provided us with oil for holy chrism. The prophet David sang of the life and joy that the oil would bring us in the sacraments of your love.

After the avenging flood, the dove returning to Noah with an olive branch announced your gift of peace. This was a sign of a greater gift to come. Now the waters of baptism wash away the sins of men, and by the anointing with olive oil you make us radiant with your joy.

At your command, Aaron was washed with water, and your servant Moses, his brother, anointed him priest. This too foreshadowed greater things to come. After your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, asked John for baptism in the waters of Jordan, you sent the Spirit upon him in the form of a dove and by the witness of your own voice you declared him to be your only, well-beloved Son. In this you clearly fulfilled the prophecy of David, that Christ would be anointed with the oil of gladness beyond his fellow men.

And so, Father, we ask you to bless + this oil you have created. Fill it with the power of your Holy Spirit through Christ your Son. It is from him that chrism takes its name and with chrism you have anointed for yourself priests and kings, prophets and martyrs.