1. Rector’s Conference – Graduate Degree Weekend
    September 15, 2018
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB
    Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
    These words of St. Paul from the Letter to the Romans, in naming the attributes of our Divine Master, ask each of us an important question as well: Who are you?
    This, of course, is a very deep existential question. Nevertheless, as we begin our time together this year, I think it is an important question for us to ask.
    Who are you? Who am I?
    Blessed John Henry Newman offers us some insight here, I believe, or at least my invoking of John Henry Newman offers you some insight about how I perceive things. In his seminal work, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent, Newman spends considerable intellectual energy on the idea of how we become who we are.
    Against, the reductionist tendencies of his time, the middle of the 19th century, Newman refuses to accept easy answers to what he considers complex questions. For example, we know that Marx reduces human endeavor to the least common denominator of capital. Freud sees sexual energy as a defining factor of human experience. Likewise, in Newman’s time, religion was seeking simple answers, even to the complex question of God.
    Newman, however, sought a different approach. In his way of thinking, drawn from what he believed to be the experience of every human person, life was complicated. We would like to believe it is easy. We would like to think it was solvable, but it is not. We cannot be reduced in the depth, the richness of our experience, our perceptions. And this, of course, is a glorious by-product of having been created, not only by God, but in the very image of God.
    Listen again to the words of St. Paul:
    Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
    Newman understood this passage quite well. He knew that God was a mystery, something that was infinitely pursuable, infinitely knowable, and infinitely capable of loving and being loved. And we are created in the image of God. For Newman, this meant that human relationships, human societies, and human situations were filled, absolutely filled, overflowingly filled, with possibility.
    In Newman’s vocabulary, this was a sensibility of the human person known as the illative sense. The illative sense is the power of the human person to process data, sensory perceptions, emotions, sounds, feelings, everything we experience, and to use all of that, twisting it into a kind of rope, so that our ideas and our ideals are completely and securely our own and are built up over time, strong, powerful and brilliantly complex.
    In other words, to truly know another person, we must enter into a relationship of depth with that person. To truly know our parishioners, we must become intimately involved in their lives in the most pure sense. To know you, I must take time and invest energy in finding out who you are, what makes you tick, how you think and, also, how you are broken.
    Let me give you an example of this: Say, over time, a period of several months or even years, I begin to notice certain tendencies or ways of behaving in a person. He does this. She copes with problems like this. She acts like this under pressure. Often, this will prompt me to go ask myself questions. What were her experiences here and here, as a child or a young adult? What is his family like? What about past relationships?
    In no way, absolutely no way, do I view these past occurrences or tendencies as any kind of fatal WAY in which you will necessarily engage the world, but they might be pointers to why you are doing this or that, acting in this particular way. Of course, that is just one way. Another way, a better way, is for me to ask the person. Depth analysis of our relationships here begins in honest conversation. But what do we sometimes do?
    We judge and we pre-judge. This one is dumb. This one is too effeminate. This one is a drunk. This one is intelligent. This one is … fill in the blank. But the other thing we have to remember is that in reducing our brothers and sisters to stereotypes, or relying too heavily on first impressions, we are failing to deal with the complexity that is in each person, the illative sense of that person, and our own need to look deeply into not only the souls of our brothers and sisters here, but our own souls.
    Sometimes, reducing our brothers and sisters to stereotypes allows me to reduce myself to a stereotype. I become prejudiced against myself. Many times in my years of formation, I have had to confront a student’s perception of himself as stupid, or worthless. We learn some of those lessons early on.
    They are hard to unlearn, but brothers and sisters, you may have this or that character challenge, we all do, but you are also capable of becoming more that you have been led to believe that you are. When we harshly judge others, it is usually because we harshly judge ourselves. When we hate something in others, it may well be that is the thing I am most ardently seeking to deny in myself.
    We are complex people, and your success as a minister or just a good member of the Church, that is, if you are going to give people what they truly need, is going to come from realizing the illative nature of life and acting on it, always seeking depth and meaning after the pattern of God Himself:
    Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
    Here is what I know: I have been involved at some level with formation for the last 30-plus years. I have seen it all. I have seen tragedy and triumph. I have experienced laughter and tears. I have been on target and I have made mistakes. This is the drama of life. It is lived out here.
    I would say, through my experience, that today, in our schools, we have the best group of folks in formation that I have ever seen. Of course, I say that every year because I believe it every year. We are getting better. You are getting stronger. You are talented people, good people, holy people, struggling people, broken people, wild people, tame people.
    There are many wonderful attributes of our students today. The first is that you take your faith seriously. If you are here, you take your faith seriously. In general, the generation to which you belong is fading away from the Church. We know this statistically. Many young people are leaving the Church and so, if you are staying, and more so, if you are here, you are serious about your faith.
    You take God seriously. You take the Church seriously even in times of trial and, sometimes, really gross error. You take it seriously and you want to be evangelists. You view your work, or even your presence in the Church in the coming years, as a kind of missionary work. In general, you understand the problems facing our world today and you know, that even in a country such as ours, there is real missionary work to be done.
    There is a mission to announce the Good News in the cities. The urban sprawl has created a kind of perverse anonymity that allows people to fall through the cracks of the sidewalks. Broken and afraid, they need to have the message of hope and Truth preached to them. Who will go? Who will go as announcers of God’s love to a people who have lost the ability to even ask the question of Love? How can we preach to those who have so lost their way that they no longer even believe there is a way, except perhaps in the depth of their souls, a place they have been assiduously taught to avoid?
    There is a mission to announce the Good News in the rural places. If we believe that the countryside has been exempt from the cultural challenges faced by the cities, we are wrong. Many of you are preparing for ministry in farm communities and smaller towns. The challenges and problems are there. Drug abuse is there. Prostitution is there. Poverty and destitution is there, here. But you also have cynicism, hopelessness, prejudice, a lack of values. These sins, these evils, are no respecters of population or property lines.
    There is a mission to announce the Good News on campuses. What are our schools like today? Undoubtedly, many are the same wholesome institutions they have always been. But school violence, shootings, a lack of serious funding, teachers at the end of their ropes, students at the end of their hopes, all of these make for an environment that exceeds the drama of adolescence and young adulthood and sinks into the quagmire of destitution and desperation.
    Instead of schools becoming places of hope, they become places of danger. There is something wrong when the Department of Education stands back and allows teachers to arm themselves with monies earmarked for education. There is a deep problem there.
    There is a mission to announce Good News to families. It is interesting to me that the teachings of the Church on the family, so rich and so profound, are, in many places today, seen as quaint and out of date. The Church stands for something, but that something is seen as too idealistic. Broken families, divided families, angry parents and children, isolated and lonely. All of these characteristics speak to a world in which the ideal of family life, spoken by our heritage and attested to in our teaching, is under attack.
    Look at what is happening in Catholic schools regarding sexuality and sexual preference. Look at the divorce rate among Catholics. Look at the attitude of Catholics toward issues like same gender relationships. Our teaching is not getting through. How can we change that? How can we convince a jaded world that the depth and richness of Catholic teaching will make them better human persons in the observance?
    But likewise, how can we help people who sin and struggle to come back to the faith and not feel ostracized or left out? It is one thing to pass judgment on sin. It is another thing to love the sinner and make him or her feel welcome in the Church. We are all welcome in the Church, and that is our pastoral challenge and our personal, as much as the careful and deliberate conveyance of doctrine.
    Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
    All of these are challenges, but here is what I know. You, all of you, are not only ready to meet those challenges, you are on fire to do so.
    That is not to say there are no challenges for students of theology today. There are challenges.
    There are challenges presented by the world. These I have spoken of at length. In our world today, largely created by the reductionist tendencies of the Enlightenment, there is an alienation of the human person. Because we do not, or cannot, accept Newman’s complex vision, we are caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of a message sent by culture and a message drawn by God in the sinews of our hearts.
    There are challenges presented by the Church, and again we know these. I won’t rehearse them again this morning; there are sins in the Church. But we also have to hold true to the reality of what I have been trying to emphasize here. The Catholic Church is the fullness of God’s revelation, and we as minsters of the Church must remain faithful and true. We must stand winnowing away the smoke that obscures the world’s vision of the pure and holy Church, a smoke often created in the furnaces our failings and our sins.
    And of course, as I have said, there are challenges presented by WHO YOU ARE and WHO I AM. How well we meet those challenges demonstrates the quality of our theological education and our formation.
    Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!
    May God bless you as you embark on this new endeavor. You will be challenged here and loved here; your illative sensibility will be promoted here. It is my hope that you will also be blessed here. Many blessings for your days and months to come. 

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  2. Rector’s Conference, or Dad’s Little Talk about the Stove
    September 9, 2018
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB     
    I want to spend a few moments this evening offering some reflections on formation and at least some of the principles, the ideals, that govern our life together here. A seminary can be, perhaps must be, a fragile ecosystem. We are all here for a particular purpose. We are all here to test ourselves, sometimes to the limit, whether we understand that testing as academic, spiritual, pastoral or personal. Seminary formation is difficult, and it requires not only all that you have, but all that we have in creating and maintaining a formation environment that is healthy and whole.

    With these ideals in mind, I would like to offer some comments tonight that fall into two distinct categories. The first category that I would like to address is what our responsibilities are in formation, both yours and ours on the formation staff.

    First of all, as you have heard me say before, this is a community of adults and it is a community primarily concerned with forming adult men for the priesthood. That means that we are always going to treat you like adults. We are not going to hide things from you; we are not here to play games. We are not here to say one thing to you and another to your vocation director.

    That is not to say that communication is always perfect, but I think we can agree that we want to be transparent with you and it is important that you be transparent with us. I also know that sometimes things happen in the seminary, such as the departure of a seminarian seemingly quite suddenly, that CANNOT be openly discussed to guard the privacy of the person. This, again, is not a game, but a real issue of privacy.

    I can guarantee you that I have no energy for playing games. Now, don’t play games with us. If you have a problem, come to us. Every year we have at least one situation of this one or that group that has nothing better to do with their time than gripe and complain about the formation staff.

    These little cabals are usually centered around someone who wants to set himself up as a guru of orthodoxy, or prophetic utterance. Small worship services, centered on the guru, are conducted behind closed doors. The guru knows better than those of us with a combined hundreds of years’ experience. There is a great deal of judgment passed about this priest or that sister and whether they measure up. I have no stomach for such behavior. If you have a problem, certainly consult with your confreres, but ultimately, only one of us can solve your problem.

    You are here to be formed for the priesthood, and we are presuming that you take that seriously AND that you take your life seriously. While this is a community of men, it is not a fraternity house. A positive sense of recreation is important, but all of us need to ask ourselves here: what is my reputation among others in the community?

    I think it should be, first and foremost, as a man of prayer. When people are in need, when their families are in need, are they coming to me for prayers because they perceive me as a man of prayer, or am I better known as the “life of the party”? Be the life of the party, within reason, but also be known as a man of serious intent and prayer, a man seen in the chapel as much as in the gym, a man distinguished in the classroom as much as in the UnStable.

    Am I known as a man of prayer or am I the one who stands in the background bitching about everything that goes on around here, but failing to have the testicular fortitude to make an appointment with the rector and say something about it? I said this is a community of adults and open and honest communication is essential. If there are issues in this regard, you will hear from me.

    In terms of our responsibilities, another I will mention in a particular way is attendance. If you are going to miss class or be away, communicate with your dean, your prefect and faculty members for your classes. If you are ill or need some attention, let your dean, your prefect and one of the infirmarians know. If you are absent from Morning Prayer or Mass, let your dean know why.

    This is a community of adults, so don’t make us come looking for you. If you are assigned to some liturgical function, fulfill it on time. If you are supposed to be at a particular meeting or setting up in the dining room, be there. These are responsibilities we have to make our home a true house of prayer and formation. Nothing cuts into the fiber of a community’s morale more than someone who will not pull his weight or does not take the values of the seminary seriously.

    Clarity about our purpose here also means that I have the responsibility to point to a few principles that, in a community of Christian living and a community of formation, must be considered of paramount importance. I am stating without hesitation and confidently that the serious infraction of these ideals means that the individual can no longer live here and be formed for ministry. I also want to give you concrete examples of what a serious infraction would entail. That is for the good of the Church. That is meeting the needs of the Church.

    Last year, this talk got the nickname of “Dad’s Little Talk about the Stove.” Let’s have it:

    The first of these principles is chastity. Living a chaste life here is an absolute value that must be maintained. It must be. No one here is in the sacramental position to live an unchaste life. Failure to live a chaste life, whether that is through overt sexual activity, a seemingly incurable addiction to pornography, grossly inappropriate humor, or the inability to deal with others in a sexually appropriate way, either physically or verbally, is an infringement not only of Christian values, but on the trust we must have in one another.

    Living a chaste life is not easy. Many here struggle with temptations and overcome them. Some do not. I am not talking about struggle. Struggling heroically to live the chaste life is part of who we are as Christian men and women. Whether we are married, single or have made a promise or vow of celibacy, the chaste life is a struggle, for some more than others.

    We have many resources here to help you live a chaste life. We have our counseling center, which has done wonders for so many, including me. We have understanding formation staff members, who only ask for honesty in dealing with difficult questions. But honesty is necessary. It is a violent affront to those who struggle heroically to live the ideal of chastity when a person takes that ideal less than seriously.

    Transgressions against chastity that warrant a severing of the formation relationship include any physical genital activity with another person, but would also include aggressive physical advances that are unwanted. We must also be aware that we should not find ourselves frequenting bars or other places where casual sexual encounters are the order of the day.

    One of the things we must learn at the beginning of formation to guard against is damage to our reputations. Often we can be misled into thinking: I can go there. No one will know. Brothers and sisters, God knows and, frankly, so do others. What do you think it does to the reputation of an already embattled Church when you show up in a bar like that? If you have doubts about what I mean by this, ask me. Believe me, I will tell you.

    Living a life of chastity also means a serious commitment to address the question of internet pornography. How can we have a vision of the life of God if our visions are clouded with exploitation and degeneracy of the beauty of human sexuality? If you have a problem with internet pornography, please get some help for that problem. If you would like to talk about it in the external forum, see me. It is probably better for you to see me than for me to have to see you.

    A second principle that insures the good order of a house of formation is sobriety. While the use of alcohol is not regulated as in some other institutions, an incident of public drunkenness is unacceptable and may lead to further consequences. Alcohol, if it is used, must be used responsibly.

    For some, because of their particular circumstances, this applies in a more concrete way. Sobriety is the mark of a good priest, and no priest should find his reputation damaged by the improper use of alcohol or any other substances. If your claim to fame is your liquor cabinet, you may need to stand back and reprioritize. The use of alcohol is often tied to a lowering of inhibitions. Do not threaten to compromise your integrity, your reputation or your virtue because you are under stress. Learn to deal with stress in ways that do not involve alcohol.

    Likewise, the use of any illegal substance is unacceptable. The priest needs good judgment, and artificial means of compromising that judgment is behavior incompatible with the priestly state. At this point, you may say: Why isn’t there regulation? Why do you have an on-campus bar? Brothers, there is no regulation “out there.”

    Teaching you to control yourself can only be accomplished in the context of what is there. My forbidding you to have beer in your rooms will frankly not keep you from having beer in your rooms. I do not inhabit that fool’s paradise. Sobriety is also a singular ideal of a person of prayer. Again, if you need help in this area, you need only ask someone. Help is yours. It will be given happily and freely, but to struggle in secret, to keep excessive drinking a secret, is not serving the Church. We have already seen far too much of that.

    A third important principle of this community is charity toward others. We must learn to show kindness and generosity to others. It is essential not only to our life here, but to our lives as priests as well. Showing blatant disrespect to others through acts of physical or verbal abuse is unacceptable behavior that indicates a seminarian’s lack of ability to be formed for the priesthood.

    This is a house of charity. In all that we do, the love of God must be foremost. I also know that this is a house of mostly men. It is a house where base competitiveness can take over. It is a house where some base instincts can guide the day when the going gets tough. How we handle stress and how we deal with difficult situations, dare I say, people, is a mark of our character.

    The priest needs only one instance of losing his temper or an act of physical violence to damage his reputation forever. Another example of this is off-color humor, telling sexually explicit jokes or humor that denigrates a particular gender, race or ethnicity. If you feel hurt by the way in which others express themselves, please speak to them about it. If they seem insensitive to your concerns, see me.

    I mention these essential values and the behaviors that compromise these values for the sake of clarity. As we progress in our resolve to live the life of discipleship in the particular vocation of the priesthood, we are called to an increasing accountability for our actions. If you have questions about these, please talk to your deans or talk to me.

    I hope that all of you know that this is a place of real conversation, where real questions can be raised without threat. This is a place bent on assisting you in becoming the best you can be. I hope that you come to appreciate that in the coming days, months and years. I hope you come to see that this is really a place of safety and trust. There is no problem that cannot be overcome, if we deal with it honestly.

    Again, I hope this place is a place of adult approaches to the world, a place of trust and a place where the staff, while not your friends, can be your guides and mentors in a serious way. I look forward to this coming year, of getting to know our new men more personally and our old men more deeply. My door is always open, and my blessings and prayers are with you each and every day.

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  3. Opening Rector's Conference
    September 4, 2018
    Very Rev. Denis Robinson, OSB

    “Therefore I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”
    The reading tonight from Isaiah is a powerful one, coming as it does in the context of the suffering servant narrative in Isaiah, but also engaging an authentic Christological foreshadowing. I would also say it is a prescient passage for those of us who are conformed in the person of Christ, those who seek to serve Christ, those who are men and women of Christ. What does it portend?

    I have set my life to be in tandem with that of Christ Jesus, and I cannot falter. I cannot fail, no matter what forces of nature or society assail me.

    Tonight this reading is presented for us in the midst of scandal and real need among the people of God, the clergy, our bishops, in the Church and in this community of formation. We must begin this year, in my opinion, with an honest appraisal of our situation. As a theologian and a priest, I think I know the principle values our Church represents. I think I know that the Church, having been established firmly on the foundations of Christ, cannot ultimately falter. I know that there is an eschatological dimension to our Church that will see it through any storm.

    But I also know this: storms do come. Even an eschatologically sure institution is not immune to threat and danger. The power of Satan continues to rock the Church and our success, in our time, in our situation comes not only, perhaps not principally, from asserting the Church’s permanent reality, but in helping the Church to weather the storms that cannot be avoided.

    In other words, we do not compromise the Church’s essential divine origin, or its ultimate fulfillment, when we assert that, at this moment, we are very seriously in trouble.

    Now again listen to the prophet:
    “Therefore I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”
    Courage in adversity is, first and foremost, acknowledging the adversity.
    I am also reminded tonight of the Gospel reading from St. John that we had about a week ago. It comes within the context of Chapter 6. It is a chapter about scandal. Jesus has hard things to impose on the disciples. These sayings of the Lord are so hard that many abandon “The Way,” turning their backs on Jesus and his mission. Jesus asks the apostles if they, too, do not wish to move away from following him. Peter’s reply is important to us:
    Lord to whom shall we go?
    Lord, to whom shall we go?
    Ultimately, my brothers and sisters, that is the question.

    This evening I would like to say a few words about my father. I do not often speak about him, at least directly. My father died 38 years ago. He was 44 at the time of his death. Today, I am older by 11 years than my father. I only knew him as a young man.

    My father came from a family of 16 children. It was a very sturdy family of faith, many ministers, and endless church activities. It was a hardworking and upstanding family of men and women who sought beyond anything else to serve God in the way they thought best.

    He was a man of faith. He was a man of prayer. He was a man of charity. He was a man of strong opinions. He was a man of service, and all of this was done so quietly that no one might have noticed if it was not for his rather large frame.

    In 1977, he and my mother converted to the Catholic Church, having grown up in conspicuous and devout Baptist homes. In converting, my father was largely abandoned by his family. While he seldom talked about it, I know that loss weighed very heavily on him.

    His conversion to Catholicism, however, also transformed his life. His attitude toward the world was radically changed. I do not believe there could have been any saint or martyr who loved the Catholic Church more than he did. He read and studied every day, with the same fervor he had once pursued his Baptist faith. He worked hard, or as hard as he could, in the parish. He befriended the priests. He was president of the Vincent de Paul Society. He was a man of the Church through and through for three years, until he died of kidney failure at that very young age.

    In my admiration for the man, I sometimes ask myself: What would my father’s reaction to the scandals be? After all, as a new Catholic, one filled with idealism, he would surely have been disappointed. I don’t know. I am sure, as a man of the world, he understood weakness. At least he always understood my adolescent weakness.

    I don’t know if he could have accepted that there were priests who lied and cheated their way through life, priests who abused small children, priests who abused vulnerable adults, priests who abused those under their care, priests who abused their office in the confessional, priests whose stoles would have more profitably served as nooses for their damage to the Church, bishops who lied and covered up for others, even if they were not complicit themselves, bishops who sent serial abusers from parish to parish to renew in other pastures their predatory behavior, bishops who failed to look to the needs of their flocks and sought to preserve an institution that ought to have been standing up for the weak and powerless but instead made itself weak and powerless in the face of lies continuously being revealed.

    These men have willfully damaged our Church, they damaged themselves, they created a simulacrum of perfection that was nothing more than a house of cards. They have disappointed the faithful. They have scandalized the world in their inability to tell the truth. They have made men and women despise the God whom they proposed to represent.

    They have become wolves instead of shepherds, and we stand today in shame on their decimated killing fields. The wonder of the Church has been stained by blood. The grandeur of the Church has been washed in vomit. The goodness of the Church? O my, the goodness of the Church …

    What would my father think of the Church he loved being exposed in this corner and that corner as fraudulent?

    I don’t know, but I would give anything to be able to talk to him about it.

    I do know this: he could never abandon his faith, the faith he fought hard for, the faith that gave shape to his short life.
    “Therefore I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”
    “Lord to whom shall we go?”
    Since I am speaking very personally to you this evening, I would like to tell you about two experiences I have been reflecting on. Somehow, they speak for themselves.

    The first one actually happened a few years ago when I was residing in Anselm Hall. It was in the summer, and I was in my room when the alarms began to sound in the building. It was not the time of day for “practice drills” nor had we been given any warning of practices. I looked out the window and saw that it was dark and foreboding: storm.

    However, it was odd in that the alarm sounding seemed like both a tornado warning and a fire warning. Needless to say, I made my way to the basement. Others were equally confused. Was it a fire, or a tornado? Should we go outside and avoid the “fire” or stay inside and risk a different kind of fate? Fortunately, the so-called emergencies ended soon enough, but I so distinctly remember standing in the doorway near Health Services and wondering: which way must I go?

    Which way shall I go? You have heard me say many times in the context of our various conferences over the course of years that: Everyone will break a promise. There is no priesthood perfectly lived. There is no priesthood that does not incur the price of sin. I don’t care how perfectly continent you are. I don’t care how perfectly obedient you are. I don’t care how faithful you are in reciting your prayers. For some of those perfect priests, their point of fall becomes the pride they have in being perfect priests. All will sin. All.

    Everyone will damage the fiber of the Church by giving bad example. I am having a bad day and I spout off at the staff or parishioners. I am upset about something and I take it out on the nurses at the hospital where I am visiting. I lose my temper in traffic. I become irritated at the doctor’s office.

    Or more seriously, I find myself in a relationship in which a parishioner and I are verging on the prospect of inappropriate behavior. I am on vacation, and who will ever know if I engage this or that kind of encounter. I am at a wedding reception and have too much to drink and I drive home drunk. I make it or I don’t make it.

    There is no perfection. That is especially true if we are authentically living our priesthood. We all have struggles. We all have falls. We all have challenges. There is no perfection, none at all. But there is honesty.

    How can I react honestly to the scandals plaguing the Church? There are many responses that might be realized, both from priests and Catholics in the pews.

    There is resignation, a casual acceptance of failure or even the need to cover it up. We have seen all too much of this. We might say: the Pennsylvania report is biased. We might say there is a political motivation to the accusations against this bishop, that cardinal, for God’s sake, the pope. We might say all of this excrement is in the past, and to some extent it is. But wishing it away or trying to explain it away is not an option. Excrement does not stink any less because it’s under the rug.

    Or we might respond with bitterness and anger. So many victims have, and it is certainly understandable. How could our priests do this? How could our bishops do that? We cannot understand how those who hold themselves up as moral exemplars, and perhaps infallible moral exemplars, can fall.

    Some, of course, are leaving, either leaving the Catholic Church, or more tragically, abandoning belief in God altogether. I cannot understand their actions from a personal point of view, but I do appreciate that people are hurting, hurting to the point of forsaking God or at least forsaking the God that some in our Church are inadequately representing. How can that be?
    “Lord to whom shall we go when you alone have the words of everlasting life.”
    In the face of all of this, somehow, my brothers and sisters, we have to hold firm to these words. You Lord alone have the words of everlasting life and we must wade through the refuse to gain a pure revelation of those words, but that pure revelation is there. It is surely there.

    In spite of scandal, the Truth still remains:

    The Truth still remains, in the classroom and on the playground of the parish school.

    The Truth still remains in the quiet ticking away of hours of prayer offered up on behalf of an often-indifferent flock.

    The Truth still remains in the words of teachers lecturing, and students taking notes.

    The Truth still remains in quiet words of kindness offered to those who are hurting and confused.

    The Truth still remains in the hard decisions that must be made and the easy decisions that are ready made.

    The Truth still remains in the confessional and the sacristy of the church.

    The Truth still remains in the hospital room and in the nursing home.

    The Truth still remains in the parish offices, the Tribunal, the dicasteries of the Church.

    The Truth still remains in the heart of the Vatican.

    The Truth still remains as I kneel beside my bed every night and say my prayers:
    Lord now let your servant go in peace…
    Let your fragile and fallible servant go in peace for in him, in me, your Word has been fulfilled, poorly, weakly, falteringly, but nevertheless, fulfilled in the very act of kneeling by my bed.
    In spite of scandal, the Truth still remains.

    My brothers and sisters, we are guardians of that Truth. The faculty, whom we renew and bless tonight, are holders of that Truth, communicators of that Truth. They have a great deal to teach you, but if they teach you with words and not deeds, their words are useless. We have a faith-filled faculty and I am proud of them.

    We have staff who are holders of that Truth. In spite of our rampant humanity, we can help you find and carry the Truth, because you, my brothers, are the carriers of that Truth, the holders and guardians of that Truth. You carry and hold and guard in so many ways, some that you know and many perhaps you cannot see so clearly. Your fidelity, our fidelity, to the Truth that is Christ Jesus is what will carry us beyond the scandals we are currently experiencing, but we must walk, step by step, through it all.

    Finally, I would like to recount for you a dream I had last week. I was on vacation (in the South, of course) and I had booked a room in a really nice hotel by the beach. The porter took my bags at the desk and showed me to the room. He opened the door and I could tell two things right away. It was a grand room beautifully appointed, a view of the ocean, absolutely magnificent; and two, it was trashed.

    There was literally crap everywhere, carpets torn up, bed unmade, the furnishings fouled. The porter looked very embarrassed and said how sorry he was that the room was in such bad shape. It really was their best room. He asked me if I wanted another smaller room, and I said no. This room was fine. We just had to clean it up.
    “Lord to whom shall we go?”
    “The Lord GOD is my help, therefore I am not disgraced. Therefore I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.”
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    Labels: Catholic Rector Seminary
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Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB
Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB

Fr. Denis Robinson, OSB, is president-rector of Saint Meinrad School of Theology in St. Meinrad, IN. A Benedictine monk, he is also an assistant professor of systematic theology. A Mississippi native, Fr. Denis attended Saint Meinrad College and School of Theology, earning a bachelor's degree in philosophy in 1989 and a Master of Divinity in 1993. From 1993-97, he was parochial vicar for the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Memphis, TN. He joined the Saint Meinrad monastery in August 1997. Fr. Denis also attended the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, where he received a master’s degree in theology in 2002, a licentiate in sacred theology in 2003, and doctorates in sacred theology and philosophy in 2007.

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