Written in 1983 by
The. Rev. Eugene H. Ciarlo, priest of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford
Some of the nicest people don’t even realize that they are insulting a priest whom they, contact for a marriage or a baptism. And it is hardly restricted to two sacraments. The insult, too, is only the beginning. How does this happen so subtly?
More and more there are fewer and fewer people who make the Church their own. In common terms, they don't practice their religion. Comes time for the marriage, there they are, practically defying the priest or deacon to tell them to take a hike. “Why do you want to marry in the Church?” “I'm a Catholic. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't have a church wedding.”
But how does the priest feel? Insulted, used, made a non-person, a guru, a shaman like the medicine man and witch doctor of old. He's got to go through the motions of presiding at a marriage in which he knows faith is no factor, a sacrament in which faith is of the essence, belief that the union between husband and wife is like the bond between Christ and his Church. (As these words are being compared, there is a song on the radio, "There's a Stranger in my House." How appropriate!)
To be married in the Church, to be baptized or request baptism for an infant, to approach a priest or deacon for any kind of assistance from the Church implies membership, active membership, and more. It implies a kind of faith that makes the title "Catholic" a living reality in one's day to day existence.
Come for financial or material assistance and it's tolerable for us to become a social agency for a while, call it a corporal work of mercy as conjoined with the spiritual ones. Even in these instances, which are becoming more common, it is heartening to know that the person is a practicing believer in some Christian denomination.
Further, it is no asset to the Church to deal with the indifferent. Anyone who upholds the Church as sacred, significant, an honorable and effective agent in the upbuilding of life and goodness in the world, should feel insulted and even outraged by those who tend to approach it for their socio-cultural convenience, superstition, or whatever prompts them to call upon it as a sometime value.
We, the Church are continually in a process of purification, working, toward integrity, wholeness, and in these days, honesty and justice within our own household. The last thing we need is anyone who would belittle our meaning and intention to become more than a hollow, once-upon-a-time, ineffective institution whose days are numbered. Our days are numbered if, like a doctor or lawyer, we begin to have more clients than members.
What about the integrity of those non-members who seek the Church's blessing upon their indifference? These are days of upholding personal authenticity as the great virtue and hypocrisy as the sin. Advice: don't compromise your integrity. Follow through on your set course, unless you have seen a light which says that it's time to count religion as a significant factor in your life.
The Church is always ready with open arms and the kind word, hoping beyond hope that the brief encounter will be the start of something big. Perhaps that is what prompts us to keep sucking in the gut. But we're not being loving nor just. Nor are we being fools for the sake of Christ, to quote St. Paul. We just prolong and promote the heresy that the Church has already died.