Te Deum Laudamus, te Dominum confitemur
In his concluding section of The Church of Apostles and Martyrs, French writer and historian Henri Daniel-Rops recalls a popular fable that had gained in popularity in the 4th century: The legend of the Seven Sleepers.
The incident is said to have taken place during the Emperor Decius’ persecution.
“Seven young Christians who were being pursued by the police took refuge in a cave, not knowing where else they could go. But the Lord took pity upon them and, sending His angel, plunged them into a deep sleep. They slept on there for a century and a half while one after another all the persecutors disappeared, while Constantine reshaped the destinies of the world, and while Theodosius at last leaned his Empire upon the wood of the Cross. Then the angel returned and brushed their eyelids. The sleepers awoke and emerged from their hiding-place. They were suspicious at first, fearing the reappearance of Decius’ guards. But astonishment soon drew from them cries of wonder and gesture of thanksgiving. Was it possible: all these churches sparkling with marble and mosaic; all these crosses standing in the sunlight” (p 594).
We know how long the Roman persecutions lasted. I do not intend to draw a parallelism because circumstances were and are so different. Neither am I in a position to know how long the present upheaval will continue.
My guess is that the “paedophilia season” is not going to go away soon for the simple reason that the ingredients in the struggle have no intention of retiring soon. In the meantime, some questions will keep on hanging in the air. Past generations of Catholic believers, along with Daniel-Rops, have asked similar questions:
“Here indeed is an altogether inexplicable phenomenon; it reminds us once again of the secret designs of Providence that guide the unrolling of history’s scroll. Again, why did God leave His Church to wallow for so long in slimy darkness before shedding his light upon her? (p 3). Some people may come to realise in due time that the resilience and imperishability of the Church’s community is beyond anything one may, in his wildest dreams, imagine. In the process, painful but self-renewing, the Church as a worldwide community may decide to set in motion changes and reforms.
Recent calls for a total reform of the Church sound rather puerile and unsubstantiated by the very facts that have been mentioned in previous articles.
I also believe that this is not an opportune time to push personal agendas for change or to indulge in personal diatribes over either the handling of paedophilia cases (Sodano-Schonborn) or the wilful disclosure or blanketing of information (Malone-Wilson).
The series of statements issued by Church leaders seeking forgiveness for the wrong done is continually matched by clamouring ideologies and practical agendas which know very little about the Church’s history and inner core.
In his volume The Catholic Reformation, Danies-Rops states: “… with equal regularity, there springs from the very depths, where primeval defilement cannot altogether mask, much less destroy, the supernatural resemblance, a force that impels her once more upward to light and life: a force whose name is Grace” (p 2).
I would like to hope that the assessment of Daniel-Rops regarding the Catholic community of the 15th century may be replicated also today.
I have remarked elsewhere that in the second half of the 15th century every Catholic worthy of his salt, all who were alive to the situation, clamoured for reform, sometimes on a note of furious indignation, but more frequently as an act of faith in the eternal destiny of Mother Church. Daniel-Rops’ insistence throughout his volumes on the twin factor in the life of the Church, its soul as a seedbed of sanctity and its eternal destiny, is indeed most reassuring and prophetic.