Corapi

Perfunctory
It seems that in the Catholic world of news and commentary, everyone has something to say about (Fr) John Corapi; and on a day when the liturgy presents us with a Gospel that speaks of sheep and wolves, it seems an opportune time to share a few thoughts.

Myriad
I have innumerable thoughts about this complicated case which has truly become a macabre spectacle, and I will not repeat much of what has already been said; and said better that I could. But let me share a few of my more pressing ideas.

Truth is true
A most basic point: whatever Corapi said in his ministry that was genuine and true and brought about conversions of mind and heart to a Christ-like way of life is still true and good. An ancient dictum runs like this: "if God can speak through Balaam's ass, he can work through the most hardened sinner."

This is what allows me to sleep at night, and why I chose Balaam's ass as my patron saint. (yes, I believe God raised that dead donkey to glory)

Mercy
As Christians, our engagement with this case must be shaped by a fearsome mercy. Mercy, in Christianity and in Judaism, does not overlook wrongdoing but rather seeks to overcome wrongdoing and lead wrongdoers to repentance, reconciliation and restoration. So, whether in word, deed or prayer, our goal should always be to serve as co-workers with God in healing the damage wrought.

Ego
The Corapi case signals the dangers of mixing grace and America's pathological celebrity culture, or, in the felicitous phrase of Thomas Day, of Ego Renewal in ecclesial leadership. Jesus proffered a stinging critique of this lurking danger to his apostles.

Clearly, there are deep structures of disorder (e.g. narcissism) at work in Corapi that transcend mere moral evaluation, but the wild success of someone like him requires a culture that shares the basic features of that disorder.

As an aside, Corapi claimed a spectacular conversion from a life of drugs, promiscuity, greed and narcissism. How important it is for people of faith to not be naïve. Those who experience radical moral conversions to the faith, and those who wish to enlist their witness for the Church, must be highly aware that who they were before the conversion still abides after and will require a lifetime of graced hard labor, radical honesty and structures of sustained accountability to renovate and recreate them in the image of Christ.

S.O.L.T.
That said, I believe that a great and grave burden of responsibility rests with S.O.L.T. for allowing this to go on for as long as it did. Let me allow one of their own members voice this judgment:

Father Sam Medley, webmaster of the Society of Our Lady of the Holy Trinity, attributed the scandal to a lack of fidelity to the society’s charism. “This whole Corapi conundrum would have never happened if we would have been faithful to our SOLT Charism of ecclesial teams-communion,” he said.

Father Medley added:

“I was asked years ago by my superiors if John Corapi could come and work in the community life of the media apostolate I was running at the time,” Father Medley recounted. “YES, I cried! Please bring him back to community life! Canon law tells us that no one from a community should live outside for an extended period of time. This would have also meant the regulation of his bank account and other violations would have been remedied. Sadly this didn't happen.”

The Cross
Let me close these brief reflections with a turn toward Corapi's signature theme: the cross. He wrote his dissertation on this: The Cross of Christ in the Magisterium of John Paul II

Many have observed that his present actions, and blogged commentaries on those actions, betray the core of his thesis. Of all times in his priestly life, this would have been the most momentous to live this most-radical of all Christian dogmas: that we are redeemed by means of self-denying obedience, suffering and death.

San Juan de la Cruz
I will part with the words of a dear saint companion of mine, St. John of the Cross, and share here three of his ten counsels to members of his discalced religious order. They are illuminating for us all.

To practice the second counsel, which concerns mortification, and profit by it, you should engrave this truth on your heart. And it is that you have not come to the monastery for any other reason than to be worked and tried in virtue; you are like the stone that must be chiseled and fashioned before being set in the building. Thus you should understand that those who are in the monastery are craftsmen placed there by God to mortify you by working and chiseling at you. Some will chisel with words, telling you what you would rather not hear; others by deed, doing against you what you would rather not endure; others by their temperament, being in their person and in their actions a bother and annoyance to you; and others by their thoughts, neither esteeming nor feeling love for you. You ought to suffer these mortifications and annoyances with inner patience, being silent for love of God and understanding that you did not enter the religious life for any other reason than for others to work you in this way, and so you become worthy of heaven. If this was not your reason for entering the religious state, you should not have done so, but should have remained in the world to seek your comfort, honor, reputation, and ease.

The second counsel is wholly necessary for religious so they may fulfill the obligations of their state and find genuine humility, inward quietude, and joy in the Holy Spirit. If you do not practice this, you will know neither how to be a religious nor even why you came to the religious life. Neither will you know how to seek Christ (but only yourself), or find peace of soul, or avoid sinning and often feeling troubled. Trials will never be lacking in religious life, nor does God want them to be. Since he brings souls there to be proved and purified, like gold, with hammer and the fire [Ecclus. 2:5], it is fitting that they encounter trials and temptations from human beings and from devils, and the fire of anguish and affliction. The religious must undergo these trials and should endeavor to bear them patiently and in conformity to God's will, and not so sustain them that instead of being approved by God in this affliction he be reproved for not having wanted to carry the cross of Christ in patience. Since many religious do not understand that they have entered religious life to carry Christ's cross, they do not get along well with others. At the time of reckoning they will find themselves greatly confused and frustrated.

To practice the third counsel, which concerns the practice of virtue, you should be constant in your religious observance and in obedience without any concern for the world, but only for God. In order to achieve this and avoid being deceived, you should never set your eyes on the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of the work at hand as a motive for doing it or failing to do it, but on doing it for God. Thus you must undertake all things, agreeable or disagreeable, for the sole purpose of pleasing God through them.