Betrayers !!!!!!

[Mathew Moothasseril]

'My betrayer is at hand' From the church to the individual, humanity
is drowning in betrayal Father William Grimm, Tokyo
Japan September 24, 2018

In Gethsemane, Jesus said, "My betrayer is at hand."News of the
Catholic Church these days reminds us that we live in a world in which
betrayers are always at hand.Clergy and religious have betrayed
children and adults, abusing those entrusted to their care. Bishops
and superiors have betrayed us all by protecting those betrayers and
providing them with new opportunities to carry out more abuse.Higher
leaders in the church have betrayed their vocation by ignoring charges
and dangers. That betrayal goes all the way up to a canonized saint,
John Paul II, who even after Theodore McCarrick's betrayals were
common knowledge, made him a cardinal and who over and over again
presented a Mexican priest, Marcial Maciel Degollado, as "an
efficacious guide to youth."Yet there was copious evidence at the
Vatican that Maciel, founding leader of the Legionaries of Christ, was
sexually abusing young men and women, including his own children born
of his three "wives." That evidence was known to and believed by that
pope's closest advisor, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who upon becoming
Pope Benedict XVI quickly moved against Maciel.In its institutional
failure or refusal to deal with the abuse crisis until being coerced
by civil laws, public exposure and the threat of bankruptcy, the
Catholic Church has betrayed Christ and the world.We all know what
betrayal is, the "violation of a person's trust or confidence, of a
moral standard, etc." The special pain of being betrayed is in the
fact that the violation is perpetrated by someone or some institution
that we have trusted rather than by an adversary whom we considered
unworthy of trust.In his poem Inferno, Dante makes the center of hell
the place of punishment for Judas, Brutus and Cassius, the betrayers
of Jesus and Julius Caesar. For the poet, betrayal is the deepest sin.
And Dante is not the only one who thinks there should be a special
place in hell for traitors.We have all experienced it. We have all
perpetrated it. It is one of the most painful experiences we can
have.Children are not the only ones who are betrayed by friends.
Through neglect, abuse or simple inadequacy, parents betray their
children. Adults are betrayed by spouses and lovers. Nations are
betrayed by traitors or by undependable "allies." Voters are betrayed
by corrupt politicians. Workers are betrayed by employers to whom they
have devoted their time and talents only to see their wages and
benefits cut and their jobs moved out from under them. In many cases,
employers' betrayal puts workers in dangerous conditions at slave
wages.Economic and political systems that should function for the
common good promote injustice and inequality.It is not just "those
others" who are traitors. Confession is a sacrament of the church
because we all betray our baptismal mission to be Christ for the
world.And we betray more than just our mission. Is there any one of us
who can honestly say, "I have never betrayed someone"? I certainly
cannot, and if you claim that you can, you have betrayed the truth.We
even betray ourselves. I know I want to be and could be a better
person than I am. I want to take better care of myself physically,
emotionally, spiritually and morally. Yet, I do not.Life itself
betrays us. Disease, injury and age whittle away at our vigor and
abilities until life finally deserts us in death.At times, we even
feel betrayed by God. In that, we are in good company. Jesus' cry from
the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" is the cry of
one who feels he has been betrayed.As betrayers and betrayed, humanity
is drowning in betrayal.In his film version of Nikos Kazantzakis's
novel The Last Temptation of Christ the director Martin Scorsese
presents a powerful scene of betrayal. Scorsese shows Jesus walking
away from the cross.It is the last temptation of Christ, the
temptation to betray his vocation to remain faithful to the Father on
our behalf to and through death. In the novel and film, as in fact,
Jesus does not give in to the temptation to betray. He is the one who
is faithful, the only one among us who is dependably faithful.The root
of betrayal is fear, and our fears are rooted in the ultimately
fearsome thing, death.In his refusal to betray even when betrayed by
others and, seemingly, even by God, Jesus shatters the universal rule
of betrayal. In doing so, he crushes the power of death that underlies
it and makes a new life possible for all of us, a life without
betrayal, without the fear of death that underlies it. Because Jesus
refused the temptation of betrayal, he has opened the way for us to
overcome death.Father William Grimm, MM, is the publisher of
ucanews.com and is based in Tokyo.

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*GATHER THE SCATTERED*

Fr Mathew Moothasseril
Sant Thoma Bhavan
Post Box 306
RAMAN MALA
Kolhapur,416 003
Maharashtra
INDIA