Archbishop to priests: ‘Our people still believe in God, but they don’t believe in us’

From the homily delivered by Miami’s Archbishop Thomas Wenski at the opening of the convocation of priests Tuesday night:

The crisis which our Church is facing today — not only in this country but throughout the world — has its origins in the failure to hold each other accountable. The crisis is not a crisis of faith, and it’s not mainly about a crisis of sexual abuse by clergy. It is a crisis of leadership — our people still do believe in God; but they don’t believe in us. Of course, they’re supposed to believe in the Lord, not us; but if we are going to lead them — as bishops, as pastors and parish priests — they need to be able to trust us.

If you’ve been reading the Office of Readings these days — and I hope you have — we have been reading from St. Augustine’s sermon on pastors. He is not kind to those who “when they took the milk and covered themselves with wool, they neglected the sheep” seeking their own cause and not Christ’s.

Later on, in the Sermon — we will come upon in the Office next week — St. Augustine asks: “But will there be shepherds who seek what is Christ’s and not what is theirs, and will they be found?”

“There will indeed be such shepherds,” he answers, “and they will indeed be found; they are not lacking, nor will they be lacking in the future.”

May we be such shepherds — and may we, through mutual accountability, help one another to be those shepherds.

Read it all.