Well, "focusing on" may be a bit much, but we should never be complacent to live in the midst of sin. We are taught that sin needs correction. If no one ever says anything then sin will just continue to grow in any organization. As with anyone I can think of around here, if you were a member of a group that was fine for a while, but then started to stand for or do very unChristian things, you would work to correct the problem and/or resign from the group. In hyperbole, if the Pope declared today that historic American-style slavery was suddenly fine and dandy, I doubt you would sit idly by and just "go with it". :)
PLUS, we have the whole history of the Church in dealing with heretics, myself included. :)
Certainly I agree. Complacency is generally not a good thing. I DID say "not ignore" and I don't think I'm advocating either ignorance of complacency.
We are taught that sin needs correction.
No disagreement.
I think If no one ever says anything then sin will just continue to grow in any organization.
I agree with all this. <[p>But this is not just noting the evils done by Catholics, but also ignoring (even suppressing) the good.
I think, despite my ignorance of Jebbie slave-holders, that generally people know more about the evils of Catholic history, including stuff that never happened, than they do about the good stuff the RC Church and culture did. (Never let us forget the Pope who tried to ban the use of the crossbow in warfare because it was just TOO destructive!)(Of course, I can't remember him, but never mind.)
I think we kind of took the lead on the whole hospital thing, unless you count the Buddhist King Ashoka. And certainly I never heard from my teachers or from Hollywood, etc. of the Catholic clergy and friars who worked hard to restrain the secular conquistadors and to protect the indigenous peoples.
Shogunpresent Franciscans and Jebbies as almost cartoon evil figures, but evidently somebody did something right in Japan Xty was kept alive in hiding for centuries there after the last Catholic missionary was killed or expelled.
It was the characterization of us asking people to ignore the bad apples and the expression that our track record stinks that led to my remark, not any suggestion that we should ignore. On the contrary, as soon as my novitiate study schedule permits I'm going to be looking into how the Dominicans decayed so that Lacordaire could get such praise for restoring their moxie in the 19th century.
I think the witness of Scripture is precisely that we can at once claim Apostolic mojo and have shameful episodes. Is any of those who claim Peter as "prince of the Apostles" (a phrase I don't much like, and this attribution of noble titles gets downright silly in Dante) denying that AFTER Pentecost he had a major attack of shameful wussiness (Gal 2:11-14) in Antioch.
Again I say, Dante liters the pavement of Hell with popes and bishops. There's no ignoring going on here.. This really is like pushing a rope uphill.
Look, I've been a clergy-dude, albeit not RC. I KNOW Clergy are corrupt dopes. I WAS one and, left to my own devices, I'm a corrupt dope. I know a chunk of RC clergy. One is a dry-drunk. One, if he were in my care, would be give some kind of remedial something or other. One is a slightly warmed over commie. Many are full of themselves. I don't ignore this, though sometimes I wish they'd make it easier to ignore!
There's a prayer we say shortly before we receive communion. As given to us it asks Jesus to "Look not on our sins but on the faith of your church ...". One priest I knew thought he knew better than the church so he always changed that to "but on the goodness of your church," and I always whispered, "No, Lord, anything but that!"
It is funny and sad the mistrust "across the aisle". It is the Gentiles who say that trusting in God and His grace made real in our lives through faith will lead to ignoring sin. Yet when we Catholics look on the sinfulness of ourselves and of some of our leaders, shrug, and return to our prayers, we fall under suspicion for ignoring evil and sin. Evidently it doesn't occur to the other parties in the dialogue that we too might trust God to bring good out of evil, and trust Him so much that much evil fails to upset us (especially if it was a while ago and happened to somebody else, I hasten to admit.)
One last wheeze here: We are portrayed as hag-ridden by guilt. Some of us go to confession at least once every 2-3 weeks, and it is immediately concluded that we are sexually repressed, upset about nocturnal emmissions or something equally ridiculous OR just paying another insurance premium.
It seems unthinkable that we might be trying to "be still and to allow God to order our lives around His peace. The notion that we might actually be aware of the ridiculousness of shame in the face of God's love is not considered. We are, in a way, some of us, trying to join God in imputing righteousness to ourselves by ACTING not as though sins were too shameful to acknowledge but rather with the growing confidence that in God's grace and mercy sins are something He can turn into a royal road to His heart.
I am aware of sin, of my own especially, though not as much as I should be. I am not hag-ridden. I live (yet not I, but Christ lives in me) by grace and in faith that God is working in me, both to will and to do for his good pleasure.
At least I do, right up until I haul out the IRS Form 1040. Then my confidence and peace melt away like spring snow. Darn it!