Why is there scandal in the Church?
One answer: We took our eyes off Christ. Like Peter walking on the water, when we take our eyes off Christ, we sink.
We took our eyes off Christ when we thought a good idea to water down the Gospel with worldly wisdom.
We took our eyes off Christ when we gave room in our lives for sin. Be that the sins of lust, or wrath, or pride, or greed, or gluttony, or envy, or sloth (spiritual and otherwise) – when we gave quarter to these, we took our eyes off Christ.
We took our eyes off Christ when we thought it a good idea to respond to such sin with more sin. We took our eyes off Christ when we responded to the sins of others with derision, vengeance, and apathy.
We took our eyes off Christ when we allowed faith to be reduced to a pious hobby. We took our eyes off Christ when we found other things as more worthy of our time and energy.
We took our eyes off Christ when prayer in the home fell away, when the devotional life in homes and parishes fell off.
We took our eyes off Christ when Mass became an encounter primarily with a priest or with the community and not an encounter primarily with God.
We took our eyes off Christ when we reduced the validity of a Catholic teaching to how we feel about it. We took our eyes off Christ when we were too busy looking to our own reflection for the validity of truth.
When we take our eyes off Christ, we sink. We become unable to walk on water tossed about by the prevailing winds.
We take our eyes off Christ because to keep our eyes fixed on Christ requires a constant death to oneself, a constant deepening of being poor in spirit to recognize our need for Christ to navigate the sea.
We can have all the protocols we want. We can have all the rules, laws, regulations, and such we want. If our eyes are not fixed on Christ, they will be little more than stopgap measures, little more than band-aids over a gaping wound.
If we truly want reform and renewal, it must start with re-fixing our own eyes onto to Christ. This means our reactions and responses must flow from that fixed gaze on Christ.
This will help us not answer sin with more sin, but to bring the healing of Christ to a wound that came about from our taking our eyes off Christ.
[See also: The American Church Is on Fire and Has Been for Decades: A Priest Writes What He Really Thinks]
[See also: This Powerful Meme Tells the Hard Truth About Mistreatment of the Eucharist in Our Parishes]