When there’s too much contradictory discussion on abstract topics such as love, politics, or faith, it’s as though dust is thrown up in the air with each new input or source, so that the topic itself becomes so obscured we have to stop and try to remember: Wait. What are we talking about? Since the arrival of internet and social media, podcasts and YouTube, this obfuscation occurs much more frequently and universally than it did in slower, if not simpler, days.

Eventually, out of dusty necessity, we halt at some kind of “back to basics” point. The first step in clarification is always the first step in reason and debate: Definition of terms. Thus, we say, “Well, what is love?” or “What do we mean by education?” Reaching a mutual agreement on the definition of terms may take a long time and a lot of work, but it is the only way to end conflict and restore harmony. I experienced this need for a “back to basics” moment when I went to Confession recently.

The priest is not my parish priest. He is an ultra-traditionalist, Latin Mass, cassock and biretta, and he’s very much in love with the romance and beauty of the Church. I like him, and I like all those traits about him. The confession, of course, occurred on a kneeler with an opaque screen between us. My confession was an entirely interior matter of personal faith. He gave me a penance
but then added a suggestion: I should wear a skirt. I almost laughed at first, but then I felt saddened. I too love all the beauty of the Church and believe that it should be treasured everywhere. And I love traditional liturgy. Though I don’t concern myself much about Latin versus vernacular, I think so many elements of the Latin Mass should have been universally retained. My sadness was due to his fixation on the pants I wore rather than on my spiritual needs. I left and drove home, breathing the sadness into wordless prayer.

At my church, a few women veil. I’m glad to see that. I’ve considered it myself, but something stops me—and it’s not something so trivial as “What will people think?” I am old and way past that kind of self-concern. No, it’s something else that stops me. Some of them also wear dresses and never wear pants. When I told a friend about the priest’s suggestion, she said she wears dresses because it’s more feminine. Actually, it’s not. Femininity is not clothes, but an inborn identity, though it is denied by some women. (The problem for some is that they reject it—thereby rejecting themselves.) In any case, it’s not an outward appearance, much less a matter of a skirt. But I think I understood the “something that stops me” when she went on to say that women who wear pants are showing disrespect to God. Okay, now wait a minute…. The something that stops me from wearing a veil revealed itself then. The self-righteousness of her remark instantly brought me back to the Gospel. In anger against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees, Christ said, “You strain at a gnat and swallow a camel!” Clothed in her dress and veil, she didn’t just criticize women who don’t dress the same way but also denigrated their faith. I’ve always been fond of this friend and her remark was very hard to hear, painful not just because it revealed what she thought of me, but
also because of what it revealed about her. I thought of the parable about a Pharisee who goes to the temple and thanks God that he is not like tax collectors and sinners ….

The next day, while I was remembering this conversation with a mixture of anger and grief, wondering what to think about it, another friend visited and told me about an experience he’d had in California some years ago. He knew a man he called Mark in San Diego. Mark had a vocation, a call to the priesthood. He entered a seminary there and was horrified to find that so many of the seminarians were overtly and militantly homosexual. He was not attracted to same-sex relationships, but he had to remain in the predatory environment of the seminary in order to follow his vocation. During this time, his father died. One of his instructors, apparently a music scholar of some renown, invited him to dinner as a gesture of sympathy. The professor pressed him to drink until he was barely conscious and finally put him to bed on his couch. The next morning he discovered he had been raped. So far, this is simply a tragic story, but the real horror began after that.
Mark told his superiors. They said they didn’t believe him. He went to the bishop. He said he didn’t believe him either, and he sent him to his friend, a cardinal, for “counseling”. There he sensed a sinister veiled threat disguised as counseling. Then he discovered something about the bishop who had referred him to the cardinal: he’d been sent to California because he was too fond of visiting the local seminary where he was– somewhere in the east. The real horror descended on Mark as he began to realize the scope of the corruption. Forced out of seminary for telling the truth, he went from job to job, place to place, and developed a serious drinking problem. My friend said he encountered him again about eight months before he died. Mark told him he had lung
cancer. My friend asked what kind of therapy he would have—chemo, radiation, etc. Mark replied that he would not pursue any kind of therapy. He broke down in sobs and
said, “I want to see Jesus!”

People who must sometimes choose appearance over reality are not evil, but they should be aware of what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. Sometimes, on a small personal level, there’s a good reason. But regardless of the reason, it is indeed very dangerous. The faith of the Pharisees wasn’t just false; they kept the people from God. As the Gospels tell us, Christ called them “blind guides” and “whited sepulchers, full of dead men’s bones”. May God deliver us from the Pharisees, both those without and those within.