Author: "De Bard"
God knew the fallibility of man when He created him, yet He gave him free will. Through His love, He also offered forgiveness. Jesus knew well the weakness of man; He was sent by the Father to experience it and to encourage those who had fallen victim to that weakness to accept forgiveness and return to the Father. When He said Thou art Peter - the Rock - and upon this rock I will build my Church, Jesus knew well that he was giving his religion into fallible human hands; didn Peter betray Him as Adam had betrayed the Father.
Throughout time there have been, and still are, countless saintly clerics who followed Peter, but there have also been a few who have fallen victim to the human frailty that God built into us to test us. Our faith has experienced everything from corrupt clergy to an unprincipled Pontiff yet we have survived. Our history is pockmarked with tales of greedy prelates who coveted earthly wealth and pleasures, brutal treatment of others in Inquisitions, and betrayal of the innocent by pedophile priests. Yet forgiveness - the healing message of Jesus - continues and the true Church still survives.
In the past, the misbehavior of a few Catholic clergy drove some away to seek God elsewhere and we experienced the formation of other religions; some even disagreed with, or thought they could improve on, the message of Jesus and formed still more protesting congregations. But they all fell victim to the fallibility of man. Through the years, there have been immoral Ministers, rotten Rabbis and corrupt Clerics among those who claimed to be the Lord laborers.
One saving grace is that most follow a moral and just God and believe in God message of forgiveness. However, there are some among them who profess a hatred of the original followers of Christ papacy in order to justify the existence of their own breakaway religion. That is why the Ancient Order of Hibernians - the oldest Catholic lay organization in America - has suffered the arrows of adversity from anti-Catholic bigots throughout our history and indeed, it provided the reason for our very formation. Today, the intolerance of those who hate the original followers of Jesus consistently highlight the few criminals among Catholic clergy and ignore non-Catholic transgressors. That is why we must stand tall, as our fathers did, in the face of anti-Catholic rhetoric and provide a united, defending wall against such intolerance. Our predecessors were needed then and stood to the task; we are needed now!
De Bard
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