How could anyone ever again trust anything that the Archdiocese of Boston says or does?  That was my initial feeling two weeks ago when the sexual harassment case against the head of the archdiocesan hospital system was brought to light in the Boston papers.  My heart sank with that “here we go again” feeling which has seemingly permeated our church for the past four years.  In candid conversations I have heard people’s outrage and disbelief that, after all we have been through, those in authority seem not to have learned the lessons of the scandals. Others have commented on the consistently bad advice that Cardinal O’Malley seems to be getting.  Still others were not at all surprised with the initial handling of the matter.  They have just come to assume and expect that matters will be mishandled at the highest levels in the archdiocese.
     This is enough to make you want to give up on the church or at the very least, to stop giving financial support to the institution as many, many Catholics have done. There is a long road ahead for the archdiocese to gain back the trust of parishioners who are still so wounded from the scandal and reconfiguration.  There does seem to be a sign of hope in the drama which played itself out in the health care system.  Within a week’s time better decisions were made and full disclosure of details led to a swift conclusion to a difficult situation.  However, it will most likely be those first flawed decisions that people will remember.
     So what are we to make of the Archdiocese of Boston on this Pentecost Sunday? Will the wounds of the scandal ever heal?  Will the anger and bitterness over reconfiguration ever give way to a return to the embrace of parish life?  Recently Pope Benedict wrestled with similar yet even more profound questions as he visited the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz.  In reference to the terror and death inflicted at the camps he questioned God saying: “Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this?  Then he spoke words that speak not only to the mystery of the allowance by God of atrocities of war but to the presence of every injustice allowed to have life.
     “We cannot peer into God’s mysterious plan – we see only piecemeal, and we would be wrong to set ourselves up as judges of God and history.  Then we would not be defending man, but only contributing to his downfall.  No – when all is said and done, we must continue to cry out humbly yet insistently to God: Rouse yourself!  Do not forget mankind, your creature!”
     In our corner of the world when we shake our heads and wonder about what is happening within our church we too cry out to God and await an answer that will make some sense of it all.  On this feast of Pentecost with greater intensity than ever let us cry out to the Holy Spirit to come and heal the wounds, calm the anger, ease the grieving and help us to trust that Christ is leading his church to wholenness, to true discipleship and to an Easter that will never end.