The Church is the people. There is nothing Biblical in the belief that approaching God requires the intercession of any other than Jesus and certainly not priests. If the Catholic church is going to rise from its present decline, it will need to rethink it’s approach to the people sitting in the pews.
Here Am I by Michael Romani Many a priest seated in a monastery Has sat silent clinging to the mystery The future comes forward invisibly But it does so within complete certainty There are those who separate themselves as "Holy" Yet, are void in morals and usurpers of piety Hierarchical power is not the church's authority It is the people of God who are its body Blaming the cracks in the now shredded veil On anyone but those charges approaches the surreal It is not a single generation's moral laxity That is responsible for the Church's lack of dignity Nor does that generation's unheavenly sway Have but little to do with so many walking away Clingers to power shore up in self-protection Thinking their sins avoid God's all seeing detection Or, that it might be restored by a world hating remnant Not realizing that doing so makes them globally irrelevant No predator priests will rip faith from me But, instead like Luther, I rebel against the monopoly The sacred heart of our faith is not in hierarchy It is in the living soul that is the laity It has always come down to the corruption of power And how it raises it's head again in this hour There is a need for anticlericalism's determination Internally reforming or to risk faith's extermination The record is clear that when shepherds hurt the flock It is to step back and allow restoration of the Rock This then is a universal declaration of a necessary war In which protection for everyone pushes for more Sitting in the back pews in conscientious persistence The truly faithful will prevail in their resistance Sacramental in their intentional works of mercy Who might dare to call them or three gathered as heresy We arise to cleanse and purify the altars of the temple Returning back to the Book to keep it true and simple (c) May 20, 2019 Michael Romani All Rights Reserved
