Why Stay?

My friend Mary will not be leaving the church because of the movie, "Spotlight."  Like many people, Mary knows all about the pedophile scandal in our church.  She reads.  She studies.  Like my sister, Jane, Mary goes to church for the community of people and the sacraments, the Eucharist especially.  She is rightly horrified by the scandal, yet she does not see the church as prelate focused.  She sees it as a community of persons who gather to worship and receive communion, to be with Jesus in host and one another.  People who say they left because of the scandal, may never have had the church experience that Mary has.  Community and sacraments were never a very integral part of "faith" for them.  They were half out the door already.  The scandal is that we, the church, did not provide the community or the sacrament in a way that made for vitality of faith.  We are bending over backwards to deal with the pedophile scandal, but I think we have a lot more work to do on welcoming and integrating the visitor, the new person, into our local worshipping community.