.- Carolyn E. Davis, a staff writer for Us Weekly magazine, wrote a moving column published Easter Sunday in the New York Post focusing on why she is a proud Catholic, despite recent media attacks attempting to drag down the Catholic Church.
“Sure, it was explained to me when I converted that the gate would be narrow, but I had no idea,” she wrote.
Born “nothing,” Davis completed her adult catechism and chose to become a Catholic in 2000, “to the thinly veiled displeasure of people close to me.”
“Archbishop Fulton Sheen put it right when he said, ‘There are not over a hundred people in the US that hate the Catholic Church, there are millions, however, who hate what they wrongly believe to be the Catholic Church, which is, of course, quite a different thing,’” she said.
Davis acknowledged that “the horrific replay of the 2002 clerical sexual-abuse scandals has again stirred up sadness, anger and the inevitable stream of negative postings on my social-networking feeds.”
“There is zero tolerance for pedophiles in the Church today,” she explained, “And the test of moral credibility the Holy See is charged with really applies to the whole church — not just clergy but the whole mystical body of Christ.”
“If we all made this past Lenten season a truly repentant and earnest one, then we’re surely continuing on the path to clearing out the evil and healing those who still suffer its terrible wounds. The beauty of Easter isn’t just the expiation of our own sins but that Jesus suffered and was put to death in the flesh once for us all (1 Peter 3:18) and that his resurrection holds the great promise of his return (Luke 21:25-28),” Davis also wrote.
“The Catholic Church,” she continued “is more than this scandal. I, for one, want to help serve with a church that has done more to help the sick, poor, hungry, suffering and forgotten than any other group in recorded human history.”
“Through everything my relationship with Jesus, especially in the Eucharist, is the source and summit of my spiritual strength and the one thing I will never abandon.”
“Resurrectio Domini, spes nostra! The resurrection of Christ is our hope!” she concluded.
