Andrew Sullivan: I don’t renounce the church or that priest
Andrew Sullivan writes of a heart-wrenching encounter with his church:
I was grappling with the terror of my own HIV infection, and as the day drew to a close, went to mass. I went just to offer my grief and fear to God, and pray for some guidance. Amazingly that day, the Gospel was about the ten lepers whom Jesus healed, and how only the Samaritan – the social outcast – came back to thank him. It seemed to speak directly in my own heart to my brothers who had fallen in the plague and the sense of social ostracism that had added unforgivably to their fear and pain and loneliness. It spoke to me of Jesus’ ability to transcend all of it through divine love, and of His special love for them, the outsiders.
At the end of the mass, as I was leaving the church, I went up to the priest and said, with an edge and quaver in my voice: “Have you heard of AIDS, father? It’s in the papers.” He replied – and I can still hear him say it today: “I didn’t think that kind of disease would affect anybody here.”
No church is defined entirely by its pastor’s worst moments. And I would actually think less of someone’s spiritual integrity if they dumped their church community for purely political reasons.
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