What I Think I Heard in the Heat.

1. I'm hard of hearing.

2. I was late, almost tripping over my feet as I carried my three-month old daughter into St. Gertrude's Parish on Chicago's North Side, finding a pew just in time for the Gospel reading.

3. I was hot... it must have been ninety degrees in Chicago outside -- oppressive and overcast -- and that could have made it a clean hundred inside the church, which had a couple fans and lots of church bulletins flapping rapidly in front of sweating faces.

The whole point is that I'm not sure I heard what I thought I heard in there, but what I heard was as reassuring as it was cutting, and I'd like to share it with you on PeaceNext. Father Grassi is a brilliant, warm, empathic man and I don't want to misrepresent his words.

I'd been distressed this week to learn that the Catholic church has lumped both priests who ordain women and the women they ordain in with those who sexually abuse minors. No exaggeration here: as reported by the Guardian. It's difficult, because some traditional Catholics would be angry with me for my support of the ordination of women (and for publicly proclaiming that support), while my more liberal friends are often perplexed with my allegiance to a Church that -- in their view -- is often at odds with a number of my core beliefs. But I don't mean to talk about the reconciliation of different views of social justice under a common faith... I want to talk about what Father Grassi said.

As I said it was stifling in St. Gertrude's that day, and Father Grassi started talking about a priest he once knew. It was a story that had little connection to the gospel of Mary and Martha we had just heard. In the 60s, when the Vatican turned its back on the Latin mass in favor of a liturgy the laity could understand, this particular priest was strongly opposed to the changes going on. The laity were administering the sacraments, the order of mass was itself opened up, made accessible and less "mysterious" to congregants, and all this flew, in his view, in the face of 2000 years of traditions. Traditions that had been upheld at Nicea, and Trent, and through wars and tribulations. Vatican II, the priest believed, was a bad direction for the Church to take, and he couldn't hide his disappointment from his parishioners.

At his parish's first English mass, this priest arrived dressed in his heaviest, most ornate vestments. His face was red and he visibly sweat throughout the whole of the liturgy. And at the end of gospel, he stood at the lectern to deliver his homily. He was generally long-winded, but this time, he stared out at his congregation for a long time with his heavy robes clinging to his sides. Then he spoke: "If you think this is hot..."

And sat down.

At this point, Father Grassi made a brief reference to the Vatican's decision on the ordination of women. He gestured, taking in the whole congregation of hot and sweating parishioners and said: "If you think this is hot..."

---

Now normally I don't like homilies that casually invoke Hell, but several things happened here, and they weren't trite at all. Personally, I don't think that the Church's party line about apostolic reasons for refusing to ordinate women holds water... I think it is bad logic and I don't buy it. And Father Grassi's homily was an expression of solidarity. We need not -- we cannot -- whitewash or downplay what we believe are injustices carried out in the name of our religion. Without conscience, what is faith? In fact, the catechism lists three virtues: faith, hope, and charity. One is argued to be superior to the others, and it isn't hope and it isn't faith... from the catechism, then, conscience trumps faith.

Father Grassi was able to condemn in strong terms the injustice he saw in his own Church.

But there is a second side to his point -- the echo. A priest of wildly different opinions had used the same words over 40 years earlier, in different times, in different circumstances, with a different message. In his view, the Church confronted a very different threat: the threat of dilution and dispersion.

Father Grassi's second point was a point about humility in faith. Our religious communities, though they are divinely inspired, are human institutions. We do not expect our governments, schools, or families to be perfect, and certainly not without work, listening, and learning. We should not expect this of our religious communities either. And this is, I think, a good, solid response to those liberal friends who might wonder why I do not leave the Catholic Church. I can and must proclaim as my conscience dictates, but as long as my faith is true -- as long as I believe the idea of Catholicism (as opposed to the Vatican's latest declaration) -- I need the Church and the Church needs me.

Boldness and humility do not exclude each other.