When a Church Leader Disappoints us – more on Father Euteneuer.

A few years back I remember reading a blog written by a married woman.  She was feeling very sad and scared over the fall out from the MacFarlane Divorce.  She wrote something along the lines of, “if their marriage can’t stay together, what hope is there for mine?”
 
I get what she was saying. The Macfarlanes ran Catholicity and had many articles on the web about their family devotions.  They seemed like the perfect Catholic Couple and yet they parted with a lot of hostility.
 
 
I get a similar sensation from the Father Euteneuer event.  Father E. was a highly respected Catholic Priest.  He said mass, he prayed the office and said the rosary, but he also walked the walk publically defending the unborn and standing up for church teachings i.e. the Hannity debate.  If a man like that, immersed in prayer and very knowledgable about the church’s teaching, could succumb to temptation and sin, how will I or my family ever manage?!!
 
First of all I think it’s important to remember that this event happened during an exorcism.  Would Satan love to take out one of the prominent exorcists in this country?  I think so!   And he found the easiest and surest way to do it – sexual temptation.  If anything this should be a wake up call to pray for all of our priests, deacons, sisters, the Pope, catechists – all of them. Because the more effective they are in their ministries, the more Satan will try to stop them.  St. John Vienney and Padre Pio are great examples of how the evil one loves to torment the truly holy.
 
Secondly, it’s a good reminder for all of us to pray and to pray always. Pray like our lives depend on it because indeed it does!  And mothers especially, we need to keep our husbands and our children under a blanket of prayer all the time, because they will be under assault.
 
What happened is a tragedy of sorts, but if it serves to remind us of those two things, perhaps then some good can come from it.
 
 
 

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