About Fr. Pfleger
He’s back, after a two week time-off from his duties at Chicago’s St. Sabina’s parish.
Comparing his return to a fighter’s comeback, Rev. Michael Pfleger blazed back to his pulpit Sunday, admitted his sins, but said they wouldn’t silence him.
The ‘fighter’s comeback’ analogy was played up.
At St. Sabina on Sunday, ushers distributed fliers with a silhouette of boxing great Muhammad Ali that said: “Ain’t nothing like a comeback.”
That’s been part of the problem all along, that so much of this and other stories surrounding St. Sabina’s Catholic Church is about Fr. Pfleger. It is a cult of personality, the very antithesis of the role of a priest of the Catholic Church since Jesus Christ first ordained the apostles. It’s not about them, it’s about the Gospel.
At this parish, it’s most prominently about the pastor.
When Pfleger entered the church, the congregation rose to their feet and cheered.
Later during his sermon, Pfleger spoke about his two-week suspension as a test of faith.
“You will fall. I will fall. And even though we fall, we can get back up again,” he said.
This online edition is an abbreviated version of what was in the Chicago Tribune today. That article, by the same reporter, read like this:
“You will fall. I will fall. And even though we fall, we can get back up again,” he said. “When you hear the voice of God say, ‘Get up’…when you make that decision to get back up, you become dangerous to the enemy.”
The people would benefit from hearing who the enemy is, because there is definitely a good spiritual lesson in this. But in the politically charged atmosphere surrounding his ‘fall’ and subsequent two week leave (and given the nature of his inflammatory ‘good guys/bad guys’ trademark rhetoric), there could be room for doubt about that. There were escalated emotions at St. Sabina’s and among some Chicago activists that it was harsh for the Cardinal to take Fr. Pfleger out, that his behavior and words were somehow overblown and misconstrued, and therefore others were out to get him.
Another thing the broadsheet edition of the Tribune reported in the story should be considered by everyone following the whole affair.
Though most Catholic priests in Chicago are limited to 12 years [maximum] in any one parish, Pfleger has been pastor of St. Sabina since 1981.
The last time the Cardinal sent Fr. Pfleger the routine letter of reassignment, Pfleger took the issue to a press conference instead of the cardinal himself, threatening to leave the Church and take St. Sabina’s parishioners with him.
This is too much about Fr. Pfleger. If all the good work he’s done and wants to do is about Gospel justice, his cult of personality is a distraction and a danger. It threatens to redirect the message to the messenger. Especially given how he’s apt to deliver the message.
The online edition ends with this part of the sermon:
“Stumbles will shake you. Stumbles will also purify you. They will cause you to ask yourself what really matters,” he said.
There’s hope in that contemplation.