Rembrandt (Rembrandt van Rijn) Dutch
1634
Today the Scriptures do an uncomfortable kindness: they refuse to let “persecution” be a word we reserve for other people.
Stephen is not struck down for being rude, but for being radiant—so radiant that truth becomes intolerable to those who have trained themselves to live by shadow. They do a strange liturgy: they cover their ears. That is the first persecution—before the stones, before the blood: the decision to not hear.
And then Jesus, as calmly as if He were describing the weather, foretells the human storm: courts, scourging, governors, kings, family turning on family. Not because the Gospel is violent—but because the Gospel is light, and light has the embarrassing habit of exposing what darkness has decorated.
So persecution, in these readings, is not merely what they do to us.
It is also what we do to the truth—when we cover our ears.
And Christmas’s odd mercy is that God gives us light anyway.
“If Boston is the fault line of the child sexual-abuse scandal that has convulsed the Roman Catholic Church, then few places have felt the aftershocks more deeply than the Diocese of Amarillo.”
New York Times
August 24, 2002
“In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.”
“For the Church, teaching the poor was an act of justice and faith.”
Dilexi te, §68
What am I teaching the victims of clergy abuse linked to Bishop Matthiessen’s so-called “serious mistake” if I remain silent about a Religious Education Center bearing his name—especially when it was named at a time when a convicted pedophile priest was serving as pastor?
Meditatio
“Who is being persecuted?” is the question that prowls around my prayer today like a wolf in a nativity scene.
Photo used by permission of Douglas Kirkland/Corbis via Getty Images
I feel persecuted when I ask—day after day—for Synodality regarding the Diocese of Amarillo’s Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen, and I meet only silence. Silence can feel like a stone that never lands; it simply keeps the air bruised.
Yet I must also confess the other angle of the same hard gem: Bishop Zurek may feel persecuted by my persistence—because my words press against a Centennial narrative that longs to remain smooth, gold, and untroubled. I become, in his story, the man who “won’t let Christmas be Christmas.”
So perhaps both of us are being persecuted—each by the truth we do not fully control.
And here is the Chestertonian paradox that saves me from self-righteousness:
I do not need to win a moral duel. I need to refuse the ancient Christian temptation to cover my ears—whether to the cry of survivors, or to the possibility that I must speak with more humility, or to the fear that I could become a louder kind of silence.
If Stephen teaches me anything, it is this: persecution is real—but it is never an excuse to become less Christlike.
Contemplatio (Chestertonian synthesis)
In the Kingdom of God, persecution is not a proof that I am holy; it is a test of whether I am still human.
The pagan throws stones; the respectable man covers his ears; and the Christian—if he is truly Christian—keeps his heart oddly open. The Church is most herself not when she looks powerful, but when she looks like Stephen: wounded, honest, and still somehow looking up.
So I will not romanticize my frustration, nor demonize those who frustrate me. I will do the more difficult thing: I will stand where the Gospel stands—between the stone and the soul—and ask for a Synodality that can hear what it would rather not hear.
Oratio (Day 17 prayer)
Lord Jesus Christ,
who strengthened Saint Stephen to speak with wisdom and to suffer with mercy,
save me from the persecution that begins in my own heart—
from bitterness that hardens, from pride that performs, from anger that forgets Your face.
On this Day 17 of my prayer for Synodality regarding the Diocese of Amarillo’s Tribute to Bishop Matthiesen,
teach our Church to stop covering her ears.
Give us courage to listen: to survivors, to the faithful, to conscience, and to You.
Let truth be spoken without cruelty,
and let repentance be practiced without theater,
so that our Centennial may become not a costume of glory,
but a conversion of love.
Into Your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit.
Amen.
Actio (Laudato si’ + Synodality)
“Centuries later, in another age of trial and persecution, when the Roman Empire was seeking to impose absolute dominion, the faithful would once again find consolation and hope in a growing trust in the all-powerful God: “Great and wonderful are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways!” (Rev 15:3).”
Laudato si’ §74
I will practice Synodality today in one concrete way:
I will invite one person (not a crowd) into a listening conversation about the Tribute—not to recruit an army, but to form a small circle of truth—and I will ask, plainly and peacefully: “Will you help us listen together, especially to those harmed?”
🎵 “Good King Wenceslas”
🎬Movie: The Nativity Story (2006)
Email to Bishop Zurek
Subject: Request for Dialogue Regarding the Tribute
Your Excellency,
I am writing to apologize if any of my previous communications about the tribute to Bishop Matthiesen came across as threatening or coercive. That was not my intention, and I regret any words that suggested pressure rather than prayerful discernment.
Silence has been painful, but I remain committed to walking with the Church, not against her. I respectfully ask for conversation, not conflict, so that this matter may be addressed in the light of truth, charity, and healing.
Thank you for your time and pastoral care.
Respectfully in Christ,
Darrell Glenn
Diocese of Amarillo
My Story
“In memory of the death of innocence of the victims of clergy sexual abuse. When innocence dies…a life stops. It is essential that we never forget.“
- Bishop Matthiesen, who rode the white horse of public activism even as he brought abusive priests into our diocese such as John Salazar—wounds that still mark us today. I spoke with him often, pleading with him to reconsider his “no regrets” about bringing those priests here…
- Bishop Yanta, who sought to enforce the Dallas Charter even when Bishop Matthiesen resisted him, and who bore the personal and pastoral cost of doing so. I met with Bishop Yanta about Bishop Matthiessen’s “no regrets” stance. He listened. He believed me. He acted where he could. And when he retired, he urged me—quietly but firmly—to keep speaking out.
- Bishop Zurek, who told the Diocese of Amarillo he had “no facts” about the Philadelphia report even as Amarillo’s connection to that tragedy was headline news. When I continued to speak out, as Bishop Yanta had once urged me to do, he later wrote that I was not among the faithful and loyal disciples whom the Lord Jesus desires.