MASSES & MASK, FAITH & FUTURE

Bishop Edward B. Scharfenberger sat down — virtually — with Mike Matvey, editor of The Evangelist, to talk about the pandemic-ravaged year of 2020. The Bishop talks about — among many things — his decision to suspend Masses in March, his time in Buffalo as apostolic administrator, the recent Supreme Court decision banning worship limits and what he is looking forward to in 2021.

TE: Did you ever think you would live through a global pandemic?

BE: To be honest with you, I have a very fertile imagination and very few things really surprise me or throw me. I always try to think in these ways: If something terrible happens, how are we going to help people get through it. My mind from Day 1, as you begin finding out more details, trying to separate fact from fiction, of course, and fears from reality, was how do we get people to stick together, work together. I have heard of these things happening but I don’t think it was on my immediate radar screen, but it began to look pretty quickly on that this was going to be a major event. My mind always thinks in terms of how are we going to deal with this, get through this and keep our perspective because it is so easy to focus on one thing alone.

TE: How hard was it to suspend public Masses in March?

BE: We are fortunate in Albany because we never really had to close the churches. And again the pain of (suspending Masses) was feeling the people’s alienation, the desire. It is like trying to talk to a child across a river that you can’t reach; that sense of feeling the separation, the loss, the lack of connection. So you look for new forms of presence. You are hearing people’s pain and that’s what touches my heart the most.

TE: Do you think because of the pandemic people have returned to their faith?

BE: I think there’s definitely a deepening and a turning to the Lord and a refocusing on what really is important. We all felt it at Thanksgiving. I think everybody did, even people not of our faith. People definitely felt the loss of being close to people, so I think that tends to bring people closer to God; that desire to be connected. It’s too early to tell what effect this would have on church attendance. Some people are worried about that; I am not personally as concerned about that. Because of the streaming and the technology, we actually are in touch with more people on a regular basis than we had been before. So we are finding ways of making those connections whether that will translate into physical gathering, I think it’s likely to because whatever is real in terms of friendship and relationship tends to translate into a desire to be physically close. So I think that in the long run we may end up seeing an uptick. But it’s too early to tell.

TE: Talk about people’s thirst for the Eucharist.

BE: People want to be fed and in our faith we believe that we are fed by the word of God so that’s very important. At Mass we have the presence of Christ in the scriptures, the Holy Spirit speaking in our hearts connecting us. But the actual sacramental presence of Jesus in the Mass itself, the connectedness that comes from actually being close to the Lord in this way, is real and people feel that lack of the ability to receive Jesus sacramentally. It’s not only the connection with Jesus but with everyone to whom Jesus is connected. Some of the popes have described the Mass as heaven on earth, that we’re never closer to heaven than we are gathered around the altar. I feel in a sense closer to my deceased parents every time I’m at Mass because there is only one Jesus and the same Jesus we receive in the Eucharist is the same Jesus that, God willing, they see in the face. It’s a real intense form of presence and closeness that we miss when we don’t have it.

TE: The Supreme Court recently banned limits on congregation sizes at worship sites. Did you see it as a victory for religious liberty?

BE: Well, that certainly is the way it is being perceived by many. I’ve actually seen it as more of an equal protection (issue); in other words, treating all people in (the same) way, like if we are going to have crowd limitations, not singling out one group over another. I do a lot of shopping … and there has been no indication that church gatherings have been more likely to be spreaders, at least anecdotally. So it seems to be that we shouldn’t be treated differently from people that want to shop someplace else. I saw it from the point of view of fairness more than a triumph for religious liberty, per say.

TE: Talk about your continued fight against the abortion mandate when it relates to health insurance provided by an employer in New York.

BE: It will eventually, we think, it’s on certiorari to the Supreme Court. We haven’t heard whether it will end up there. But I think it is a significant right, the ability to be able to not have to pay for something that is a violation basically of what we believe is the equal rights (and) the dignity of every human life. Our position is based upon the belief that every human life is of equal dignity, sacred, and we shouldn’t have to pay for the destruction of human lives. That’s just something that’s contrary to good conscience. 

TE: How was your time in Buffalo?

BE: I have been there on average about once a week, sometimes two days, and it’s been for me a very enriching experience getting to know the people there. They are very excellently resourced and the people do want to come together. We are going through this renewal project right now, trying to encourage parishes to work together more, collaborate more, laity and clergy. We are building up the church from the grassroots up and, even as we do, I have made some significant changes in terms of personnel and structures (so) that we do have a very independent review board right now in Buffalo as we do in Albany that examines any cases and complaints that come in (about) sexual abuse. It’s been a very good experience getting to know the priests and the people, and they definitely want to turn the corner and begin to start writing a new chapter of their history. I was happy to be with them in the time I was with them.

TE: The McCarrick Report and the New York Attorney General’s lawsuit against the Diocese of Buffalo reopened the sexual abuse scandal for many. How do we continue the healing process?

BE: You keep focused on what you can do proactively. You can’t change the past and I don’t want to defend the indefensible. Once a bomb has exploded, this is almost like an atom bomb, you have to deal with the waste. But you can’t expose yourself so much to the waste that you become contaminated by it. It has to be contained. I do believe that it’s important that there be no hidden corners. Criminality is not entitled to secrecy and so people should be very much aware, and those who perpetrated it should be held accountable fully. However, the damage that is done cannot be undone. What you have to do is work with those that have been wounded — we have all been wounded in different ways — and … to prevent anything like this from happening again. And we have to make sure we’re following our excellent protocols right now for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults. (We must) do everything to accompany one another, to listen to one another, so that nobody feels isolated because of what they’ve experienced (and) to build bridges that will help people to support one another. There’s an awful lot of healing that can be done simply by respectful, patient listening. Very often what survivors want more than anything else is that they be taken seriously as human beings and that they be heard. And anything that we do to provide other types of support of a material, psychological and spiritual nature, we do to the best of our ability.

TE: People seem more divided than ever. How can that change?

BE: We’ve gotten into this funk, whereby we tend to see people as either villains or saints, the good people and the bad people, the sinners and the despicable. The use of labels is never helpful because we have to treat every person as an individual as the person they are. To respect (them), that’s No. 1. No. 2, separating between sins and sinners. God hates the sin but not the sinner so if we see somebody as doing terrible things, try to separate the person from the deed. And we do have to definitely call out evil, whether that is racism, whether that is lack of respect for life, that we see at both ends, lack of respect for life in the womb (and) the death penalty we see now creeping up. We’ve got to be consistent in our life ethic. And first of all, not taking everything personally, listening with people, and maybe trying to find things that we have in common. It’s not always helpful to bring up politics or to be watching network news every night of the week. I don’t do that myself. I am very careful, I love news but I have to be careful to discipline myself; if I keep listening to the same stories over and over again it’s not going to help me help anyone else.

TE: What do you look forward to in 2021?

BE: I hope that we spend time to do reflection. What have we been through? What have we learned from what we have been through? How are we better off? What are some of the things that we may have been doing that we do not want to do again? I am hoping for a more reflective spirit that will move us not to repeat some of our mistakes. I am also hoping for a deeper trust in turning to the Lord personally; a deeper sense that God does have a purpose for each and every one of us and we can find that not only in prayer but also helping one another to discover that; building up more of a sense of community, of working together. We hope for those things every year but we have a particularly large amount of experience to digest and I don’t think calls to “move on” or to “get back to normal” really ring true in anybody’s ears anymore. We have learned, we have been through things that have changed us — not all for the worse — and we need to discern what it is that needs to be corrected and what it is we can learn from the experience. I hope that we come across with a deeper sense of what is important and a willingness to let go some of the things that might not be so essential to our lives.

TE: Any thoughts on the Mets in 2021?

BE: There’s always hope! It would certainly give us more reason to hope if they finally do the right thing. The Mets have always been starting, let’s get going now.