CRITICAL INCIDENT REPORT

Chaplain Julio Arce

CPE unit 2, March 2005
ACPE Supervisor, Mary Carole Nelson
In the weeks following the first funeral, I stopped going to church. There
were some practical reasons, but my real reason was that I no longer felt
Gods Spirit in church. I know this is subjective, but it is a true feeling to
me. I have been feeling like that for some time now. In church, I feel lost. I
was wondering if maybe I was coming full circle. My family grew up in the
Roman Catholic Church. After my conversion to the Evangelical Church
when I was 20, my whole family eventually left the Roman Catholic Church.
I was the instigator of this change. I was on fire and had much conviction
about the rightness of one version of Christianity over the other version of
Christianity. My mom was the last one to convert. My little brother was
the first.
However, during my 30s I began to study Catholic theology seriously, both
East and West, and I realized that it all was one: Protestant and Catholic
theology were one rich Christian Tradition. I saw how Evangelical
Protestant theology needed the Catholic theology and visa-versa to keep a
healthy balance, and to keep one another from falling off into heresy. The
tension that I used to have between Protestant and Roman Catholic Church
dissipated, and I was at peace with both, understanding both historically,
theologically as well as culturally. I felt a freedom in that realization and
understanding. I accepted both and rejected both, that is, I accepted parts of
both and I rejected parts of both. I could not fully accept both wholesale.
The fundamentals were the same. The secondary issues I felt no need to
debate any longer. I consciously grasped that I was both, and I sensed,
subliminally, that I was neither.
About three years ago, my little brother returned to the Roman Catholic
Church. He had been struggling with deep personal issues for a very long
time and the Protestant Evangelical Church was basically powerless to help
him. He found no place there anymore. So he returned, hoping to find
answers. I had no problem with his decision and neither did my family. But
that started me thinking. I also have a friend who is struggling about
converting from Evangelical Protestantism to Roman Catholicism. I
understood his struggles and I also did not. I listened more than spoke and I
asked questions to help him process this conviction, biblically. I wondered if
1

maybe I too was going to find myself returning to the Roman Catholic
Church.
So when I went to the Roman Catholic Mass and funeral, I was curious and
wondered what God might reveal to me. I had not been to a mass for over
twenty years. I noticed I was looking for answers.
The church was large, elegant and decorated for a funeral. The priests and
the bishop were in full vestments and the building was filled with family,
friends and colleagues. The casket was at the front, open. I did not know
the deceased, I only knew she was related to my patient. The things the
family said about the deceased were touching. I sensed God touching them
and touching me through them. They wept as they spoke about their loved
one. Then, the Mass began and I again was left empty. I went through the
motions and I was surprised how I had not forgotten anything: the responses,
the chants, the prayers, the kneeling and standing and sitting. The only
difference was that now, theologically and with faith, I understood the
meaning and symbolism of the Mass, whereas when I was young, all these
responses and movements were just rote, unquestioned, habitual rituals that
were part of the Mass. There was no reason to understand them then.
None of it touched me. It seemed so surreal and so out of touch with what
was going on in life, as we know it. It was a strange mystical world all its
own and it was not trying to accommodate itself to the believers, but
expected the believers to accommodate themselves to it. It gave no attempt
to console or carry the mourners in love and understanding. It did not
explain its movement and flow of faith. If the believer did not know the
meanings behind the actions and prayers, he or she was left to themselves to
figure it out. There were no personal prayers given on behalf of the
mourners. All the prayers were rote as if the prayers themselves, said in
unison and petrified, were enough to console the heavy laden mourners.
Everything seemed rehearsed. Even the message though it had much more
spiritual content than the Evangelical sermon, and it was said with some
passion, still there it stopped. There was no effort on the part of priest,
bishop or people to put it into practice. After the Mass, all of them packed
their things, incense and all, and left in a solemn assembly, before the
congregation. Not one priest, bishop, or alter boy went out to the family
afterwards to express their condolences. It was shocking!

I was numb. I did not sense God here either. I began to remember how
Jesus did not go to the religious leaders of his day. He went to the people to
help them and bring them nearer to God. I feel the same way. Somehow,
the clergy, whatever the Christian Tradition, in all their religious regalia, in
all their religious dogma, in all their religious tradition, in all their religious
issues, in all the arguing and debating their religious Tradition, in all their
business of religion lose God in a very subtle, long, but real process. They
lose God by limiting God and defining God only to their religion. They lose
God by not being curious or courageous enough to follow the divine
footprints leading outside their religion. They lose God by thinking
themselves as the keepers of the keys to Gods kingdom and therefore fall
into self-righteousness. They lose God because that self-righteousness then
keeps them from serving others in a lowly, humble, and compassionate
attitude. It also keeps them from identifying with the poorest, with the dregs
of humanity, or loving their enemies and those not like themselves: they
become guardians of their religion and not servants of God at least how
Jesus taught and practiced.