How much I criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you!
You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than anyone.
I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.
You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness.
Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous, or more beautiful.
Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face -- and yet every night, I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms!
No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.
Then too -- where would I go?
To build another church?
But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church.
No. I am old enough. I know better!
--Carlo Carretto, paraphrased by Ronald Rolheiser in his book The Holy Longing.
This is from the closing section of Carlo Carretto's book, I Sought and I Found. Carretto (1910 - 1988) led an Italian youth movement, Catholic Action, which aimed to promote the social message of the church. Later, he became a member of the Little Brothers of Jesus, a community of Saharan desert contemplatives. Eventually Carretto settled in Spello, Italy, (near Assisi) where he lived the rest of his days writing and leading retreats. NCR contributor Jerry Ryan notes that Carretto "had harsh words for many of the externals of the church but was fiercely in love with its inner mystery."
