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If you feel stories about the death of Monsignor Joseph Rauscher have gone on long enough in this paper, please bear with us. The late pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Wilkes-Barre may be the inspiration here, but he is not the topic.

Well-regarded and well known, Rauscher’s passing prompted an outpouring of upbeat memories. It is small surprise that a man who had officiated at numerous baptisms, marriages and funerals drew a capacity crowd at his own final service Thursday, including about 30 priests and deacons, from as far away as Germany.

But it was a comment at a Wednesday evening vesper service at the same church that spurs this editorial. Monsignor John Bendik, pastor emeritus at St. John the Evangelist in Pittston, noted that both newspapers in Wilkes-Barre had independently decided to put Rauscher’s death, and reactions to it, on the front page last Saturday. How often, Bendik mused, do you see a priest on the front page and it says good things?

At first blush, the instinct is to take issue with the premise, to argue this newspaper gives the local Catholic Church plenty of positive press. Stories and photos about annual festivals and bazaars, about Masses and rituals during Christmas, Easter and other holy seasons, about parades and other events at Catholic schools.

Still, Bendik has a point. The front page stories that everyone notices are about sex abuse or misconduct, or about school or church closings. The “positive” stories are often on Page 3A or on the front of a features section.

The Church itself is partly to blame for that, especially when it comes to the abuse scandals. It has been nearly two decades since the Boston Globe’s landmark expose in 2002 that led to other such discoveries nationwide. If we as a nation and Catholics as a congregation have spent much of that time grappling with the revelations, it is in no small part because the Church spent decades more letting the problem build by shuffling priests and burying the truth in secret files.

But there has been a bigger trend at work, one that merits serious review by the media and the public at large. Call it the devaluation of religious life. Culturally, we went from compelling, faith-affirming depictions of priests and religious women in classic movies like “Boys Town,” “The Bells of St. Mary” and “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” to more ambiguous portrayals of doubting priests with mixed abilities in movies like “The Exorcist” or the clergy in “The Godfather.” Eventually outright Church-bashing became acceptable with movies like “The Omen,” “Monsignor” and “The Da Vinci Code.”

There is nothing wrong with humanizing our view of religious life. These are, after all, men and women, not saints and angels, grappling with their own issues and the issues of an increasingly complex world. They are imperfect.

But as the testimonials to Rauscher proved, there are many priests who manage to not only pull off that difficult balancing act, but who excel at it, who over a lifetime help hundreds, even thousands cope with grief and celebrate joyful moments.

We do those who opt for a religious profession a disservice whether we demonize or deify them en masse. They are best judged as individuals, not as a monolith.

Rauscher’s life shows it’s not really about the good priests do. Like any other profession, it’s about the good a person does while working as a priest.

Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton led a mass ofchristian burial for Monsignor Joseph Rauscher at St. Mary’s ChurchinWilkes-Barre on Thursday morning. Aimee Dilger|Times Leader
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/web1_rauscher3.jpg.optimal.jpgBishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton led a mass ofchristian burial for Monsignor Joseph Rauscher at St. Mary’s ChurchinWilkes-Barre on Thursday morning. Aimee Dilger|Times Leader

https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/web1_rauscher.mug_-1.jpg.optimal.jpg