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U p F r o n t
By Karl Keating
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This Rock
Volume 5, Number 9
 September 1994 
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WHEN this issue returns from the printer, several
of us will be leading the Catholic Answers pilgrimage to the Holy
Land. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre we will witness something
Christians do especially well: squabble. In that holy shrine nothing
gets moved, nothing gets repaired, without the grudging acquiescence
of the several churches that control its chapels and rooms.
The bickering, which at times has degenerated into
fisticuffs and worse, is hardly a good advertisement for Christianity
("They will know we are Christians by our slugfests"?),
yet there is a positive aspect to it. People don't fight, whether
with fists or with words, unless they think there's something to fight
about.
The disagreements at the Holy Sepulchre tell us that
the custodians of the church believe it houses the actual death and
burial sites of Jesus Christ and that these sites are hallowed because
he used a particular hilltop and a particular tomb in effecting mankind's
redemption.
This church is worth disputing over not because it's
old--the present church was built during the crusades, and many
churches in Europe and the East are far older--but because it
is, in a way, the most incarnational of churches.
In its precincts was found the True Cross, slivers of which are today
distributed throughout the world as microscopic reminders of what
occurred here.
Yes, the squabbling is an embarrassment, but it's also
a sign of life, faith, and conviction--three things our secular
world lacks.
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