Dark rumors surface in whispers which
Escape the lips of of the self-styled "street informants,"
A scandal once hidden is now unearthed.
It's been taken by the gutter press and used:
In their hands, it is little more than a cudgel,
Meant to batter, to bludgeon their target.
Soon the mainstream press discovers the secret,
And in their hands it becomes a sword unsheathed,
Swung wildly, still it can be used to smite,
Though emboldened by this weapon they overplay
Their seemingly unstoppable hand--they swing at too
Much--and so themselves are exposed.
Yet buried beneath the libel--mere calumny
Hurled and stirred by professional racketeers,
Intertwined with their own scurrilous words,
That slander shouted by a detractive mob of liars--
Is an element of fact, a single grain of truth:
The scandal remains because some of it is real.
This singular sin, this atrocity of which
The false charges are spun like spiders' webs,
The scandal itself was a thing which occurred,
Its roots run deep, its branches are wide,
It curses us, calling for repentance and reparation--
It is with us now and will be difficult to reconcile.
This scandal is only topical when compared
To the Great Scandal of the world, that sign
Which was, still is, and ever shall be
Contradicted until the world's cessation and end:
It centers upon the claims of God and of Man,
Focusing upon the particular claims of the Son of Man.
To some this matter was settled upon the cross,
Others saw it culminate in a grave nearby,
But the Faithful see its first climax in the emptiness
Of that tragic and heroic, that forlorn yet joyful tomb,
With more climaxes still to come, for that tomb was
Not the end, but rather the beginning of a new world.
A scandal is with us always--often changing its face,
But never really new--since the false cry of
"Blasphemy" in years long since passed: Now as then
The scandal is meant to discredit and destroy--
Yet then as now victory was not to be for the scandal
Nor its source below, but to God and those who trust in Him.