Pope must address unholy mess of the Catholic Church
SIN is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God.
This is the succinct answer given in the Shorter Catechism to the question "What is sin?"
This week 24 Irish bishops, who know all too well what sin is, met the Pope in Rome in order to see what the Holy See intends regarding the unholy mess that secret sin, suppressed and shielded by Mother Church, has wrought in the lives of hundreds of people. The victims want a full apology from Benedict and they want it delivered in person at the scene of the crime – in this case Ireland.
The first thing that the 24 bishops were engaged in upon their arrival in Rome for the two-day summit, was a mass in St Peter's Basilica held for survivors of sexual abuse. Prayers were said for the people, priests and religious of Ireland and also for the intentions of the Pope. The intentions of the Pope are already well known – he intends to go on minimising this scandal, having already added insult to injury by not giving an unequivocal apology to the victims immediately this erupted on his watch.
What is to be done with the Bishops is a question quite separate from the issue of a proper apology to the victims. To merge the two is to blend Bishops who were not in charge at the time of the abuse with those who were, and to throw victims into the mix for good measure in the hope that the steam created by the innocent will sufficiently give cover to the guilty. But that old trick has been tried once too often, and the devoted no longer are prepared to swallow the cake such a recipe produces. The four and 20 bishops should have their very own pie!
The Holy See, we are told, is seeking guidance from the Holy Spirit.
But the Scriptures teach us that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit. If the work of the Holy Spirit is to be evidenced, the first requirement is the removal of that which is causing the rift – confession. Here we have something that surely Rome appreciates.
It would seem not so after all!
The Pope's official letter in response to what he has heard from the Irish Bishops this week, and then what he will hear from his heads of departments is not expected until Holy Week ahead of Easter Sunday.
But Holy Week is still several weeks away and between now and then Pope Benedict's home turf may kick some dirt in his face. Germany has, we are now learning, been blighted by its own paedophilia scandal in its Catholic schools. Der Spiegel has published a piece of investigative journalism, which indicates that the extent of the problem in Germany matches that witnessed in Ireland and America. The schools in question are elite Jesuit schools such as Canisius College, Berlin; St Anstar School, Hamburg and St Blasien College in the Black Forest. One wonders how many priests travelled between Ireland, Germany and America during all these years of abuse! Sin covered is sin passed on. Der Spiegel claims that within Germany’s 27 dioceses at least 94 priests and laity are suspected of abusing countless children and adolescents since 1995! In recent months, encouraged by what has happened in America and Ireland, 150 victims of abuse have come forward and told their stories to a group called The Round Table for Care in Children’s Homes. This has been published in the group’s interim report and has added weight to the calls for a Ryan-style investigation in Germany. Here too Rome appears unrepentant, and believes it can outride the gathering storm. Robert Zollitsch, Archbishop of Freiburg offers no apology, no decisive action and certainly no explanations to Der Spiegel. The pattern has been laid on the same cloth and cut to the same measurements, and the cloak it has produced is one of covering but not of beauty.
Rome has to face a new generation, and they are no longer the superstitious and subservient worshippers the church depended on.
To date Pope Benedict’s recommendation to his priests has been to follow the example set by St Dominic and devote themselves to prayer and learning. As Der Spiegel puts it, “For those who have already fallen prey to weaknesses of the flesh the Pope offers the relative leniency of an internal church proceeding held in secret and conducted in Latin.”
In Ireland, abuse victim Michael O’Brien last year reminded the Holy See of the unalterable fact that “This is not an Irish problem. This is a Catholic Church worldwide problem.” How right he is.
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Thursday 24 May 2012
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