Dear Tex: I really hope you “cast your vote” in favor of the Church! In making this decision, and given your background, a few thoughts regarding “obediance” and loyalty may help.
When Catholics talk about loyalty, they usually mean to the Church, not to its leaders per se. We can either love the current pope or hate him, but we are loyal to “the papacy.” Bad bishops and priests are the same: in the old days, we confined them to isolated monasteries! (The state won’t let us do this any longer
) The loyalty you read about in these posts mostly refers to the institutions, or the structure, which we believe to be divinely inspired. We acknowledge that the men who fill the post may be wicked, but deny that the post itself makes them wicked.
Our view of loyalty affects our understanding of “reform.” In the Protestant context, reform is usually institutional: offices are abolished, new communities are formed, and such. Catholics view reform as aimed at individual actors: remove bad priests, pray more, create new disciplines (often prayer based, sometimes with a spiritual mentor or “policeman!”) get new priests.
I hope these thoughts help clarify a bit - and please join us because we need all the help we can get!
I don’t think we’re at liberty to love or hate anyone, but obliged to love all men (difficult thought that may be). Certainly we are called to love one another, and that includes the pope, of course. But loving him doesn’t mean making excuses for him when he errs. I speak of no particular pope in making that statement; I put it out there as a general precept to apply to any pope.
in the old days, we confined them to isolated monasteries! (The state won’t let us do this any longer
)
Yes, that was the problem. They shouldn’t have been sent to monasteries, but to the authorities and, if convicted, to prison. Alas, it wasn’t just in “the old days” as the recent news reports have shown the world: this garbage with our bishops hiding criminal priests is going on today.
Perhaps by “bad bishops and priests” you weren’t referring to child abusers and those who presided over cover-ups, but bishops and priests who were just no good, in general. If that’s the case, it’s a dreamy revision of history to say that all bad priests and bishops were detected, somehow, and sent away to monasteries. Alas, the Church has no Willy Wonka “bad egg” detector. As a result of the Church being human, there are bad eggs in the clergy. Many a bad priest became a bad bishop, and many a bad bishop became a bad archbishop, cardinal, or Vatican official. Some bad bishops would even follow their career paths to become bad popes. Christ himself picked Judas to be an apostle.
Others, by the grace of God, are good priests, wonderful bishops, worthy prelates, and extraordinary popes.
And between the two extremes there are priests, prelates and popes who fall somewhere between adequate and above average. The Church is Divinely-instituted, but human in composition. I understand that her leaders can and do fail, just as I can and do. But when they fail so appallingly, as in the case of the abuse and cover-up scandal, the Church must hold her leaders accountable, demand answers, demand reform, and, where necessary, demand their resignations. Furthermore, as civic Christians, we must see to it that criminal priests who abuse children are brought to justice, not hidden from justice. Likewise we must demand an account of bishops who have hidden child abusers. They too must be brought to justice.
Finally, when the media reports these stories we should rejoice, not be angry, that some organ is able to bring these matters to light, so that the Church must acknowledge its sickness and treat it. We must not become indignant and blame the “liberal, ant-Catholic media” for “attacking the Holy Father” and “attacking the Church.” That sort of conspiracy-theory mentality is for fringe lunatics, not for mainstream Catholics. If we look at this from that sort of “attack on the Church” mentality, it would be easy enough to convince ourselves that the Church has done no wrong, and the media has just made all of this up.
Unfortunately, it would seem that there are some very highly-placed Church authorities who would love nothing more than for Catholics to convince themselves that that is indeed the case: that the true criminals are the reporters and the media moguls who, for some unknown reason, are out to get the Pope and the Church. Happily, except for the most unthinking of Catholics swimming in the shallow end of the pool, we have not convinced ourselves of any such thing, and most of us seem plenty willing to blame and demand accountability from our bishops and priests, and not the media who tell their foul stories.
