Should I stay or should I go? Clerical-abuse scandal by Timothy Radcliffe

[Biggie]

I think this article should be required reading for Catholics currently cowering under the specter of the abuse scandal. Please read the whole article, an excerpt of which will give its flavor:

Why go? If it is to find a safer haven, a less corrupt Church, then I think that you will be disappointed. I too long for more transparent government, more open debate, but the Church’s secrecy is understandable, and sometimes necessary. To understand is not always to condone, but necessary if we are to act justly.

Why stay? I must lay my cards on the table; even if the Church were obviously worse than other Churches, I still would not go. I am not a Catholic because our Church is the best, or even because I like Catholicism. I do love much about my Church but there are aspects of it which I dislike. I am not a Catholic because of a consumer option for an ecclesiastical Waitrose rather than Tesco, but because I believe that it embodies something which is essential to the Christian witness to the Resurrection, visible unity. …

From the beginning and throughout history, Peter has often been a wobbly rock, a source of scandal, corrupt, and yet this is the one – and his successors – whose task is to hold us together so that we may witness to Christ’s defeat on Easter Day of sin’s power to divide. And so the Church is stuck with me whatever happens. We may be embarrassed to admit that we are Catholics, but Jesus kept shameful company from the beginning.

thetablet.co.uk/article/14543

 

[Tybourne]

Stay, and do penance/ make reparation:

Pope says church must do penance for abuse cases

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict said on Thursday the sexual abuse scandal shaking Roman Catholicism showed the Church needed to do penance for its sins,[Nb, not just the abusers] in a rare public reference by the pope to pedophilia in the priesthood.

“Now, under attack from the world which talks to us of our sins, we can see that being able to do penance is a grace [A grace, we might add, that has been seriously neglected in the Church since the botched implementation of Vatican II]and we see how necessary it is to do penance and thus recognize what is wrong in our lives,” the said pope at a mass in the Vatican.

This involved “opening oneself up to forgiveness, [Again, it’s all of us, not just the abusers]preparing oneself for forgiveness, allowing oneself to be transformed,” said the pope, whose last public utterance on the scandal was his letter to the Irish people, made public on March 20.

…

“Conformism which makes it obligatory to think and act like everyone else, and the subtle – or not so subtle – aggression toward the Church demonstrate how this conformism can really be a true dictatorship,[As we know from history, Catholics are not immune to being seduced by dictators]” said the pope.

…

(Reporting by Stephen Brown; Editing by Jon Boyle)

 

[Captain_America]

I’m very reluctant to make the laiety the whipping boy here. The organization of the church perhaps has some blame and the chief blame comes upon the perpetrators themselves.

The laiety sets no standards for priest ordination, vocation development; we just don’t call the administrative shots.

 

[PaulineOsinachi]

Who is going to do the much needed reparation if we all take off. Look at it as your brother is accused of some evil acts and is guilty will your then disown your mother?

 

[Loboto-Me]

Being Catholic isn’t just about us, being Catholic is a unitive religion. We are not just saving ourselves, we are saving each other as well. Being Catholic isn’t a personal religion, we are our brother’s keepers, whether directly or through prayer. We are a family, a community,

What happens in one part of the world whether something commited by Catholics or not, affects our own salvation, like it or not. We are all called as Catholics to throw out the false notion that it’s only about us, and take up the cross for everyone, including those who have offended us.

Prayer and penance is exactly what must be done, that’s what Catholics do best (other than worship God fully) isn’t it?

 

[Tybourne]

I’m very reluctant to make the laity the whipping boy here. The organization of the church perhaps has some blame and the chief blame comes upon the perpetrators themselves.

With respect, you are making it seem as if the Church is just a human organization, a corporation. Rather than being part of a corporation, we are incorporated into the Body of Christ, what St Augustine calls the ‘Whole Christ’. To draw a strict distinction between the laity and the clergy plays into the clerical conception of the Church which is certainly at the root of the cover-ups, if not at the root of the abuse itself. We are all incorporated into one another, in Christ. Just as all fell in Adam and just as all are saved through the obedience of the Lord, we all affect each other spiritually and morally, for better or for worse. If I sin, for example by falling into impurity, it makes it all the harder for a struggling priest to keep to his vow of celibacy. If I struggle, with God’s grace, and overcome the sin of covetousness, it may open the door to someone who is on the cusp of discovering a vocation to the priesthood or religious life. We are, as the atheist novelist George Eliot puts it, all in a tangled skein with each other.

Is the upcoming beatification of Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman a coincidence , occurring as it does alongside this crisis which has been most sorely felt in the English-speaking world? For God there are no coincidences. Newman’s patristic mindset blurs the boundaries between laity and clergy. Rather, we are all the faithful (and unfaithful) of Christ, the People of God (Lumen Gentium). As Fr Ian Ker notes in his article on Newman and the Ecclesial Movements, which I’ve linked here, LG carefully avoids the clergy/ laity distinction. And Fr Ker concludes:

It is this apostolic and charismatic rather than clerical-lay institutional Church which the movements have succeeded in recovering for the next millennium. It is their charisms which will be foremost in implementing the real ecclesiology of Vatican II.