generalspeaking

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Fading Faith

Pope Francis will attend the summit. Photograph: Luca Zennaro/EPA

"The holy people of God looks to us and expects from us not simple and predictable condemnations, but concrete and effective measures to be undertaken."
"Hear the cry of the little ones who plead for justice."
"May the Virgin Mary enlighten us as we seek to heal the grave wounds that the scandal of pedophilia has caused [in both children and believers]."
Pope Francis,Vatican City

"You are the physicians of the soul and yet, with rare exceptions, you have been transformed into murderers of the soul."
"What a terrible contradiction."
Victim of predatory priests statement

"The first thing they did was to treat me as a liar, turn their backs and tell me that I, and others, were enemies of the church."
"This pattern exists not only in Chile. It exists all over the world, and this must end."
Victim of predatory priests statement

Victims of clergy abuse representing several countries from the Ending Clergy Abuse (ECA) organization demonstrate in Rome on Friday. (Alberto Pizzoli/AFP/Getty Images)

"The competence of the state authorities should be respected. [Abuse] is also a crime in all civil jurisdictions."
"[When allegations are received they should be investigated] with the help of experts."
"The competence of the state authorities should be respected."
"Reporting laws should be followed carefully. And a spirit of collaboration will benefit both the church and society in general."
Archbishop Charles Sciciuna, Malta, Vatican sex crimes investigator

Close to two hundred bishops, cardinals and heads of religious orders in the Holy Catholic Church are attending a four-day meeting representing a gathering of the world's leading bishops for the purpose of discussing the Catholic Church's problem with clergy abusing parishioners, betraying the trust of children and their families, raping young believers, in effect blind-siding their respect by victimizing them and blemishing their futures. Women among the faithful, including nuns, trusting and vulnerable just as the children, exploited and raped.

A story as old and familiar as the church itself. Whispered and retold endlessly. The good priests and the bad, and how to tell them apart, how to know that a priest who had earned community respect and trust had corrupted that trust and the faith placed in him? Rumours spread and the community feels helpless. If complaints are laid, the complainant is made to feel guilty for smearing the church with unfounded claims. If the priest's predations are too obvious and frequent, he is merely moved elsewhere.

The church closes in to protect its own. A parish listens to a sermon about the evils of bearing false witness. There is shame to spare and furtive despair. On occasion the situation is turned into a bleak comedy of black humour and discreet warning whom to avoid, whose presence to never tolerate, but never, ever expose oneself to ridicule and shame. Until, finally, the chorus of plaintive calls for an end to the emotional and physical carnage could no longer be ignored.

Until, finally, public authorities dared to become involved and the justice that claims to be there for everyone decides to honour its claim. And the church is astonished and defiant that any outside authority might have the unmitigated gall to question its capacity to regulate itself, to hold to account any within who might bring infamy to an institution that does only good in the world, caring for the world community as a father would a child. A father ensnaring his children in incestuous relations.

Pope Francis issued a list of "reflection points" to be considered by the assembled on the first day of the summit meant to respond to sex abuse scandals around the world, by those within the Catholic Church. The conference, the first of its kind, places a spotlight on the Vatican. But the faithful are by now so weary and wary they give it short shrift. The church's decades-long effort to curb the abuse it could no longer ignore has wrought damage everywhere within its sacred confines, extending to the Pope himself.

Secure in the expectation that scandals will erupt in areas of the world where none have yet publicly surfaced, the Pope has urged bishops from every corner of the globe to examine the issue, to commit to its eradication, denials no longer feasible. Of 21 points Pope Francis assembled, the first speaks for drawing up "a practical handbook indicating the steps to be taken by authorities at key moments when a case emerges".

"A handbook like this was drawn up in Canada back in 1992. So after twenty-five years, this is not new. These seem to be platitudes", remarked Bernadette Howell, an abuse victim originally from Ireland, now resident in Canada. "It's too vague, What counts would be zero tolerance, written into Church law", commented Peter Isely, the head of survivors' group Ending Clergy Abuse.

Then, another suggestion from Pope Francis, that "priests and bishops guilty of sexual abuse of minors leave public ministry". A nostrum. A reaction and remedy that should logically have been in effect since the very beginning of public ministry. Instead of the shrug and the wink that was the church's ready response to all such instances of failure to act with honour and probity.