Catholic Voice

 His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral letter,[1] significantly signed on the Solemnity of Saint Joseph (Patron of the Church), can be summed up in the profound and loving words:  reform and renewal.  The focus of the letter is primarily pastoral and non-punitive as its name would suggest.  It offers an intense and time-tested spiritual programme for personal conversion which paves the way for reform, renewal and ultimately healing in the Church in Ireland. 

 

Reactions to the letter have been mostly—although predictably not universally—positive.  Critics contend for various reasons that the Pope has failed to address core issues.  Some go so far as to claim that the government should assume oversight of child protection in Catholic and other private institutions.  For some, it seems that nothing short of the death of the Church will ever be enough.  The ongoing attitude of ecclesial condemnation in certain circles is sad indeed.

 

The message of the Pope’s letter, however, is clearly challenging:  conversion for her members at all levels, especially clergy and religious; and compassion towards those who have been deeply hurt by members of the Church and persist in their condemnation of her.

 

 

  Conversion is the Only Way Forward

 

On the one hand, the Pope pulls no punches in addressing abusers saying, ‘You betrayed the trust that was placed in you by innocent young people and their parents, and you must answer for it before Almighty God and before properly constituted tribunals….Openly acknowledge your guilt, submit yourselves to the demands of justice, but do not despair of God’s mercy.’[2] 

 

It is important to note that the demands of both justice and mercy are, properly understood, in no way contradictory.  In fact, the demands of both are equally binding.

 

The Holy Father also frankly addresses his brother bishops:  ‘It cannot be denied that some of you and your predecessors failed, at times grievously, to apply the long-established norms of canon law to the crime of child abuse.  Serious mistakes were made in responding to allegations…and failures of leadership occurred….Besides fully implementing the norms of canon law in addressing cases of child abuse, continue to cooperate with the civil authorities in their area of competence.’[3] 

 

Most significant is that the Pope acknowledges competency relevant to both the sacred and civil realms.[4]  Accordingly, he asserts the right and freedom of the Church to address issues within her competency whilst affirming that of civil leaders.  In other words, he is not abdicating sacred authority to secular structures even though some continue to demand it.

The Pontiff further proposes a practical spiritual programme[5] which is in essence a loving invitation to once again allow God to use Ireland as ‘an enormous force for good at home and abroad.’[6]  Concrete initiatives are offered to Christ’s faithful on all levels.  These include renewed observance of Fridays as a day of penance, prayer, fasting, devotion to Sacred Scripture, works of mercy, Eucharistic Adoration, and an all-Ireland mission for the renewal of bishops, priests and religious.  The Apostolic Visitation will no doubt address the administrative areas raised by the various reports.  The key here is that the Holy Father links ecclesiastical reform and renewal to personal holiness.  In other words, reform and renewal begin in the hearts of her members at all levels of the Church, for structures are only as good as those who operate within them.  Sin is always a personal reality; it is always someone’s fault.  No one denies, however, that those structures which are of merely human origin[7] may be improved to better safeguard children and vulnerable adults as is already happening.

 

 

Cries of Condemnation Continue

 

Not everyone, however, is favourably disposed towards the pastoral letter. Andrew Madden for example is quoted on RTÉ News as saying that the letter ‘failed to address the issue at all seriously’ and that ‘a pastoral letter is not the way to respond.’  Colm O’Gorman, co-founder of One in Four[8] and head of Amnesty International[9] is cited in the The New York Times as being ‘concerned that there is still no full acknowledgement of the systematic institutional cover-up which is not restricted only to Ireland….I find that deceitful because we know that this is a global and systemic problem in the global Church.  It’s all about protesting[10] the institution and, above all, its wealth.’

 

One could speculate, however, that had the Pope’s letter been addressed to the ‘global’ Church that the criticism would then have been its irrelevance to the Irish situation.  The reality is that for some the Church’s response will never be good enough.  Intense hurt has become bitter hatred, albeit understandably so.  

 

The point is well demonstrated in a statement from the Survivors’ Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP) cited in the 19 March edition of The Irish Times.  SNAP says that ‘No matter how long, detailed, passionate or “unprecedented” the Pope’s word’s of sympathy to Irish citizens may be tomorrow, we hope they will be ignored….There is much the Pope could do right now, but we aren’t optimistic.  When it comes to abuse, he talks the talk but refuses to walk the walk, and with church cover ups he often fails to even talk the talk.’

 

Should the Holy Father’s acknowledgement ‘that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured’ and that it ‘is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church’[11] be ignored?

 

Is it reasonable to condemn the Pope’s letter even before having read it?

 

Should not the Pope’s call for conversion and accountability be taken seriously?

 

Certainly if nothing else were to happen, the letter alone would not suffice.  But it must be recognized that the Church and the Gospel are not the problem.  The abuse and inordinate secrecy[12] which have hurt so many are acts of infidelity to the Church and the Gospel—indeed to Jesus Himself!  Yet, unless one believes that the Church herself should cease and desist (and the opinion certainly exists), then the call to conversion and renewed fidelity are an essential part of the healing process without which further progress is neither likely nor possible. 

 

Equally essential, however, is that the real hurt that has resulted in what is nothing less than ‘Ecclesiaphobia’ may in time give way to healing and restoration in Jesus who says, ‘I Am the Resurrection’ and ‘Behold, I make all things new.’ 

 

 

The Church is Always in Need of Reform and Renewal

 

That the Church is always in need of reform and renewal should come as no shock.  Saint Augustine observed 1600 years ago that the temporal Church is a corpus mixtus, a mixed body made up of saints, sinners, and everyone in between and that it is not always evident who’s who.  There is no better illustration of Augustine’s doctrine in Ireland than the scourge of the present scandals.  In fact, the sinners stand out like the proverbial small, black spot on an otherwise white wall.  So much so that the wall itself seems to have become invisible, even unnecessary. 

 

One hears too often in the media the call for governmental organs such as the HSE to strip Church and other private agencies of their oversight of Child protection.  The State is further pushing for the socialization of education in order to advance its morally abhorrent sex education and homosexual agenda.  Home school families are now ipso facto suspected child abusers.  There are repeated attempts to usher in, sometimes even deviously, health and medical practices that are anti-life or otherwise immoral.   Even the attack on privately run crisis pregnancy agencies shows the increasingly anti-private attitude of the government and their sympathizers.

 

The presumptions belying this way of thinking are twofold:  1) State infallibility; and 2) the superiority of public over private individuals and institutions.  Does anyone seriously think that anything State-run would totally eradicate sexual abuse?  Ms. Mary Harney, TD is frequently in the news answering for the incompetence of agencies under her ‘watchful’ eye.  One would think after all these years that she would have the decency to resign, yet instead she seeks to widen her reign and no one questions it.  What hasn’t the State screwed up?  It is as if the people who are considered untrustworthy to run private institutions somehow magically become infallible when they work for the government.  Absurd indeed!

 

What is really deceitful is the opportunistic use of the sexual abuse scandal to ram-rod immorality into law by calling into question the Church’s moral authority.[13]    It should make one pause to realize that the frozen embryo ruling came just days following the Murphy Report—likewise the further pushing of the civil partnership bill.  Hmmm?  It seems that some have a vested interest in the death of the Church in Ireland.  Funny, I thought the death penalty is unconstitutional.  The Pope’s message of reform and renewal is spot on.  Conversion, not condemnation is the only path to healing—the government and her employees not withstanding.

 

 

This feature is categorised under Life Matters