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	Abuse of Church Power Is Key to Crisis - Radcliffe By Garry O’Sullivan Voice from the Desert December 30, 2009 http://reform-network.net/?p=2478 The clerical sexual abuse crisis is deeply linked to an abuse of power in the Church from the Vatican down to the local parish, a large gathering of Dublin priests has been told. Former Master General of the Dominican Order and author, Fr Timothy Radcliffe, told a two-day gathering of Dublin priests that "I'm convinced this whole sexual abuse crisis is deeply linked with power and the way power operates in the Church at all levels, from the Vatican to the parish sacristan. Often, it is not the power of Jesus who is gentle and humble of heart." Fr Radcliffe traced the rise of power over recent centuries in secular society and said that the "Church has been infected by the same culture of control". He said this was "partly because the Church has struggled to maintain its freedom from so many who have tried to take it over". He added: "This culture is at the heart of the crisis of sexual abuse, the abuse of the small and the vulnerable. We only learn to have a Church that is safe when we are humble of heart. The primary dignity of each one of us is to be baptised." Calling the current crisis "terrible", he said it was "much more than a crisis about sexual abuse; it is a crisis of a clerical culture, [a culture] which lifts us [the clergy] up in our high towers, a whole understanding of priesthood so often in terms of power." Fr Radcliffe said: "Most priests are holy, humble, unpretentious people but this is often in the face of a clerical culture, fighting against a clerical culture which values high titles and positions - your Eminence, all these ridiculous distinctions, right reverend, very reverend…this crisis may be the beginning of a profound renewal of the Church." But he warned: "It is potentially a time of enormous renewal for the Church. It challenges our perception of power, often with remoteness from the people, morality in terms of control. Painfully, the Lord is demolishing our high towers, our lofty walls, our pretensions to glory and grandeur." Fr Radcliffe said humility was found wanting in all Christian Churches. "I don't think if you look at any Church in Christianity that humility is an overwhelmingly characteristic of their ministers. Humility is not a characteristic of our Church in the past."
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