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	Facing up to the Scandal That Is Rocking the Catholic Church By Ron Ferguson Press and Journal April 6, 2010 http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1675977/?UserKey= THE excruciating mess the Catholic Church has got itself into over the current paedophile crisis is a bit like a slow-motion train wreck which has been on the cards for many years. There have been Catholic voices which have highlighted crucial problems over a long, long time, but these voices have been repeatedly marginalised. As a result, there have been too many unsupported victims, and the damage to the Catholic Church – in fact to Christianity as a whole – has been incalculable. I speak from a Protestant perspective, having been a Church of Scotland minister for more than 20 years before returning to full-time writing; nevertheless, I take not one iota of pleasure out of the current disaster. Many Roman Catholic relatives and friends of mine are utterly embarrassed and ashamed as a result of the unfolding nightmare. The Easter weekend is the greatest festival in the Christian year. In the year of Our Lord 2010, it has sadly been overshadowed by a catastrophe which had been predicted by some prophets over a long time. On Easter Sunday, Cardinal Keith O'Brien apologised to "anyone who has suffered any abuse at the hands of anyone representing the Catholic Church". Preaching at St Mary's Cathedral in Edinburgh, he said that the abuse scandal had left Catholics "demoralised and confused" by the "many evils" perpetrated by paedophile priests. He also spoke about the shame the abuse scandal had brought to the members of the Church. The cardinal also acknowledged that the Roman Catholic Church had been accused of systematically covering up, and "turning a blind eye to", allegations of abuse of children at the hands of priests. "Crimes against children have, indeed, been committed," he said, "and any Catholics who were aware of such crimes, and did not act to report them, bring shame on us all. We can take no comfort from the fact that only a small percentage of priests committed such crimes – the impact of their sinful acts is very large. Their actions harmed the lives of their victims, caused great hatred to be directed at their innocent brother priests, and left ordinary Catholics demoralised and confused. "We realise we have not been as alert as we should have been to the evils being perpetrated around us, whatever our particular position. Many evils have been committed throughout the world, particularly with regard to the sexual abuse of children and young people. "The past weeks and months have not been easy for any one of us – and I share with you the shame of so many others in our Church, near at home and far afield." I know Cardinal O'Brien. He is a good and wise man. He has acknowledged the role of some bishops in covering up offences and moving offending priests to other parishes instead of reporting them to the authorities. When I was a minister in Easterhouse, Glasgow, I worked very closely with Roman Catholic priests. In conversation, they would talk about the culture of secrecy within their own hierarchies. It was this culture which allowed the paedophile crisis to grow and grow. Payments made to silence victims of abuse appeared on no diocesan balance sheets. Too many senior figures put the reputation of their Church before the needs of those who had been abused. I feel sorry for the huge majority of priests and nuns and bishops who have been tainted by this scandal. Good and faithful parish priests and nuns doing fantastic caring work have been mocked in the streets. They, too, have borne the consequences of the sins of the fathers. I think also of devoted Catholic lay people who support their Church faithfully and sacrificially, and who are now devastated by what they read in the newspapers or see on television. Apart from anything else, covering up these crimes doesn't work. When victims first spoke up, they weren't listened to. But it was only a matter of time before the voices of the victims were heard. In this media-driven age, institutional secrets are much harder to keep. Holding the lid down on political or ecclesiastical lies is, thankfully, not so easy as it once was. Look at the undercover reporting which showed politicians shamelessly offering their lobbying services for money. Some senior figures in the Catholic Church simply don't "get it". They still seem to think that they have some divine right to put themselves above the law of the land. They present the crisis as nothing much more than a media conspiracy. Some of the people uncovering the lies and cover-ups will be motivated by a particular agenda, but to dress it up as simply media irresponsibility will not do, and most Catholics are rightly embarrassed by that approach. Even more shameful was the toe-curling response by Pope Benedict XVI's personal preacher. On Good Friday, he likened accusations against the Pope and the Catholic Church in the sex abuse scandal to "collective violence" suffered by the Jews. The Rev Raniero Cantalamessa said in a Good Friday homily, with the Pope listening to him in St Peter's Basilica, that a Jewish friend wrote to him to say the accusations reminded him of the "more shameful aspects of anti-Semitism". This kind of talk is an offence not only to victims and their families, but to victims of the Holocaust. "Father Cantalamessa chose to equate calumny against the Jewish people as the same as criticism of Pope Benedict," said Kristine Ward, a spokeswoman for the National Survivor Advocates Coalition. "It is incomprehensible that Father Cantalamessa did this and that Pope Benedict, the ultimate authority in this Church, who presided at the service, did not stand during the service to disavow this connection to anti-Semitism." Cardinal Keith O'Brien's response is a much healthier one, and he is to be commended. This whole business is far from being simply a Catholic problem; it is a human problem throughout the world. Nevertheless, the increasing number of reports from different parts of the world points to a critical issue within the Catholic Church, one which needs to be addressed with truthfulness and humanity.
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