By Scott Maniquet
National Post
May 9, 2010
http://network.nationalpost.com/NP/blogs/holy-post/archive/2010/05/09/charles-lewis-a-conversation-with-roman-catholic-theologian-george-weigel.aspx
Late in 2002, with Catholics still in shock over the revelations of wide-spread sexual abuse and cover-ups, George Weigel, a Roman Catholic theologian and commentator, wrote The Courage To Be Catholic. It was an attempt to analyze the events leading to the crisis and to offer suggestions about how to reform the Church.
Mr. Weigel did not sugarcoat things. His book contained an eight-page list of awful incidents that came to light that year. But he rejected arguments that the Church give up celibacy and become more sensitive to the surrounding "libertine" culture. He believed that the crisis stemmed from the Church not being Catholic enough.
Now, eight years later, with more ugly revelations, Mr. Weigel answers my questions about the state of the Church today.
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Q Why do you think most critics, Catholics and others, fail to see reform as a return to basics and instead think in terms of changing to better fit modern culture?
A I'm not sure that "most" critics don't understand the point about fidelity-as-the-answer, but some certainly don't — and likely do so because they are either advancing a "progressive" agenda in the Church or because they've succumbed to the prevailing libertine culture — or both. In a difficult and complex mess like that of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, it can be hard to see what's directly in front of your face: namely, that faithful and holy priests don't abuse young people or anyone else, for that matter.
Q If you were to update The Courage To Be Catholic today how would the crisis of 2010 fit into your thoughts about the 2002 crisis?
A They'd all apply, for sure, but I'd also underscore that 2010 isn't 2002. In 2002, the media did the Church a service by forcing to the surface things that had to be dealt with. What's happening now is the dredging up of old stories in an attempt to either disempower the Catholic Church as a moral authority or satisfy the greed of the plaintiffs' bar.
Q Do you think Pope Benedict should apologize on behalf of the entire Church?
A I think a public statement by the Pope that would repeat what John Paul II said on the First Sunday of Lent, 2000, namely, that the Church deeply repents of the sins of her children, would be a helpful reminder of the dynamics of sin and grace, and it might be a service to those who have suffered abuse.
Q You wrote that most of the abuse occurred between homosexual priests and teenage boys and that the crisis was really not about pedophilia, thought that did occur. It was recently suggested by Cardinal Levada that homosexual priests are a large part of the problem. How does the Church talk about this without coming across as bigoted?
A Well, as long as society and the media insist that facing facts constitutes bigotry, we'll be accused of being bigots. But the facts remain: The majority of abuse in the Church in the U.S. involved homosexual predation of teenagers and young men; a very small minority of the abuse was classic "pedophilia," i.e., the sexual abuse of a child. Whether those percentages would hold in the 290,000 cases of abuse in U.S. public schools between 1991 and 2000 — as distinguished from some 4,500 cases of abuse in the Church in the U.S. over 50 years — I don't know.
Homosexuality, as the Catholic Church understands it, is an objectively disordered disposition, and while homosexuals are obviously capable of living chastely, the disposition itself poses questions for a man who is considering a vocation that involves the exercise of spiritual paternity.
Q Do you ever fear that the mass of American, Canadian and European Catholics have become so selective in their faith that it may not be possible to make them more aligned to the true teachings of the Church?
A The liveliest Catholicism in the United States (and, I dare say, in Canada) is vibrantly orthodox Catholicism. In both our countries, Catholicism must now be a deliberate and mature choice, not something we elide into by cultural osmosis. It will be interesting to see whether the counter-cultural demands that will increasingly be put on the Church in fact act to revivify Catholicism; persecution, overt or subtle, has usually been a boon to the faith.
Contact: clewis@nationalpost.com
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