Threats from the inside, Times of Malta, June 16, 2010

Threats from the inside

Times of Malta
June 16, 2010

http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100516/religion/threats-from-the-inside

It all started as a question about the third secret of Fatima; but the answer ended up as the most quoted sound bite uttered by the Pope when answering questions put by the journalists accompanying him on the papal plane en route to Portugal.

Does the third secret of Fatima also refer to the Church's suffering for the sexual abuse of minors?

His answer provides us with an interesting twist to the whole argument:

"We may see that attacks against the Pope and the Church do not only come from outside; rather, the sufferings of the Church come from inside the Church, from the sin that exists in the Church. This was always common knowledge, but today we see it in truly terrifying form: the greatest persecution of the Church does not come from external enemies, but is born of sin within the Church.

"Thus the Church has a profound need to relearn penance, to accept purification, to learn forgiveness but also the need for justice. Forgiveness does not replace justice."

The Pope showed both vision and leadership with his answer. Many people try to blame others for the problems they have. They are in denial about the nature of their problem and their own responsibilities.

Others indulge in a feeling of self pity or persecution from the outside. All these attitudes are starkly present in the current crisis.

Pope Benedict praying in front of the statue of Our Lady in Fatima, Portugal, on Wednesday.

Many depicted the media and freemasons as the two main persecutors of the Church, and almost believed the child abuse scandal was the creation of the combined work of these two arch-enemies of the Church. All sorts of cop-outs were resorted to.

A Mexican bishop blamed the plague of child abuse on porno-graphy on the internet and TV, even though most cases we are debating now happened years before the internet became as widely ac-cessible as it is today.

Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone blamed it on homosexuality. The Papal household preacher, Fr Raniero Cantalamessa, compared the media attacks to the anti-Semitic campaigns of the past. He later apologised. Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, spoke of "petty gossip". Such statements are PR disasters.

It is good that others within the Church publicly react to show that these statements are not the official position of the Church. A Scottish bishop strongly criticised Mgr Bertone, while Cardinal Christoph Schonborn, Archbishop of Vienna, took Mgr Sodano to task.

The Pope, with his usual courage, burst the bubble. Let us look on the inside and put our house in order, he effectively said. It does not mean there is nothing to criticise in the media handling of the crisis. There is a lot to criticise, and criticise we should, without alienating ourselves to the truth of the matter.

The Pope is showing us the way forward as he staunchly refuses to be engulfed by the siege mentality characterising so many of lesser stature.

During the above-mentioned aircraft discussion the Pope did not call for a crusade. On the contrary, he spoke of building bridges and creating dialogue to integrate "faith and modern rationality into a single anthropological vision which completes the human being and thus also makes human cultures able to communicate with one another".

He continued: "The great challenge of the current time is for the two (the secular mentality and the culture of faith) to meet and thus discover their true identity. This, as I have said, is a mission for Europe and the (great) human need of our own history."

Contact: joseph.borg@um.edu.mt