BishopAccountability.org
	In Defence of a Church on Trial By Mesh Moeti Sunday Standard June 10, 2010 http://sundaystandard.info/article.php?NewsID=7968&GroupID=4 The leader of Botswana’s Catholics says the church will weather the storm of recent sex scandals that rocked the worldwide institution as it has done through the ages. This must be a difficult time to be a Catholic Church leader. In a number of European countries cathedrals are recording a steady decline in the number of congregants. Add to that the recent revelations, mostly in Europe and United States, of decades of cases of child abuse by priests and cover-ups by their bishops. Without doubt, the Church is going through one of the most difficult challenges in its 2 000-year history. It was in the face of the sex scandals that have debilitated the church in some parts of the world that Pope Benedict XVI wrote a moving letter to Catholics in Ireland on March 19. “You have suffered grievously and I am truly sorry,” Benedict wrote. “I know that nothing can undo the wrong you have endured. Your trust has been betrayed and your dignity has been violated. Many of you found that, when you were courageous enough to speak of what happened to you, no one would listen ... It is understandable that you find it hard to forgive or be reconciled with the Church. In her name, I openly express the shame and remorse that we all feel.” s more cases surfaced, last month the Pope was compelled to once again show a contrite face in public, pointing out that “the greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from the enemies on the outside but is born from the sin within the Church”. The leader of Botswana’s over 70, 000 Catholics (the exact figure will be established when a church-commissioned year long census releases its results this month), Bishop Valentine Seane, cautions that before any fingers are pointed at the Church, society should look at itself. “There are paedophiles who are fathers, teachers, lawyers, and medical doctors,” he says. “It’s a reflection of a sick society, and the priests come from that society. It goes to show that if people were abused as children, they will abuse as priests. By becoming a medical doctor or priest does not immune them….In Botswana, for instance, so many people drink – teachers, doctors, lawyers. It’s a reflection of society.” He accepts the criticism that has been leveled at the Church and its leadership as justified because for years the Church seemed preoccupied with saving its face, and forgot to minister to the victims of abuse. As the world has now come to know, the offending clerics were simply transferred to different parishes where they were most likely to continue their habits, or banished to silence and distant monasteries. He concedes that in the past, the same society that would be quick to punish a teacher or medical doctor for paedophilia, would allow a priest to get away with the same crime. He takes comfort in the new protocol: that if someone steps forward before a Bishop and alleges abuse, they should immediately be advised to report the matter to the police. If any good has come out of the revelations, he says, it’s that the whole episode has been an awakening call that cases of this nature cannot be buried anymore because hiding the problem does not solve it. Even as he says this, Seane underscores that ultimately this is “a reflection that the clergy come from a sick society that produces serial killers, rapists, and abusers”. “Some teachers and fathers are known to be abusers,” he points out. “Mothers know of abuse but they are ashamed to alert people outside (the family). What should be noted is that the Church is human and divine at the same time.” In the ensuing scrutiny of the Catholic Church, Vatican commentators have seized the moment to force two contentious issues onto the agenda: celibacy and ordination of women. Some writers have gone to link the priests’ sexual abuse of boys to celibacy. Seane counters that there is no scientific proof that links abuse to celibacy. In fact, he points out, some documented paedophiles were known to be married. “Celibacy goes with the calling for priesthood. The calling calls you to be celibate for total ability. This comes with the discipline of the Church that you have to be available all the time. It’s a tradition of the Church, but it can be changed. The Pope can change it because we know that some of the apostles had wives,” Seane says. While celibacy can be ended by a papal declaration as early as tomorrow, the same cannot be said about admittance of women into the priesthood. Seane sardonically retorts that whether or not women become priests is not “a question of feeling”. “It’s institution of Christ himself. When he instituted the priesthood, he had men only. Tradition plays a large part. Christ could have instituted women (into the priesthood), but he didn’t. At the Last Supper he sent out men, not women. We are following the tradition of the master who is the Founder of the Church. We are a very traditional Church. This is the Church of Christ himself, not so and so. (If you were to ask) who founded the Anglican Church, the answer is Henry VIII. Who founded the Lutheran Church? Martin Luther. You can put the name of a founder to every other church. Who founded this Church? It’s Christ. “But women do have a role to play. They share in the common priesthood of Christ, which is to lead other people to Christ. So they are priests by baptism, not ordination. All share in this priesthood by baptism. But ordained priesthood belongs to men. People can say their feelings and opinions but it doesn’t change the tradition of the church,” says Seane. At a time when gays and lesbians are winning influential friends, such as United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who intervened successfully on behalf of the Malawian gay couple that had been sentenced to a 14-year jail term with hard labour for announcing their engagement, there is no indication that the Church is about change its stance on sexual orientation. Seane insists that homosexuality cannot be justified. He sees it as a disorientation that can be “corrected”. God, he says, created man and woman – not for a man to marry a man. “This sickness is mostly of our own making. You can’t justify it. It’s against the natural definition of what’s male and female, and what they are there for. The Church will marry man and woman, not man and man; or woman and woman. But the Church will sympathise to see how people who find themselves with such inclinations can be helped. There are interventions that include surgery, hormonal (balancing), and psychological counseling. We do acknowledge that such orientation might result from physiological make-up or hormonal imbalance, but you can work on that. Sometimes socialization plays a role, especially in a family that perhaps had wanted to have a girl to such an extent that the parents insist on dressing a son in girl’s clothes. “Look at it this way. Sometimes a baby is born with heart outside, or someone gives birth to Siamese twins. These things happen, but we can make interventions. We can’t accept them as usual. The same applies to homosexuals. They are our brothers and sisters. We have to love them, sympathise with them, and help where we can. The Church does not reject them. We only reject attendant practices, like sodomy,” says Seane. What the Church has been going through in the past months is comparable to a defender who does not put a foot wrong in a crucial cup final, but scores an own goal in the last second of the game. Such has been the effect of the bad press that overnight, everyone seems to have forgotten the good the Church does. The Gaborone Diocese, for instance, has a vibrant social outreach programme that you’ll not read about in the mainstream press. Last month, the Church opened a hospice in Metsimotlhabe for terminally-ill people at a cost of P4.5 million. There is a home-based care programme which entails regular visits to the sick and their families. In Tsolamosese, the Church has built and runs a school that currently enrolls 300 orphans and underprivileged children. The Church takes care of all their needs – transport, clothes, food, and toiletry. The Catholic Church’s secondary institutions, Mater Spei College and St. Joseph’s College, are consistent top performers in Botswana General Certificate of Secondary Education (BGCSE) examinations. There are the clinics that people are known to prefer over government institutions. I ask Seane to explain the reason for the hospice. “It is to allow the terminally-ill to die in dignity. It is a home of care and love to care for those who are very ill and have been abandoned by family and relatives. It is about respect for dignity of the human person, even at a stage in their lives when they are so frail and sick. Other people might think they are useless, but we don’t think so,” he explains. Perhaps this explains why in Botswana, as in the rest of Africa, the Church is growing – a direct opposite of what obtains in the West. Take the Christ the King Cathedral, in Gaborone. The Church has had to create an upper floor to accommodate 1 000, bringing the church’s total capacity to 2 300. Each Sunday, the Cathedral hosts four services that are always full. A new Church that can take 1 000 has been opened in Phakalane. In the 14 months since Seane was consecrated the Bishop of Gaborone, new churches have been opened in Pitsane, Phitshane-Molopo, Digawana, and Mochudi. Seane has a theory for the Church’s growth. “The understanding in Europe is that churches are becoming empty. Sports, especially soccer, is becoming another religion,” he says. “In Botswana, the Church is growing. The trend is evident throughout southern Africa generally. The reason for this is that people are facing a challenge in getting satisfaction from material things. In the 1980s and 90s people picked material things. But now they realise that material things will not satisfy them. People are also sick and they find refuge in the Lord.” Having settled into stewardship of the flock in Botswana, the 43-year old has identified as one of his challenges to see a self-propagating and self-sustaining church. At a local level, that means the parishes must able to sustain themselves financially. At national level, he wants to see more Batswana priests. Of the more than 80 priests currently in Botswana, not more than 10 are locals. He prays that the 16 trainee priests that are currently in various seminaries complete their training. He gives a historical perspective to the low enrolment of locals into the priesthood. While the Church came to Botswana in 1928, the first local priest – the recently retired Bishop of Gaborone, Boniface Setlalekgosi – was only ordained in 1963. He was followed about two years later by the current Bishop’s uncle, the late Johannes Seane. “During that time there were a lot of missionaries from Europe, and they were young. The Church delayed in seeing the need for local priests,” Seane explains. Before I leave I ask the Bishop if this is a difficult period to be a leader within the Catholic Church hierarchy. The philosopher – theologian in him comes to the fore. “Yes, it is,” he replies. “But the Church of Christ will remain. Its leader is Christ. If you look into the history of the Church, it went through the Dark Ages, where really bad things happened, but the Church remained. This is another challenge.” Reminds one of a recent commentary by a church historian; he cited the Church’s legendary Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, who, when told that Napoleon was out to destroy the Catholic Church, exclaimed; “He will never succeed. We have not managed to do it ourselves.”
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