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	Listening to Heal Vatican Missteps By Garden of Roses Virginia Jones July 15, 2010 http://web.me.com/virginiajones/Compsassionate_Gathering/The_Garden_of_Roses/Entries/2010/7/15_Listening_to_Heal_Vatican_Missteps.html I am busy organizing the Walk Across Oregon to stop abuse and heal the wounds so I haven’t had time to write blogs. I read Abuse Tracker almost every day. Sometimes I just scan articles. Sometimes I read in depth. Recently I started corresponding with an Irishman who lives in Belgium and who long ago fell away from the Catholic Church. His observations of the situation in Belgium and Ireland are not at all complimentary of Church policies and he puzzles over how a thinking person could possibly remain in the Catholic Church. But my faith is not in the people who lead the institution of the Catholic Church. I admit I struggle with my faith. New guidelines giving victims twenty years after their 18th birthday instead of ten to pursue accusations of sex abuse against priests through Church channels is a positive step. However, I don’t know many victims who have come forward before the age of 38. There shouldn’t be any statute of limitations on the reporting of child sex abuse at all. Moreover, what is this about the ordination of women being as serious a crime against faith as the possession of pornography by a priest? I think I need to read more articles to understand that one. Then there are these crimes of apostasy, heresy, and schism. Aught oh, I might be guilty of those. I am a little worried here. My faith is in something much more amorphous -- in saints like Francis of Assisi, Theresa of Avila,Joan of Arc and Catherine of Sienna, who were not always orthodox or reverent in the traditional way, who explored faith and did courageous things. My faith is in the people of the Catholic Church ...in Paolo Gomez, the Maintenance Supervisor at Ascension Catholic Church, who spends many nights sleeping at a homeless shelter for families so people with families can be safe and together. My faith is in Franciscan Friar, Armando Lopez, who works giving and listening and supporting anyone in need and who is always opening his own wallet to give people money for rent or utilities or medical bills. He gives so much and he keeps on giving until he gets sick and then he works some more until all the lay people around him nag him into staying in bed a few days. I am moved by the faith and acts of ordinary people in the Catholic Church. To me these are the real heros who are the Catholic Church. These ordinary people are why I remain Catholic So what has happened? Why is there the disconnect between a bureaucracy that is out of touch and ordinary Catholics, people in thew pews, nuns and priests who are so good and giving as well as the media and survivors of clergy abuse. I probably side with the critics of the Church here. I don’t think it is a good thing for the institution of the Church to be run by bureaucrats so far removed from the lives of ordinary people. I also don’t think ordaining women will magically change things although I have a hard time with considering it a serious crime against faith. Nor do I think that allowing priests to get married will provide automatic solutions. Women can be ordained and priests and ministers can get married in other religious institutions and there still is abuse. No, the problem is more an attitude and experience of humility. I think it is really good for the soul to work in a soup kitchen, to care for the frail elderly who can’t get in and out of bed or go to the bathroom alone and to stay up with a crying and hungry baby in the middle of the night. I think it is good to spend the last moments of someone’s life with them trying to send them off with as much love as possible. I think it is good to spend time with the homeless on the street or in a shelter and hear their stories of how they got there. These kinds of life experiences teach us what is really important in life. But there is a problem that I think I can explain although explaining things doesn’t solve the problem. So many of the people in the Vatican are really old. They have lived their lives in sheltered existences but even if they had not lived in sheltered existences there is a problem with really old people running things. Perhaps there is an age when it is better to step aside from running day to day affairs of an institution an become professor emeritus or Pope emeritus or queen emeritus and let younger people in their forties, fifties and sixties take charge. Before you throw stones at me for being ageist, please let me explain so more.... I prefer a different way of aging to our society’s pattern. I traveled to the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan. Many years ago I had a boyfriend there. I met his family. he was the youngest child in a family with four children. His mother had a leg ailment and was not very mobile. She stayed with one daughter and took an active role in raising her grandchildren. She was so honored by the rest of the family, the grandchildren fought over who could be with her. I think we’ve lost something in our affluent lifestyle with cruises and daycare. Maybe there was something better in the old way of doing things. I think our relationships need to be rethought. I was also involved in the care of my parents as they grew older. My father was 50 when I was born and my mother was 39. My father passed away at age 86. My mother was alcoholic and a smoker and died relatively young at the age of 67. Years later my cousin told me that our aunt told her that all the girls in the family, her mother, my mother and the aunt, were sexually abused their father. My mother definitely struggled with depression and substance abuse most of my life. My father, Sidney Pickles, was valedictorian of Monterey Union High School in 1927 and he studied physics at Cal Tech and Stanford Universities. No slouch was he. He had more that 40 patents under his name on various ground based navigation systems for airplanes. My mother was also very intelligent despite her ailments. When she was 17, my mother was told she would have won an award for being the top math student at Port Chester High School. But the year was 1937. They didn’t give math awards to girls. She became a secretary. My father said that she was by far the smartest secretary he had. When I grew up we discussed current events at the dining room table. I remember discussing the 6 day War at the breakfast table in 1967 when I was not quite 8 years old. When we drove places at night, my father would talk about the stars and discuss topics such as the speed of light and light years. We never missed a National Geographic television special on Louis Leakey or Jane Goodall or that family that studied bears. Then we devoured the articles on them in the magazine -- a family habit which inspired me to major in zoology and study ecology and evolution in college. But in the waning days of their lives, my parents were not up on current events nor could they understand what I was talking about. My parents were conservative Republicans. I did not stay in the fold. I became a liberal Democrat. As a field biologist, it is hard to be out in nature and not be concerned with environmental issues. My parents support inspired me in directions they didn’t completely follow. I graduated from college just after Ronald reagan became president. The jobs for field biologists got cut dramatically by Ronald Reagan, and I didn’t agree with his handling of environmental issues. Slowly, my eyes opened on other issues such as war and trade and unions... However, my parents were not partisans, at least not entirely. I could explain my views on issues and they could appreciate our differences. As it turned out, through the Reagan administration, my mother started agreeing with me more and more. Even my father did not like unbridled development of natural resources. He remembered the SAcramento River before Shasta Dam was built and regretted the loss of fish habitat on the Mc Cloud River. However, I found as my parents grew older they were not able to understand what I was talking about when we disagreed about political issues. As their health declined, their worlds grew smaller and their knowledge and ability to process what was going on in the larger realm of politics decreased. I have experienced such declines in others. I just came home form visiting my 96 year old aunt. She is a lovely lady whose deep faith and gentle demeanor are a model for me to follow. Her politics are not. She is an even more conservative Republican than my parents were. Except for when I was very young and much influenced by my parents, I would not have agreed with my aunt on politics at any time. I suppose I have indoctrinated my children as my parents indoctrinated me. My aunt likes Fox news very much. When we drove by Fox news in LA during our vacation, well I won’t mention what my teenaged son did. Suffice it to say I gave him am lecture about his behavior after we drove by the Fox building. But one day during the vacation my daughter was watching some Disney television teen show in my aunt's living room when my aunt came in and changed the channel to Fox news. My daughter walked out of the room muttering about Fox news being bad for you. My aunt was puzzled. She didn’t understand what she had done. “My children hate Fox News,” I said. “Why?’ asked my aunt, “It’s the best news out there.” “Fox news is run by Roger Ailes who was a Republican media consultant for Ronald reagan. Fox news is Republican news.” “What is wrong with that?” my aunt asked. “We are not Republicans. In our view Fox news is biased and not the whole truth.” There was nowhere else the conversation could go. As a Democrat I know I am right. As a Republican my aunt knows she is right. There is no discussion. Many people are partisan thinkers. For them age has nothing to do with how they think. But I think the combination of partisan thought and advanced age is not a good one. I think this is what is going on in the Vatican. Like my aunt, the people in the Vatican consult a limited number of sources of information and like my aunt and my parents, what the young people are doing out there these days is so different from what they grew up with, it is incomprehensible. I don’t think Pope Benedict XVI is a bad man. I think he is a good man, trying to do good things. If I could give one piece of advice that would be taken and I have no illusions. None of my advice will be taken and probably it won’t even be read. The advice is to listen and listen with humility and to give the talkers hours of time. and listen again when someone needs to come back and talk some more. Listen to the clergy abuse survivors. Listen to the people in the pews. Listen to the priests doing the work of trying to support the faith of these people in the pews. Listen to the frail elderly nuns who carry forth with their own deep faith ( I am thinking about you, Sister Kathleen). Listen to the homeless man on the street corner or the homeless girl in front of the bookstore. Work in the homeless shelter and listen. Listen to the disaffected Catholics, like the Irishman who lives in Brussels. Why did he leave the church and what does he have to say? This is what my group Compassionate Gathering does. We listen to all sides, to everyone, to all survivors of abuse, to priests and nuns. I think listening helps us all to understand what is going on better, it will help us make better decisions. But there another reason to listen. Listening in healing for all sides. Half the problem with the clergy abuse scandal is no one listened when listening was needed. Survivors who came forward were lectured and silenced for saying such bad things about priests and nuns and teachers. Sometimes they were actively punished when the spoke. But listening really is healing -- for everyone involved -- for both listeners and listenees. Helen has been my stalwart supporter through every event, good and bad at Ascension. When I spoke truths about clergy abuse that no one else wanted to believe, Helen listened and believed. When a survivor came forward in our parish, Helen was with me listening when no one else listened (except Fr, Armando). Then Helen’s husband of 45 years died. A piece of Helen died with him. But everyone was used to Helen being strong and being there for others, a pillar of the parish and the person everyone went to for help. People didn’t think of helping Helen. Jim, another member of our group and a firm believer in listening, calls her up and takes her out for lunch. I have been remiss as my schedule is so busy. In June we had Compassionate Gatherings for support and for listening and healing. I was feeling down for personal reasons. One survivor, Chris, showed up for our Gathering for support. We listened to each other . Chris was down too because life can be so hard sometimes. Then Helen and Jim came to offer their ears to listen to survivors. But it was Helen who did the talking. I asked gentle questions to help Helen tell her story. “What made you fall in love with your husband?” I asked. “I don’t know.” Helen said, “He just always supported me and whatever I wanted to do.” Helen spoke for almost two hours. Chris and I had been there for almost four hours already but we listened some more, Finally it was getting close to 5 PM Mass. We needed to leave church grounds so there would be no conflicts. We all hugged Helen and everyone helped me clean up, Then I drove Chris to the downtown bus stop so he had only one bus to catch to get home instead of three he would have taken from Ascension. “I feel better,” Chris said. “So do I ,” I said. There is something about listening to someone else’s pain and being present with them that is very healing -- not only for the person in pain. So, Vatican representatives are you listening? I recommend that you slow down and start listening. Just sit down and listen a spell, and then listen some more. You’ll come to understand the needs and feelings of others better and the irony is that in the process you will feel better too. I know this who scandal has been really hard on you too.
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