BishopAccountability.org
	Book Review: Suffer the Children Unto Me, by Michael W. Higgins and Peter Kavanagh National Post November 19, 2010 http://arts.nationalpost.com/2010/11/19/book-review-suffer-the-children-unto-me-by-michael-w-higgins-and-peter-kavanagh/ On a cold spring day this year, Toronto’s Archbishop Thomas Collins was presiding over the annual chrism Mass, one of the key rituals in the Catholic Church that announces the coming of Easter Sunday. During the ceremony, the oils that will be used for baptisms, confirmations and anointing the sick are blessed. In attendance that day at St. Michael’s Cathedral were 500 priests and hundreds of lay worshippers. The homily the Archbishop delivered was unusual for such a solemn occasion, but everyone agreed later that it needed to be said — especially given the crummy year the Church was having, what with all the revelations of abuse in Canada and throughout the world. “We cannot escape the horror of this by pointing out that almost all priests serve faithfully — though that fact is a grace that gives joy to the Catholic people. But even one priest gone wrong causes immense harm, and throughout the world, priests have done unspeakable evil. We should be grateful for the attention which the media devotes to the sins of the Catholic clergy, even if constant repetition may give the false impression that Catholic clergy are particularly sinful. That attention is a profound tribute to the priesthood …” Priests leaving the service were thrilled the Archbishop had spoken up, and it was not long before his words were being reported around the world. Even The New York Times, not always Catholic friendly, wrote that Archbishop Collins was a Catholic leader who “gets it.” Unfortunately, none of this appears in Suffer the Children Unto Me, just released this month by Novalis Press. The failure to report such a seminal event points to larger flaws that undermine this honourable attempt at bringing clarity to the clerical crisis. Authors Michael W. Higgins and Peter Kavanagh are both seasoned journalists and practising Catholics. They intended Suffer the Children as a primer on the Canadian abuse issue and how it relates to the larger Catholic world. It is also meant to be a meditation on a complex issue that too often has been given facile coverage in the popular media. So, for that, Higgins, an occasional columnist and a professor of religious studies, and Kavanagh, a 25-year veteran of the CBC, should be praised. They should also be commended for avoiding the cheap arguments that celibacy and the all-male priesthood are the root of the clerical crisis. The authors had the integrity to realize that such fundamental changes would turn the Catholic Church into the United Church or some other bland form of easy-listening Christianity that never challenges a soul. Still, its failure to shed real light on the subject is a great disappointment. The abuse crisis was exasperated by the collusion and silence of the hierarchy. Whether it was in Pembroke, Ont., Milwaukee, Wis., or Boston, the crime that made the abuse even more sinful was the Church’s penchant for protecting priests and bishops rather than the people in the pews and failing to be forthright when things went wrong. It not only diminished the victims but the overwhelming number of faithful priests and bishops. So when Archbishop Collins spoke, it became a seminal part of the story. The fact that it drew such a large reaction from Vatican watchers was worthy of asking some questions: Why did an honest statement have such an impact? Why did such outspokenness seem so rare? The issue of the Collins statement reveals another problem with Suffer the Children. It relies almost exclusively on coverage as it appeared in The Globe and Mail, which immediately narrowed the scope of a major aspect of the book: how the media covered the crisis. Perhaps the reason the speech by Archbishop Collins was not included was because it was not reported in the Globe — but was given prominent play in the National Post and Toronto Star, among others. That aside, there is also the problem of a form of relativism that the authors appear to support. They note, for example, that in the fall of 2009, Bishop Raymond Lahey of the Diocese of Antigonish in Nova Scotia, was arrested in Ottawa for allegedly having close to 1,000 pornographic images of children on his laptop. That the story received an enormous amount of coverage should not have been a surprise to anyone. But Higgins and Kavanagh note that in March 2010, the arrest of 35 Ontario men for possession of millions of images of child pornography got barely a mention in the media. It is dangerous waters indeed to start equating the sins of ordinary citizens with those of the clergy, something two Catholic authors should have understood. The Church claims to be God’s holy body on Earth. By the Church’s own claim, it must be held to a higher standard, which was what Archbishop Collins was saying.
Any original material on these pages is copyright © BishopAccountability.org 2004. Reproduce freely with attribution.