BishopAccountability.org
	Catholics and a Crisis of Faith By John Mullane Bucks County Courier Times February 15, 2011 http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/news_details/article/163/2011/february/15/catholics-and-a-crisis-of-faith.html It was tough to read the latest grand jury report on resurgent child sex abuse by priests in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. Maybe Cardinal Justin Rigali should declare moral bankruptcy. At Sunday Mass, a priest told us what is to blame for the publicity: the media. "The newspaper is not a friend," he said, as I sat with my three children. "The newspapers are not telling you the whole story." That's probably a good thing, since the "whole story" as documented by the Philadelphia grand jury, using the archdiocese's own records and testimony, is worse than you think. For example: A 10-year-old boy was passed among two priests and a Catholic school teacher, who raped the child. According to grand jury testimony, one of the alleged molester priests told the boy that "God loved him" as he forced the boy to have oral sex in a church sacristy. This level of depravity is beyond the imagination of the average Catholic. It gets worse, though. In the aftermath of the abuse, the grand jury report describes the suicide of a young victim, "Ben," in Bristol. It describes the attempted suicide of another victim, "Mark" in Newtown Township. The report states that the sexual abuse of children in the archdiocese was "known, tolerated and hidden by high church officials, including the Cardinal himself." Five years after a previous grand jury documented the molestation of hundreds of children by 63 archdiocesan priests, 37 clergy with "credible" allegations of abuse remain in active ministry. His Eminence Rigali won't say who they are, or where they are, or what the allegations are. This is a catastrophe. Since the priest sex scandals first broke in Boston in 2002, eight U.S. dioceses have declared bankruptcy from paying damages to victims. Davenport. Fairbanks. Portland. San Diego. Spokane. Tucson. Wilmington. The latest, Milwaukee, declared bankruptcy last month, where the scandal burst under the "leadership" of the aptly named Cardinal Rembert Weakland. Weakland was accused of shredding documents related to priest sexual abuse cases. He called abuse victims "squealers." He also closed parish schools for lack of money. Among the reasons for the cash shortage was that Weakland had used $450,000 to pay hush money to his boyfriend who had threatened to blackmail the archbishop about their affair. The unfolding crisis will contribute to the continuing decline in Catholic school enrollments, the closing of those schools and the closing of parishes. What took generations of Catholics to build is being destroyed at the hands of bishops who are the most inept, corrupt bunglers since Johann Tetzel sold indulgences on behalf of Pope Leo X. In addition to "the media," our bishops have placed blame on gays, "liberal culture," the "breakdown of society," and the Jews. In an address to the faithful via YouTube last weekend, Cardinal Rigali didn't bother to mention Bevilacqua's role in the scandal, or how the scandal was allowed to fester for decades, or why it continues on his watch. At a time when the traditional family is under assault, marriage is threatened with redefinition, and we have reached the grim milestone of 50 million abortions since 1973, our bishops have shredded their moral credibility and left us, the people in the pews and the good priests and nuns who minister to us, feeling shamed, humiliated, angry and doubting. We are open to attack. To read the grand jury report is to invite a crisis of faith. Many Catholics may quit the church or, in fear, remove their children from Catholic schools. At least they will stop dropping money into collection plates. Who can blame them? But before heading to the exits, Catholics should consider this. Judas was an apostle. That is to say, the church from its earliest days, has been convulsed with heartbreaking scandal. In the 16th century, after Tetzel and other scandals sparked the Protestant Reformation, Saint Francis DeSales began the church anew. It was a sullen task. Twice, he was beaten and left for dead in his evangelical travels through Europe. Asked why he stuck with it, he said, "While those who give scandal are guilty of the spiritual equivalent of murder, those who take scandal, who allow scandals to destroy their faith, are guilty of spiritual suicide." Mother Teresa is a case in point. For 50 years as she retrieved the dying from the filthy streets of Calcutta, she wrote to a priest friend in 1979, that she had seen so much evil in the world, and so much indifference to innocent human life, that she doubted there was a God or a Heaven. God, she wrote, had abandoned her. And yet, she never gave up the faith, always praying, always working for the glory of a God who did not answer her prayers. At the end of her life, she told the priest, God's presence suddenly reappeared. She was, in the words of John of the Cross, in the grip of a "dark night of the soul." That's where dispirited Catholics are now. Such ordeals serve to strengthen faith, John of the Cross said, but they are hellish to experience. If only Rigali would preach that, instead of conferring with lawyers. Especially since we have yet to hear the extent of child sexual abuse in the church in South America and Africa. When we do, another dark night will descend, but will not overcome. Mullane's column appears Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday. He blogs at phillyBurbs.com.
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