BishopAccountability.org
	The Vatican Response to the Child Abuse Row in Ireland Looks like Repentance-lite By George Pitcher The Guardian July 29, 2011 http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2011/jul/29/vatican-child-abuse-row-ireland Bob Diamond, the Barclays chief executive who awards himself and his top colleagues multimillion-pound bonuses even as the banking sector faces its worst crisis in living memory, famously told a parliamentary committee that the "time for remorse and apology" is over. But it's not only bankers – or MPs, come to that – who believe that there is an expiry date on contrition. My own Church of England is full of those on opposite sides of the debates over women and homosexual clergy who have decided that the time for saying sorry is long past and that now the moment has arrived to play hardball, and those they hurt had better get used to it. But the trophy for limited-edition repentance this past week must go to the Roman Catholic church, which withdrew its papal nuncio from Ireland in a huff after the taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said that the Vatican's response to the republic's clerical child sex abuse crisis was characterised by "dysfunction, disconnection and narcissism". Extraordinarily, in talking of "excessive reactions", Rome appears to be casting itself as the victim in this spat. It's as if, along with bankers, MPs and certain newspaper owners, the attitude is: "Look, we've said we're sorry, so now can we please move on?" At the very least, this looks like repentance-lite. It certainly exhibits a lack of humility. Repentance requires contrition. It is a necessary prerequisite for absolution, but it doesn't work the other way round: that's to say, we cannot argue that we have a right to be absolved because we've said we're sorry. It's the difference between what was defined at the Council of Trent in the 16th century as perfect contrition, which is offered out of love of God, and imperfect contrition or attrition, which isn't. The latter may arise from fear of hell – in this instance, the hellish wrath of the Irish people. Pope Benedict's apology to them last year in a pastoral letter appeared to be an act of perfect contrition, as one would expect from this deeply devout man. The same cannot be said of the Vatican machinery over which he presides, which got his church into this abominable mess in the first place precisely through the human failings that the Irish prime minister lists. For the pope's apparatchiks now to express "surprise and disappointment" is right up there with Mr Diamond's arrogance, when a more appropriate response may have been lowered eyes and prayer, and a renewed commitment to win back the trust of Ireland. Instead, Vatican City has withdrawn its ambassador. In doing so, it has acted politically. Faux repentance is nothing new in politics. Google "Blair sorry" and you get 19.4 million results. "Cameron sorry" scores a massive 41.8 million, with child benefit and Andy Coulson heading off towards a vanishing point. Most of this is of the self-referential variety that suggests we've put an end to an issue with our apology. We expect better of our Christian leaders. There is no time limit to repentance. To suggest there is is to steer dangerously close to the subtext that sits unintentionally under Rupert Murdoch's "most humble day" of his life. "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" is not an admonishment from the cross of those who have violated and abused all that is holy, but an impassable example to humanity that we should try to walk a mile in the shoes of those who hate us. It seems that there are some still in the Roman Catholic high command who have to take the first steps down that road to reconciliation over the monstrous child-abuse scandal.
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