By Brian D'Arcy
Sunday World
August 22, 2011
http://www.sundayworld.com/columnists/father-brian.php?aid=8457
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| Why the Church must humbly atone for sins |
Clerics must become less arrogant to rebuild trust
A FEW DAYS ago I was stopped in a County Meath town by a well-dressed woman who approached me with a smile.
She called me aside into the doorway of a shop. The smile disappeared and she wagged a serious finger at me.
"Fr Brian, has someone got to you?" she began. Before I could answer, she went on: "I have always respected your honesty; most of us Catholics, hanging on by the skin of our teeth, are relying on you to tell the truth.
"I have watched you on television and read what you write and listened to you on the radio. You have kept me going. You are the reason I still go to Mass.
"But I think that in the past few months something has changed in you. I don't know what it is. Maybe you are disillusioned like the rest of us. For God's sake hang in there!
"Don't let them get to you. Keep telling the truth."
I never got a word in. She shook my hand, smiled again and walked on.
I always try to be honest and I hope I still am. I have no intention of leaving the priesthood, but I am finding it difficult. I don't know who to trust in the leadership of the Catholic Church.
Here's how I see it. For over two decades now the only story we have been hearing is about abusive priests. There are glimpses of good news, such as World Youth Day in Madrid this week, which is a genuinely wonderful story of faith and hope.
The problem is the main news stories about our Church are bad news stories - and rightly so.
As bad as the abusive priests were, people find it more difficult to understand negligent Diocesan officials all over the world, who put the protection of their institution ahead of the protection of innocent children.
Criminality
Furthermore, revelations about Church criminality and sin have not come voluntarily from the Church itself. By and large, it has come from the brave survivors and diligent journalists doing what they are supposed to do.
We also have proof from independent reports, exposing the "less than satisfactory" reaction of Church officials to the most horrible c rime and sin imaginable - the abuse of little children.
We have heard Church officials reacting in shock to revelations that we now know they were aware of for decades. That, more than
anything, has destroyed the creditability of Church leadership.
It is the Church leaders themselves who have fractured trust. It's not fair to blame survivors, journalists and others who speak the truth.
The blame for the sorry state of our Church today lies directly at the hands of the leadership, as well as the obviously too docile clerical foot soldiers, who by their silence are part of the problem.
Worldwide, Enda Kenny's accusations against the Vatican have been welcomed as both timely, accurate and appropriate. Once again, whatever the truth of the matter is, the Vatican State's reaction has been seen as petty and lacking in humility.
The morale of both the laity and the clergy has been undermined. The moral authority of the Church has been tainted by cover-ups.
There is a sneaking feeling that the clerical Church is still trying to hide something. Efforts to get at the truth are frustrated; statements
of repentance are grudging; every layer of truth exposed points unerringly to a system that has shielded abusers.
To be fair, there is some good news. The hierarchy in Germany has made one prophetic step to reverse the trend. In July, they voted unanimously to grant independent investigators full access to their files on sexual abuse by clergy going back to 1945.
Unquestionably, the findings will be shocking, both in the extent of the abuse and the systemic failures in handing the allegations.
So deep-rooted is the lack of trust in Church leadership that even this offer is questioned. Investigators wonder if they will really see the unaltered files.
To date, the abuse crisis has hit north America and western Europe most severely. Fewer allegations have come from Central and South America, India, Asia and Africa.
There are huge Catholic populations in these areas, all controlled by the Roman hierarchical model. It would be very foolish to presume that there were no abusers in those cultures.
My fear is that we face more decades of worldwide revelations as the crisis deepens.
Repent
The German bishops have admitted that they cannot reform and repent on their own. They have asked for help honestly and humbly.
They recognise that once trust has been broken, it's impossible to put it together again. The chasm between the clerical Church and the believing laity is now immense. The laity knows that they acted properly in the essential matters of morality.
We clerics have to learn to be less arrogant, less dictatorial, more humble, more open and more willing to learn. Our only hope is that the seeds of genuine humility have been sown in many dioceses and Religious congregations.
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