The New Pope Needs to Rid US of These Aberrant Priests

The Observer
March 3, 2013

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/mar/03/new-pope-vatican-cardinal-crisis

How the Vatican addresses this crisis will define the Catholic church's role in the modern world

Two venerable national institutions have been engulfed in recent weeks by allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour by senior officers. One of them is trying to reassure victims that it is taking their concerns seriously. The other is the Catholic church in Scotland.

The Observer last week revealed that three priests from the archdiocese of St Andrews and Edinburgh and one ex-priest had made an official complaint to the Vatican stating that they had been subjected to "inappropriate" advances by their boss, Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the most senior Catholic churchman in Britain. Since then, the response of the Scottish Catholic hierarchy has been lamentable. When asked why the cardinal had failed specifically to deny the allegations, the church's spokesman in Scotland claimed that O'Brien did not know what he was being accused of. Yet a few days earlier the Observer had provided him with details of the complaints before we published the story.

Rather than offer help and spiritual guidance to the four men, there has been barely concealed hostility and calls for the men to "out" themselves.

Nor can these incidents be examined in isolation. The frequency with which stories of aberrant sexual behaviour within the Catholic clergy throughout the last 40 years have occurred suggests that the church has a systemic problem.

At its best, the Catholic church contributes greatly to the spiritual, cultural and political life of Britain. As such, its pain is felt by many beyond its spiritual jurisdiction. There are those, on the other hand, who seek nothing other than the removal of every vestige of Christianity from public life. Yet such a view ignores the priceless work that all of the churches carry out within our most excluded and deprived communities.

How the new pope addresses this serious problem will define his church's role in the modern world. If he chooses not to lance the boil, then what authority the church still possesses to influence the turbulent affairs of humanity will simply evaporate.