The state of the Catholic church

Ronald Reagan was one of the greatest of American Presidents. Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Ronald Reagan.

Reagan brought down the Evil Empire of the Soviet Union and its puppet states of the Warsaw Pact countries. Reagan was responsible for an enormous economic boom and was responsible for single-handedly returning hope and optimism to the United States after the misery, depression and humiliation of the Carter Presidency.

Ronald Reagan was a great man, a great leader, and a great president and he is missed by all of us who love the United States and believe it to be what it is: the greatest nation in the history of man.

Incidentally, the only sock puppets around here are those who mindlessly and breathlessly repeat the talking points of, and whose strings are pulled by, the liberal left.

I find myself (oddly enough:) agreeing with the basic thrust of your comments.

That said, I do believe JPII was an "enabler" since he was aware of reports about Maciel but failed to do anything in response. I do recall reading one news item that noted Maciel's appearing on the papal stage with JPII on at least three occasions! As the leader of the largest Christian body in the world, and in light of his prominence in the world media because of, inter alia, his charisma, he was certainly in a position to have someone investigate the allegations.

But nothing happened until Ratzinger became pope. As much as I do not care for B16, I do and will give him credit for having one of his staff look into the Maciel matter and report his findings back to the (then) CDF head. As they say, the rest is history.

I agree with your view that all of us bear some responsibility for this mess. We know that over the decades when children reported being sexually abused by ordained Catholic priests, their allegations were generally ignored by parents and others. Indeed, it apparently was not at all unusual for parents to punish their children for complaining about "Father." We also know, of course, that the bishops often enough ignored reports of sexual abuse, transferred pervert clergy from one assignment to another without reporting allegations to law enforcement (much less informing parishes about alleged abusers), threatened and intimidated victims and their advocates, etc.

I think your suggestion that the "post Conciliar Church" is responsible for this "mess" is inaccurate. What is responsible is a clerical culture that permitted shameful bishops and pervert priests to get way with their lies, deceit, threats, secret settlements, etc. Don't forget that the bishops at Dallas authorized the gathering of data on reported incidents of sexual abuse retroactive to 1950. We must not conclude, however, that everything was rosy before then.

Back to the clerical culture. A culture, according to one expert, remains in place because it works, it's successful. It consists not only of what one sees, hears, and otherwise experiences in the institutional environment. It also consists of the supposed values espoused by the organization. Most important, however, culture consists of the underlying assumptions, the so-called "taken for granteds" that people come to accept over the course of an institution's history. For example, we call the ordained minister "Father" without giving it a second thought. By implication, of course, we are thus "children". We accept unconsciously that "Father knows best." We are encouraged by ecclesiastical authorities to "obey" our "teachers in the faith." In short, we live in culture. As the expert noted, culture is to people what water is to fish.

When we consider culture in this light, one must ask, "If a culture continues because it is successful, how do we define 'success'? Who does the defining?" History tells us that popes and bishops have done the defining. They have determined over centuries what constitutes 'success'. They have "governed." For the laity, it is "pray, pay, obey." (For the religious, it's been the same except they have "paid" with lives of service to the institutional church and its declared mission.) The clerical culture, as I've noted many times before on this and other threads, involves the elevation of the ordained and the subordination of the laity. It is, after all, the pastor who is the "alter Christus" and the laity who are the "sheep." It is the presbyter or bishop who "confects the eucharist" at the altar where, for most of the church's history, laity were not permitted.

Now we get to Vatican II and its call for "renewal," i.e., to restore to an original condition, to make new again. As one church historian has written, nearly 75 percent of 'renewal' language in the documents of the church's 21 general/ecumenical councils will be found in the documents of Vatican II alone! As a prominent theologian noted many years ago, "The meaning of Vatican II was the acknowledgement of history." We also know, however, that various Vatican functionaries, especially Cardinal Ottaviani at the beginning, would work feverishly to frustrate the conciliar fathers' call for renewal. Scared by events in Germany in 1968, Ratzinger would react by retreating from the openness to change characteristic of Vatican II. The more conservative folks would complain either that the council had promoted heresy or, at best, that changes were coming too fast. In fact, change is difficult for most people, and still others (because of their cultural values and their "taken for granteds") simply would not or could not make the adjustments.

Recent revelations of clerical sexual abuse and episcopal coverups are, I suggest, merely the tip of the "historical iceberg" of a dysfunctional ecclesial culture. This sinful and dangerous way of believing, perceiving, and doing will continue if we ignore the lessons of institutional history.

You portray the late AB Lefebvre in a positive light. Keep in mind that this man wanted to preserve the beliefs, practices, values, and trappings of a pre-Vatican II church whose secretive, ugly, and sinful cultural underbelly was finally exposed to the light of day only a few years ago!

The primitive Christian communities were led by non-ordained men whose community leadership was the basis of their liturgical leadership. Indeed, their leadership was acknowledged in some way (election or some other means) by the members of the local community. Every Christian man and woman was a true "priest" by virtue of his or her baptism. If people back then were like us today, their human situations were not likely pristine, but they managed.

I think it would be a scandal for the Church of Rome to canonize JPII. By his knowing but doing nothing in response to extensive reports of clerical sexual abuse, he only exacerbated the "real mess" confronting us today. He must face his God someday as each of must do. Formal sainthood? For me, out of the question!!!

Mr. Warren,

There is a movement afoot to canonize JPII, i.e., to make him an exemplar of Christian life. Fact is, as I noted earlier, this pope refused to intervene in the Maciel matter. JPII even went so far as to allow Maciel to appear on the papal stage several times. JPII refused to do anything about the numerous incoming reports about his friend/pervert priest.

I find quite puzzling your view that canonization "has nothing to do with anything regarded as human." With all due respect, Mr. Warren, this statement makes no sense. Indeed, the "saint-makers" in Rome, so far as I know anyway, supposedly go to great lengths to investigate and scrutinize a nominee's life. The miracles in this process are the proverbial "tip of the iceberg."

If you disagree with my assertion that the institutional church is dysfunctional, I can't help you any further. One of my interests is organizational behavior; my graduate degree includes coursework in this field.

I can only suggest that anybody who cannot see the ecclesial dysfunction in the Church of Rome is in denial.

And denial is a key ingredient of dysfunction --- whether in the family, the office, the parish, the local church, or the Church of Rome.

It really is a slander to speak of a homosexual culture in the priesthood prior to John XIII. Obviously, there always have been homosexuals in the priesthood just as there have always been homosexuals in the married state. But the kind of homosexual culture that came about after the Vatican Council II was something different.

It parallels something which existed about 1000 years ago at the time of St Peter Damian who fought this vice in the priesthood. From the homosexual culture after Vatican II, perhaps related to the problems Paul VI had with this with issue, came the abuse crisis. The failure of JPII to see what was going on and to begin an immediate reform of the priesthood shows that he should in no way be a candidate for canonization.

I completely agree with you.
I'm not an expert about sociology of catholic church, but there are some studies in France by scholars with the same diagnosis.

There are more and more lay people with good knowledge of faith, or even academic degree in religion, who can't have any room in the church. Even when there is a lack of priests, because of the clerical behavior of the major part of priests and bishops. There is now a large gap between the behavior of priests and bishops, and the expectations of the great majority of lay people who are the Church of Christ.
But we have however an exception in France with the experience of Mgr Albert ROUET, Archbishop of Poitiers (France) for 15 years, who is building small communities. Lay people are responsible of the organisation of the church locally. Priests have a ministry of communion between the different comunities.
He recently wrote a book about this experiment and where he develops his views about a better organization of the Church for our time : "J'aimerais vous dire " interview of Mgr Albert Rouet by Dennis Gira, Ed. Bayard 2009 (345 pages)and an article in "La vie spirituelle" Nov 2009,N°785, t.163, p543-556, entitled "Parler aujourd'hui des prêtres".

JYC

PS Please excuse my poor and faulty english ...

Dear Tom,   your first two sentences are not an accurate response to what I actually said.     They certainly do not reflect my own thoughts either.     Those who idolize JP2 as some sort of 'perfect pope' seem to have a knee-jerk reaction to anyone who disagrees with them in light of the historical record of his life.     BTW — Your sarcastic sexist wording was unnecessary.

As for a divided Church...   there is nothing in my statement meriting further defense.     The situation is what it is.     Even the responses to Father McBrien's article certainly give some immediate evidence of that fact...   including your own.

Perhaps not just because the learned Aileen says it is, but you might also consult the "Sociologists of religion James Davidson and the late Dean Hoge" cited above by Joe Jag.