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PDF versionIreland confronts its sex abuse crisis
'Massive agitation ... a seething anger among traditional, ordinary Catholics'
Dec. 30, 2009
Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, Ireland and Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, address the media just outside St. Peter's Square in Rome Dec. 11. (CNS/Paul Haring)
Analysis
The recent government investigation into clergy sex abuse in Ireland, which produced a scathing critique of church officials and their role in attempting to protect the reputation of the institution at the expense of young victims, has resulted in the resignation of four bishops and sparked calls for cutting the number of dioceses in Ireland and for deep reform of the hierarchical culture.
The report of the government commission, headed by Judge Yvonne Murphy, severely criticized the church for being preoccupied with “the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal and the preservation of its assets.
“All other considerations,” said the report, “including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the state.”
The Murphy Report, which covers the period from 1975 through 2004 in the Dublin archdiocese, is the latest of at least three government investigations that together paint a sordid picture of widespread clerical sex abuse in Catholic institutions throughout Ireland.
While the accounts of abuse and cover-up by the hierarchy are similar in many ways to the scandal that has plagued the church in the United States since the mid-1980s, the situation in Ireland is different in several key respects:
- Four Irish bishops have already resigned or have submitted their resignation letters to the pope as a result of the scandal: Dublin Auxiliary Bishops Eamonn Walsh and Raymond Field, and Bishops Donal Murray of Limerick and James Moriarty of Kildare and Leighlin. They were all named in the Murphy Report. A fifth bishop named in the report, Martin Drennan of Galway, has refused to resign, but according to press reports faces increasing pressure to step down. By contrast, in the United States, no bishops have resigned because of their role in covering up abuse or shuffling priests from parish to parish. Cardinal Bernard Law was forced out of the Boston archdiocese, but he was reassigned to Rome, where he continues to hold positions on some of the most powerful Vatican agencies, including the congregation responsible for appointing bishops.
- All of the investigations in Ireland, unlike those in the United States, have been conducted by independent, national government agencies. Ireland’s latest, the Murphy Report, was a judicial proceeding done under legislation that provided investigators with full judicial power, including the power to subpoena documents. In the United States, only in a few instances — Boston, Philadelphia, Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Bridgeport, Conn., among them — did investigations go deeper than the data self-reported by church authorities. In those cases, the revelations came about only after pressure by media, local grand jury investigations or protracted legal battles.
- Archbishop Diarmuid Martin of Dublin, unlike members of the U.S. hierarchy, cooperated with the investigation and handed over thousands of pages of documentation. In an April sermon, he described how the church would be humbled by the revelations. In an interview before the report was published, he spoke of reading the files over a weekend and becoming so disgusted with the contents that he threw them to the floor.
- Ireland, unlike the United States, is a predominantly Catholic country, so the hierarchy is unable to blame the scandal, as is the case with a number of U.S. bishops, on anti-Catholic media or an anti-Catholic culture.
- In the case of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI has acted immediately. Following a Dec. 11 meeting with the country’s Catholic leadership, Benedict expressed the “outrage, betrayal and shame” he shared with Irish Catholics over the scandal. He has promised a pastoral letter on the crisis early in 2010. In contrast, the late Pope John Paul II largely ignored the crisis for most of his tenure and even celebrated the late Fr. Marciel Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who had been repeatedly accused by former members of the order for abusing young seminarians.
Perhaps in a sign of how thoroughly the persistent scandal has worn away the normal rationales advanced to explain the crisis, Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, former master general of the worldwide Dominican order and a highly regarded religious leader in the British Isles, recently told a two-day gathering of Dublin priests: “I’m convinced this whole sexual abuse crisis is deeply linked with power and the way power operates in the church at all levels, from the Vatican to the parish sacristan. Often, it is not the power of Jesus who is gentle and humble of heart.”
NCR: February 3-16, 2012
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According to a report of his talk in The Irish Catholic, a national, independent newspaper, Radcliffe said the church “has been infected by the same culture of control” as that found in the wider society. The scandal, he said, was “much more than a crisis about sexual abuse; it is a crisis of a clerical culture,” one that elevates clergy to “our high towers” and involves an “understanding of priesthood so often in terms of power.”
“Most priests are holy, humble, unpretentious people, but this is often in the face of a clerical culture, fighting against a clerical culture which values high titles and positions — Your Eminence, all these ridiculous distinctions, right reverend, very reverend … this crisis may be the beginning of a profound renewal of the church.”
Some, like Dominican Fr. Thomas Doyle, one of the few U.S. priests to be critical of the church’s handling of the crisis since it first surfaced in the early to mid-1980s, thinks the Irish version of the scandal will not change much in the structure that he considers at the heart of the issue. While he generally admires Martin as being “more forthright than I’ve ever seen in any other bishop,” he was highly critical of an initial reaction from the archbishop when he said that he had written to bishops implicated in the scandal, asking them to use their consciences in deciding whether they should resign. “That’s gibberish,” said Doyle, a canon lawyer who has aided lawyers for plaintiffs in hundreds of cases in the United States. “They had no conscience or they wouldn’t be where they are. The Vatican should mandate that anyone involved in a cover-up should be forced to resign.”
Regarding implications of the crisis, Doyle said, “What will happen is what’s been happening: dissolution, corrosion of the ecclesiastical kingdom. People will continue to walk away from the institutional church; there will be a continual rise in anticlericalism of the Irish people.
“What it shows is that in spite of the stranglehold the church had over the government, it didn’t save them from these awful revelations. What was severely lacking in the church was Christianity. Something was radically missing. The church concentrated on myth and rituals and forgot the essentials,” Doyle said.
Author Jason Berry, whose reporting in the mid-1980s broke the story nationally in the United States and who has been covering aspects of the scandal ever since, said: “The core problem is that Vatican justice, such as it is, has an inherent double standard. Bishops and high church officials are not held to the same standards as ordinary priests.”
When the U.S. bishops were forced by revelations in 2002 to come up with guidelines for handling abusive priests, he said, “the system was unable to include bishops under the rubric of investigation by a lay review board. The Vatican insisted that bishops not be included in the same level of scrutiny.”
Ultimately, he said, what happens will depend somewhat on how much attention the Irish press can train on the Vatican. He said that Benedict “incrementally has done vastly more than John Paul and is yet constrained by many of the internal restraints of the [hierarchical] culture.”
The Irish Catholic has been reporting on the scandal since the early 1990s and the most recent revelations have caused a deep revulsion among ordinary Catholics, said Michael Kelly, deputy editor. In a recent telephone interview he told NCR that there is now “massive agitation … a seething anger among traditional, ordinary Catholics.” He said that a priest who made a pilgrimage from the south of Ireland to Dublin reported that the people who were most annoyed were not those “agitating for women priests and other reforms” but ordinary Catholics “coming out to pray the rosary with him. They are at their wits’ end, they’ve had enough.” After “20 years of mismanagement, they are looking for some kind of meaningful reform.”
The disturbance over the scandal cuts across the normal conservative-liberal divides, said Kelly. Some very traditional theologians in Ireland are calling on bishops to resign, he said. “That points to how deep this crisis is.”
“A lot of the anger is obviously directed at the abuse, but coming from different sources. It’s coming from the woman with eight children already who’s told she can’t use contraception. Or the young gay man who sees a rot at the heart of the very church telling him there’s no place for him.”
Kelly said the church is fortunate that Martin, a veteran Vatican diplomat, was sent back to Ireland as archbishop in 2004. “More than any other bishop, he has the credibility to reform. He is enormously popular,” said Kelly. “This is five to midnight in the church of Ireland. If it weren’t for Diarmuid Martin, it would be midnight.”
Martin can be effective, said Kelly, because “he has no fingerprints on this crisis. He has the credibility to lead some kind of reform.”
When Martin and Cardinal Sean Brady met with the pope, they kept emphasizing, “It is the grandmothers of Ireland … the devoted and faithful Catholics who are upset.”
One of the reforms being advanced in some quarters, said Kelly, is a reduction in the number of Ireland's dioceses, some of them with very small populations,from 26 to at least half that number.
If substantial reform occurs in the church, said Kelly, it will be in part due to the fact that the crisis is felt more acutely in Ireland than elsewhere because of the importance the church has held in the wider culture. “There is a massive symbiosis between Irish Catholicism and Irish nationalism. To be Irish is to be Catholic,” he said. Because the church wielded such influence and power in Irish society, its institutions are part of the national fabric, so politicians “have no appetite to remove church from those institutions. In that regard, the church is very lucky. Politicians have not been very opportunistic about the sins of the Catholic church,” said Kelly.
Yet how those sins are dealt with in society, who is held accountable and the consequences of that accountability could have implications far beyond Ireland. If Irish bishops are expected to resign because of their roles in covering up decades of abuse against children it remains an open question whether the same will be expected of bishops in other countries. What is clear is that Ireland, in investigating the crimes committed by clergy, publishing the results and demanding the resignations of at least four bishops, has set a new standard for transparency and accountability.
[Tom Roberts is NCR editor at large. His e-mail address is troberts@ncronline.org.]
it is just outrageous and
it is just outrageous and deeply sad...
and these men want to investigate religious communities in the US because??????????????????
mmmmmmmmm makes one wonder if Jesus still weeps over Jerusalem/Rome
Sexual scandals are not rare,
Sexual scandals are not rare, but more even among Pentacostals and Evangelical movements. Married pastors and preachers getting involved in scandals. The Church hierarchy can in many ways control the abuses done by authorities. But in this case (Ireland) things have gone the other way. The reason can be "culture of control" through apetite that is deeply engraved in Catholic church communities and religious orders.
Crises are not to be feared. It is through repeated crises that God drew closer to his people. Israel’s worst crisis was the destruction of the Temple and the monarchy, and exile to Babylon … Israel lost everything that gave her identity: her worship, her nationhood. Then she discovered God closer to her than ever before. God was present in the law, in their mouths and hearts, wherever they were, however far from Jerusalem. They lost God only to receive him more closely than they could have imagined.
priests are consumed by a destructive activism in our service of the people. Thomas Merton believed that this hyperactivism was a collusion with the violence of our society: “The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence.” Priests are running after power and position in the Church. Some are left behind in the race and they carry seeds of these violence perpetuated on them by their superiors.
We must remember that
We must remember that Cardinal Rode is a Bishop---and as power mad as they all are. Of course investigate the women religious and deflect any possible blame on them for their scandals. These men are just too stupid for words and B 16 is among them.
I do believe as many do that
I do believe as many do that the clerical culture of the Catholic priesthood to some extent is responsible for this crisis in Ireland and elsewhere. But with that said, we have had no context for sex abuse in other Christian denominations because their form of governance and the ability of churches to call their own pastors and fire them does not leave much evidence of such abuse. There is no paper trail or a concentrated area of ministry such as in a diocese or religious order.
In terms of titles offered to priests, I think this is a smoke screen. The greatest problem we have had in the past 40 years is not that priests are on pedestals, they've long sense been knocked off of these, but rather the "cult of the personality" of the particular priest is highlighted in the reformed Mass, facing the people and in his ministry. Many priests are satisfied now just to be one of the laity, to be called by their first name, to dress like them and to have sex like them. If you are inclined to a teenager or small child, then so be it. If you are inclined to an adult, male or female so be it. It is the loss of a priestly identity and the promises and vows made combined with a certain clericalism that has created this massive problem. There are no repercussions for this lost identity and the behavior it creates. This is the true clericalism, the loss of the majesty and unique identity that should characterize the Roman Catholic priest and yes, the lack of accountability, but that is certainly part of the loss of identity.
In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the role of the priest is exalted, in terms of Who it is he represents and what it is that is celebrated at the altar, but the priest himself is not exalted. It could be anyone when the priest joins the congregation in facing the same direction. Even when the pope recently celebrated the Ordinary Form of the Mass ad orientem, if one did not know it was the Holy Father, he would have appeared as any priest facing in that direction.
The Ordinary Form of the Mass has blurred the distinctive characteristics of the priest celebrating Mass thus diminishing his unique role, while at the same time elevating his personality and ability to celebrate. A good Mass is now seen in terms of how well the priest celebrates, how engaging he is, how well he preaches, if he smiles, has good communication skills and is prepared. In the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, simply doing what the rubrics require is all that is necessary. That would be considered a well-celebrated Mass and it doesn't hinge on the characteristics of the priest but on what the Church asks him to do. There is no clericalism there!
I realize that abuse occurred in the Pre-Vatican II Church, but certainly statistics show that it was greatly exacerbated by the changes in the Church and culture especially around the mid 1970's. This was time frame of the period of greatest disobedience in the Church and an outright loss of Catholic identity and priestly identity. So let's call it as it is: clericalism combined with a loss of Catholic and priestly identity exacerbated by the exalted personality of priests and their ability to do as they please without repercussion. A complicating factor amongst many Irish is to ignore the elephant in the room and not disparage someone who is ordained no matter how decadent he may be. Yes this is clericalism too.
So much rationalizing from
So much rationalizing from Allan J. McDonald. It is unreal. I have never heard such self-serving nonsense. His arguments harken back to those of some cardinals who blamed it all on the U.S. first, then on the homosexuals and lest we forget, that old saw-horse, that it was "greatly exacerbated by the changes in the Church and culture especially around the mid 1970's." Excuses, excuses, excuses! Please! These are criminal acts and mortal sins for the love of God; first by the sexual predators who used their positions and authority as priests to groom and abuse thousands and secondly by the bishops who were and continue to be complicit in these crimes and mortal sins. Like the Augean stables of Greek mythology the church needs to be cleaned out. Minimizing the bishops' part in all this by saying the RCC is no worse then other denominations serves no purpose.
Father McDonald: PLEASE....
Father McDonald:
PLEASE.... The best thing that ever happened in our Church during my life time
is Vatican II. Let's put the blame where it belongs... To quote Fr. Timothy Radcliffe O.P. "The scandal was much more than a crisis about sexual abuse;
it is a crisis of a "clerical culture", one that elevates clergy to "our high towers" and involves an "understanding of priesthood so often in terms of
power."... I have been a member of a religious order for nearly sixty-five years. Twenty-years Pre Vatican and these past forty-five years Post Vatican
II. Our hierarchy has lost its credibility. Rome works out of a "divine right monarchy" model. I can no longer buy that.
Dorothy Sagona
I agree with Dorothy Sagona.
I agree with Dorothy Sagona.
McDonald is really off the mark here but he is not unlike many priests I have talked to who still manage to find other scapegoats like Vatican II, the culture, and homosexuals instead of putting the blame for this debacle where it belongs -- squarely on the bishops who put thousands of children in harm's way by their actions in enabling sexual abuse by transferring known or credibly accused sexual predators from parish to parish to parish.
Just for starters, I suggust McDonald read:
Vows of Silence by Jason Berry and Gerald Renner
God vs. The Gavel by Marci A. Hamilton
Celibacy in Crisis, A Secret World Revisited, by A.W. Richard Sipe
The Power and the Glory by David Yallop
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Victims' Advocate
New Castle, Delaware
maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com
Sorry, Father, but I don’t
Sorry, Father, but I don’t buy your line. When will you guys get tired of blaming the post-V2 mass for all of the problems of the church?
Most of the men (and some women) who perpetrated these shameful acts were formed at a time and in a place in which the “priestly identity” that you regret not seeing was one of Father Knows Best, Latin masses, i.e., backs to the people and sotto voce presiding, unquestioning obedience by the pew potatoes, etc. It was a church for the few paid for by the many who had little to no say and anything, including who became a priest.
The idea that one can blame it all on the loss of this culture is specious. A pedophile is a pedophile, no matter what culture, ethnicity or sexual orientation from which (s)he comes.
If you really think that returning to the bad old days/daze will solve all the problems, guess again.
What will help solve the problems is increased screening of candidates for ordination to ensure that they are men of maturity, intelligence and with a sense of a vocation of service. The laity have to have a lot more to say about who becomes a priest, who stays a priest and who is suitable for the episcopate in the future. The idea that the clerical structure Knows Best about how to perpetuate itself is due for a sure and swift death.
Until and unless this happens, you will see an increased abandonment of the church by the increasingly disgusted and a decrease in the need for priests. A word to the wise should be sufficient.
To Jim McCrea and others, I
To Jim McCrea and others, I am not blaming Vatican II. What do people not understand about the "cult of the personality," illicit behavior with no repercussions (this refers to bishops who shuffled abusers about, with or without psychological counseling)and clericalism that sees abusers and enabling bishops above the law, not only civil law, but canon law. If the latter had been followed, the scope of the crisis of bishops enabling pathological and harmful abusive behavior could have been curtailed.
Clericalism as I understand it is the exaltation of the person of the priest as above criticism, evaluation, censure and/or termination. He sees himself as the center of attention. It is up to the bishop to put into place evaluation tools, just as they do for others who work for the church either in the chancery or our schools, i.e. teachers. When a priest commits a crime, the punishment should fit the crime, either a canonical crime or a civil crime. There should also be repercussions if a priest abuses the liturgy, his office or anyone under his care, depending of course on the nature of the abuse. How many priests think they can do whatever they want with the liturgy and then have no one to answer to for it? And what do bishops do about egregious abuses in the liturgy. Abuse is a part of a whole cloth and certainly abuse of children, teenagers and adults is the most serious.
But when you put the priest at the center of attention at Mass, His chair dead center and his abilities paramount in the celebration of the Liturgy, then that is going to feed an ego and exacerbate any underlying imaturities or worse, pathologies. You can have all the best screening tools in the world, and a defective personality can still sneak in or a healthy person can develop mental illnesses. You can still have the post Vatican II Mass in the vernacular but with the priest's personality in the background through the simple reorientation of his body--ad orientem. This will go a long way in helping young and old priests know they aren't the star of the show!
Sorry Father you are
Sorry Father you are misguiding others in you apologetical attempt to point blame toward the era of Vatican II and away from the full culpability of a clerical culture of all-males.
The loss of priestly identity and legitimacy is caused by exposure of facts in the media and courtrooms on what Priests have been allowed to get away with and the harm done to children and vulnerable adults over many decades and likely centuries.
The church has repeatedly demonstrated what its policies were pre V2. Those policies didn't some how miraculously change at the time wrongdoing was exposed. They were the same pre v2 and ex post facto regarding priest perpetrators. The only difference is that Vatican II opened the window on the smelly mess.
V2 did not exacerbate wrongdoing, men in Roman collars and vestments did. They did so and continued to do so because they knew they were a highly protected class. If the all-male priesthood refuses to get the importance of personal and corporate responsibility and liability then perhaps the possibility of future harm around the corner is likely.
It does not matter which way the priest turns, ordinary human or extraordinary robot, someone is still pulling the string and that someone has always and everywhere been and still is a cleric.
Allan, your "take" on this
Allan, your "take" on this subject is so woefully off target. With all due respect, your interpretation here reflects deep-seated values and assumptions that contributed to the very mess in which the Church of Rome finds itself. I turn 62 in two months and well remember the pre-Vatican II modus operandi. It's been said that values can be difficult enough to change, but underlying assumptions can be even tougher to recognize and change.
For starters, I recommend Edgar Schein's THE CORPORATE CULTURE SURVIVAL GUIDE and George Wilson's CLERICALISM: THE DEATH OF PRIESTHOOD. Schein is a respected social/organizational psychologist, and Wilson applies organizational development knowledge and skills in ecclesial settings. You may wish to check a local public or college/university library for these titles.
Just as Abortion and the
Just as Abortion and the practice of Homosexuality are considered contrary to the production of life, so should Celibacy. Those who have constained themselves from engaging in natural impulses of sexuality [as natural as eating and drinking] are Psychologically Conflicted. That Conflict was and is is conducive to seeking perverse pleasure. Hence the Pederasty for Priests. Of course the radical teaching of the desirability of virginity that appeared in Augustian theology are hipocritical and absurd as they came from an individual who kept a a mistress and may well have been bi-sexual.
Protestant priests who are married are frequently wonderful role models for their community and can relate as they bear the responsibility of chid rearing and the financial costs of life. This permits them to relate to the community. Catholic priests, conflicted as they are, closet them selves from society and entertain themselves with bottles of scotch to deaden their psychological pain and avoid the community.
Yeah for Ireland! Yeah for
Yeah for Ireland! Yeah for the Irish people! Yeah for the Irish sense of justice! Yeah for the Irish search for Truth!
An excellent analysis by Tom
An excellent analysis by Tom Roberts. And when we hear Timothy Radcliffe bemoaning the abuse of clerical and hierarchical power, we should listen to this wise Dominican, a man of deep spirituality and profound understanding of the modern Church.
Control....control....and more control....the humble Jesus weeps.
Paul Wilkes
I agree that the analysis by
I agree that the analysis by Tom Roberts is excellent. And I suggest that readers who want to know more about the Irish scandal will find in my new book an account of how the outsourcing of the predator Irish priests to America helped cripple the Catholic church in this country, which earlier Irish priests had built. The title: "An Irish Tragedy," available at Amazon.com.--Joe Rigert
It would appear that the
It would appear that the people and the prosecutors in Ireland have the fortitude to work for the common good and force changes in the church. Not so in the U.S. Politicians here have been afraid of criticism from bishops and losing the catholic vote and will not force any change. At the same time, the U.S. is not a 'Catholic' country like Ireland, so the people will not force change either.
As a cradle Catholic and one who loved the church, I am thoroughly disgusted that the people who enabled the abuse in the U.S. are still in charge of the institution. They do not even have the basic human decency to resign. They should have been prosecuted for conspiracy in the abuse cases. In some instances it involved transfer of the offenders between states, making it a federal violation and the prosecutions could have been on the federal level.
For example, Cardinal Law should have never been allowed to leave the country. His passport should have been revolked and he should have been indicted.
While I heartily agree with
While I heartily agree with all of the criticisms of the buracracy of the Catholic church, the shared guilt of the bishops and cardinals (even those who only erred by remaining silent, if they were in no other way culpable), I do not agree that the hierarchy in this country or any other are solely responsible for the evil perpetrated by people of orders, whatever their level. The expression "the church" is supposed to be comprised of all the baptized people of God. While many have left the pews, and unfortunately spoken their disagreement in silence, there are many others who continue to sit there with their mouths shut and their wallets open, and as in any political situation, you only get the representation that you demand, not just what you hope for. There are numerous lay movements that have been outspoken about the lack of transparency and the monstrous guilt resulting from clericalism, but by and large they are dying for lack of membership and funding, and did not have the initial numbers to gain momentum to start with, even when the most hurtful news of abuse first surfaced. The combination of avoidance of information, lack of knowledge, lack of interest, abundance of denial, and the myriad other shortcomings of the Catholic laity, make it a foregone conclusion that the hierarchy will hold on to their power. How many people use the word "father" to address a priest. I do not. I have had two fathers so far in my life; one gave me my soul, and the other gave me my body. I do not address anybody as reverend, very reverend, your lordship, holy father, your eminence, and I refrain totally from using expressions like magisterium, etc. No one is my Lord or King except Jesus. You don't have to know canon law to make those distinctions. Granted, we are taught to observe all of those symbold and amenities from an early age, particularly if we went to parochial school, or had parents who were deeply ingrained in such habits. But, you can shake it. I am only 78, and I have managed after being a cradle Catholic and educated in Catholic schools, to cough it up and spit it out, and yet, I still attend Mass and receive the Eucharist. So, if you want a better church, bring more lawsuits against Bishops, stop contributing to general collections at Masses, join organizations that are striving for inclusion of the laity, for transparency, for responsibility and participation. God may save us individually, but the institutional Catholic church won't. It can't even save itself.
Ego and power and hypocracy
Ego and power and hypocracy ... those are what drove the bishops in Ireland and surely in the United States to try and "protect" the Church without regard to "protecting" potential victims. Fundamental changes are needed in the organizational structure of the Church, as well as the attitudes of "superiority" of many of the clerics/bishops/cardinals. Sadly, I don't think I will see those changes in my lifetime (I'm 66). I had high hopes for increased inclusion of non-clerical people in decision making in our Church with Vatican II. However, the same power hungry attitudes that were part of the leadership void which enabled the sex scandals in Ireland and the U.S. also stifled any structural changes that were intended to come out of Vatican II.
The predator priests are a whole other matter. I personally think that having preditory compulsions is a sickness and may even mitigate the immorality of the acts. They still should go to jail because it is a crime, but maybe the morality of their actions can partly be excused because of the illness or addiction that drives predators.
Thanks go to Tom Roberts
Thanks go to Tom Roberts whose article above is so right on target and is summed up in his last line --
"What is clear is that Ireland, in investigating the crimes committed by clergy, publishing the results and demanding the resignations of at least four bishops, has set a new standard for transparency and accountability."
Transparency and accountability were promised in the United States in 2002 but the sad fact is that there has been precious little of it from that time and why would anyone be inclined to put full faith in any investigating committees that are set up, paid for and answer to those who caused the problems in the first place, the same individuals who could and did fire those whose conclusions they disagreed with.
Only in those independent investigations in grand jury reports and the like in "Boston, Philadelphia, Rockville Centre, N.Y., and Bridgeport, Conn.," do we really get the unvarnished truth.
No longer can cardinals in Rome say this is an American problem, a Canadian problem or a homosexual problem.
It is what is is; an abuse of power and authority in the most egregious of ways layered on top of the most horrific crimes and mortal sins of sexual predators who used their positions as priests and bishops within a religious denomination for the purpose of sexual exploitation -- of individual children, young people, vulnerable adults and women religious, particularly in mission countries.
The abuse of power and authority goes much deeper then the actions of individual predators. The conspiracy of the bishops, especially here in the United States, has shown us that the problems are systemic and endemic to the very structures of the institution we know as the Roman Catholic Church and this is what needs to be publicly recognized by Pope Benedict XVI and discussed with the People of God. The structures have been corrupted. They need to be taken apart, examined, and reformed, renewed and replaced as necessary. This will not happen by using the top down hierarchial model. A new paradigm is needed.
Sister Maureen Paul Turlish
Victims' Advocate
New Castle, Delaware
maureenpaulturlish@yahoo.com
The Barque of Peter needs a
The Barque of Peter needs a major overhaul from top to bottom.
Nothing less will do.
But will the average Catholic pew potato be willing to roll up his or her sleeves to do the hard and dirty work needed to rebuild an old vessel no longer seaworthy? I'm not optimistic: they're not called "pew potatoes" for nothing!
I'm not optimistic either.
I'm not optimistic either. There are just too many lay Catholics who are just plain superstitious when it comes to Religion. They forget that God gave them a brain and free will. They must earn heaven---no priest or Bishop can get anyone to heaven. The "pew potatoes" will do nothing. It is very unfortunate.
Thank you, thank you, thank
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Finally something that really has the root at hand.
Frank McCourt in his trilogy
Frank McCourt in his trilogy about his "miserable Irish Catholic childhood" was proclaiming his lament for those with ears to hear. Sadly, his prophetic cry went unheeded. Verbum sat sap.
What is clear is that
What is clear is that Ireland, in investigating the crimes committed by clergy, publishing the results and demanding the resignations of at least four bishops, has set a new standard for transparency and accountability.
But let us be clear: This "new standard" is still far short of what is expected of civilized governance.
All of these Bishops, including the ones being praised above, covered and kept their secrets until they could no longer do so.
The recent two reports made things transparent...not the volition of the bishops of Ireland.
The recent reports and the laity's reaction to them provided the impetus for this surge of accountability...not the volition of the bishops of Ireland.
Yes, the reaction to the coming of the clergy sex abuse crisis to Ireland has been different than in the US, but as the author points out, the cultural milieu is fundamentally different. One might also chalk it up to "lessons learned." The recalcitrance of the US bishops has obviously (to the outside observer at least) prolonged the crisis in America.
In any case, it is still early days in Ireland's crisis. Yes, several bishops have fallen on their croziers. Yes, there has been actual, overt, criticism of some bishops by others (unheard of in the US). However, there have yet to be signs of a cultural shift, of any ecclesial authority being forthcoming with the Truth of the matter simply because it is the right thing to do. No outreach to survivors and to victims has occurred in the absence of scandalous revelations by agencies outside of the Church.
The actual degree of contrition, of resolution to "go forth and sin no more" will be proven not in a few months or a few weeks, but over a period of decades.
These faint glimmers of transparency and accountability must be accmpanied by immediate and radical change, made in consultation not with fellow priests and brother bishops, but including the laity, governmental entities with vested interests, and qualified experts.
An excellent first step would be for the Church to fully divest itself of pseudo-governmental roles; for Ireland to once and for all to adopt, with the support of the Church, full separation of Church and State.
Thanks Tom for this report.
Thanks Tom for this report. This is some of the best news about the RCC I have read in some time. It is only when the average Catholic says, "enough of the lies," that the church will start to reform. The hero's welcome Bernard Law received at the Vatican after he fled Boston showed that John Paul the Great Enabler and other Vatican bigwigs did not get it. Benedict XVI has moved in the right direction, but as long as he is surrounded by Cardinals in twenty foot capes, there will be little meaningful reform.
If only the church had heeded the prophetic words of Fr. Tom Doyle decades ago, Catholics would not have to hold their heads in shame when this subject is raised.
God Bless the survivors, Fr. Doyle and all those who work for healing.
Steve
I dont trust Ratzinger one
I dont trust Ratzinger one iota. His record precedes him. I would watch carefuly that he has not moved in the right direction for the wrong reason. If so, TS Eliot would call it treason.
Unfortunately for my
Unfortunately for my enjoyment of Tom Roberts' various "Emerging Church" articles, his report - presumably based on phone or email exchanges from his US base - on Irish - Dublin mainly - Episcopal cover-up of child abuse by priest perverts has reduced greatly his credibility for this Dublin resident commentator on Irish economic, political and religion since the 1950s.
Much could be said in rebuttal. Two points may help.
One: As elsewhere only a tiny percentage of priests were perverts during the decades covered, and virtually none are now. There is no need to worry as if all Irish priests and Bishops were negligent. Catholic freefall has, as elsewhere, is due to many factors of which cover-up by of child abuse by priest perverts is but one, and far from the most significant one, even if it provides an easy weapon of ex-Catholics in our Irish media to use to settle old scores with priests at the expense of our Church.
Two: Episcopal cover-up here as elsewhere has been due largely to a change from draconian defrocking of pervert priests to attempts to rehabilitate them. That change has been costly (in human and money terms), misguided and mismanaged, and has been abandoned.
I am confident that due to the law of unintended (by humans) consequences this debacle will yield quite a harvest for God, and quite soon.
A few years back Thomas
A few years back Thomas Cahill wrote a book about Irish monks, priests, and scribes who in essence helped keep the Catholic Church alive and preserve civilization during the dark ages. Perhaps we are at a similar junction. With the Irish Catholic Church in such agony, perhaps with its reform, its penance, and eventual reconciliation with the people, it will emerge as a stronger, healthier, albeit humbler church and lead the way for the church into the 21st century.
The famous phrase: "all power
The famous phrase: "all power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely" comes to mind.
Power! Power! POWER!!!!
Power! Power! POWER!!!! Rationalize it with all the spiritual lingo you can think of, but our clerical system, our old boys system, does not serve the cause of Christ. It serves only those who toady up to it.
“How often we wish that God
“How often we wish that God would show himself stronger, that he would strike decisively, defeating evil and creating a better world. All ideologies of power justify themselves in exactly this way, they justify the destruction of whatever would stand in the way of progress and the liberation of humanity. We suffer on account of God’s patience. And yet, we need his patience. God, who became a lamb, tells us that the world is saved by the Crucified One, not by those who crucified him. The world is redeemed by the patience of God. It is destroyed by the impatience of man.”
–Pope Benedict XVI, Installation Homily, April 24, 2005
This B16 quote is disturbing
This B16 quote is disturbing --- at least in terms of institutional change that is much needed in the Church of Rome.
Granted, God works in slow and mysterious ways, but the Creator's pace should not deter those of us impatient with the powers-that-be doing their level best to preserve a sick and sinful status quo.
There are times when God does, indeed, help those who help themselves, and we live in such a time.
I am a lifelong,faithful,
I am a lifelong,faithful, deeply heartsick Catholic who no longer has any allegiance to the church hierarchy. The dissonance between what it teaches and the way it behaves has become too great for me to bear.
For so long, the hierarchy has acted as though the great sins are all about sex. They aren't: the great sins are all about power, and many of our church leaders are profoundly guilty.
I long for a renewal of the Church. It will come, as it always has, from the most humble people following the call of the Gospels to love one another, to serve the poor, to respect each and every one of God's unique children.
If I were to be able to speak directly to an assembly of the church leaders who have strayed so far from the teachings of Jesus, I would beg them to get out of our way. They are blocking the light.
Amen. I too am a lifelong,
Amen. I too am a lifelong, faithful, and heart sick Catholic who no longer feels an allegiance to the Church hierarchy. Fortunately, I know a number of dedicatd and spirit filled priests from among various religous orders and two in local parishes who model the life of Christ and provide me with hope for the church. Unfortunately, these same men must walk a very fine line when it comes to the power of the institutional church. On the flip side, I have had to come in contact with an equally large number of diocesan priests, both young and old who seem to have little to no grasp of Christ's call to servant leadership. I believe the renewal of the clerical culture based on servant leadership would greatly diminish the numbers of those who block the light for the rest of us.
Ditto! Any temporal
Ditto! Any temporal authority must be removed from Bishops and priests. The sad part is that they have lost any moral authority as well. It is a sad day for our RCC, but let us hope that the people of God will emerge and take charge of their church and remove the priests and Bishops from any authority. What sickens me is that I have not found any priest that I feel can even speak about spiritual topics---they are too embroiled in their power. I see it in the parishes all the time. And most recently I have seen a number of the "younger" priests in cassock and barretta (?) even capes! God help us. We just have too many "queens" among our clergy.
In order to understand the
In order to understand the root of this disaster, please check out the 'theology' of people like former bishop Murray: the core of the problem is in all this redemptive suffering and sacrifice stuff--plain paganism walking in through the front door.
all this and Rome is
all this and Rome is investigating religious women ???
yes, indeed, the humble Jesus weeps...
sad . . .frustrating...
The investigation discussed
The investigation discussed in this article was not a government one, as claimed.
One reads in the report, http://www.dacoi.ie/:
2.23 The Commission wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) in Rome in September 2006 asking for information on the promulgation of the document Crimen Sollicitationis (see Chapter 4) as well as information on reports of clerical child sexual abuse which had been conveyed to the Congregation by the Archdiocese of Dublin in the period covered by the Commission. The CDF did not reply. However, it did contact the Department of Foreign Affairs stating that the Commission had not gone through appropriate diplomatic channels. The Commission is a body independent of government and does not consider it appropriate for it to use diplomatic channels.
Noelfitz (Dublin, Ireland).
Am I missing something
Am I missing something here?
The link http://www.dacoi.ie takes the reader ultimately to what appears to be an Irish national law giving the "Government" the power to establish commissions to investigate matters of national concern.
I'm not knowledgeable of Irish law, but it would appear that the commission is a government entity that --- per the "independent of government" phrase --- is free to follow the evidence to wherever it may lead, consequences be damned.
If the paragraph above is factually accurate re: events (and I'm assuming it is), it would appear that the Vatican is engaging in a stalling tactic.
If this (government) commission had gone through diplomatic channels, would the Vatican have provided the requested information?
One has to wonder.
Unfortunately, the following
Unfortunately, the following statement cannot be held true: “Most priests are holy, humble, unpretentious people..." There are several reasons it cannot be held true. For one, there is no way to tell which priests are simply "not-yet-accused." For another, there is no way to tell which priests, although innocent themselves, nevertheless knew about a fellow priest abusing children but did nothing about it. After all, there was a culture that fostered the abuse, and the culture was and is controlled and dominated by the clergy itself. And if a priest knew about abuse but did nothing about it, he is guilty of being complicit in that abuse. Lastly, this statement must include bishops and we are very far from claiming innocence on the part of any bishop, no matter how recently he was named bishop. The culture still exists and if a newly named bishop does nothing to change that culture, then he too is complicit. No, we are very far from resolving this horrible crime, and the US bishops apparently do not care or are not aware of what it is costing the church and themselves. They and we have paid a heavy price for their obstinacy. They are truly the hard-of-heart that Jesus talked about.
YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT,JAY
YOU'LL NEVER BELIEVE IT,JAY B. - but as a priest with at least forty years of priesthood under my belt at the time, I had never heard of priest sexual abuse during all those years. When I first heard of it, I was shocked; I could't believe it. How could any of my brother priests do this! I'd say that 95% of the priests were as much in the dark as I was. What you say in your post is not true for the vast, vast majority of priests: "There was a culture that fostered the abuse."
That's why I was deeply hurt by your statement: "For another, there is no way to tell which priests, although innocent themselves, nevertheless knew about a fellow priest abusing children but did nothing about it. After all, there was a culture that fostered the abuse, and the culture was and is controlled and dominated by the clergy itself." It's not quite true, Jay B.
This whole terrible experience will go a long way toward the purification of the priesthood. It has made us priests more humble, more human, more prayerful. Pray for your priests. After all, they are your sons, your brothers.
Alex, to you and brother
Alex, to you and brother priests who have rendered good and faithful service to the church, I tip my hat. That said, we cannot say for certain that each and every priest in a given diocese was unaware of reports of clerical sexual abuse. We simply do not know, but I take you at your word that you yourself were unaware of such wrongdoing.
I share your concern that we should not view the ordained alone as the cause of the clerical culture in the Church of Rome. All of us, lay and ordained alike, are responsible for the preservation of this culture (I use the word 'preservation' since the culture itself is the product of centuries of development).
I think the Barque of Peter is in need of major overhaul. We need to examine the cultural assumptions, i.e., the "taken for granteds", that we unconsciously embrace as the right way to believe, perceive, and conduct ourselves. I myself, for instance, no longer address Catholic presbyters as "Father" since this title reinforces the idea that we laity are "children". I generally use the term 'presbyter' since it more accurately identifies the role of the ordained man (or woman) at the Catholic liturgy. I'm discovering the value of ecclesial and liturgical history in addressing a lot of the issues facing us today. Indeed, Vatican II's call for renewal necessarily entails looking back to our roots.
I do recommend as valuable reading George Wilson's CLERICALISM: THE DEATH OF PRIESTHOOD and Edgar Schein's THE CORPORATE CULTURE SURVIVAL GUIDE.
Thank you for your service to the church!
Father Alex, Your own shock
Father Alex,
Your own shock at the discovery of abusive and predatory priests is shared by another now known as "The Whistleblower Priest":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w4cJ8nkOa30
http://www.brotherhoodofsilence.com/
Well Alex, I hope what you
Well Alex, I hope what you say is true. I agree that there are many good priests. But I have no confidence in my intuition to tell the difference. That confidence has been greatly shaken by the sex abuse AND its cover up. If you feel hurt by my comments, can you imagine the hurt and betrayal felt by so many in the church. The church was my spiritual home where I came to learn about God. What I discovered over the years is that the same guys who had been telling me about doing good and trying to figure out what God wanted for me were the same guys who were doing little altar boys in some of the worst of all places--the confessional. I feel for the good priests, but you tell me Alex, just how does the church restore its moral credibility when the bishops have done nothing to accept responsibility for their moral failure in dealing with a serious psychological problem. Not one bishop in the US has resigned or been forced out of office, save Cardinal Law and only because he was forced out by lay authority. What you say may be true, but I ask again--how can we tell the difference between the good ones and the ones who abuse and those who cover up? There is no way at the present time. The actions taken by the bishops have been directed at the wrong target. It was never the laity who were unable to identify the perpetrators. It was the bishops who hid them from view. And if you spent 40 years in the priesthood and did not hear about the sex abuse by your fellow priests, you must have been in some very remote assignments most of that time. Even I heard about it and saw it close up during that same time, and I am not now nor have I ever been a priest. I just didn't know the extent of it.
Great story. Tom Roberts has
Great story. Tom Roberts has a gift of getting to the heart of the matter, making it relevant, and offering hope for the future. The varied, and often ineffective, responses of individual bishops and national bishops conferences to abuse allegations could - perversely - become an argument for even more centralized control by the Vatican. Under this argument, a strong pro-victim and pro-healing Pope could impose worldwide standards on all 3000-plus bishops. But it simply will not happen. So, what we're left with is an informed and motivated laity rightly outraged by the actions and inactions of some bishops. Bishops, more than the priests and even the Pope, must be held accountable for the abuse, in both the ecclesian and legal / societal realms. One possible aid would be some kind of lay involvement in appointment of future bishops. I pray that happens. Until they resign in large numbers, or die, the Church will continue to undergo turmoil and strife and lose uncounted members. Until and unless bishops and the Pope listen to their flocks, they will just add to the church's on-going and accelerating demise. I think the Holy Spirit is using the abuse scandal to cleanse and purify his church - but it's going to take a long long time, given the current culture of church "leaders". God save us all.
Your readers may like to read
Your readers may like to read this comment by Father Brian D'Arcy, St Gabriel's Retreat, The Graan Ennnikillen, Co Fermanagh
in A Little Bit of Religion29/12/09 "news@sundayworld.com"
"CLERGY HAS BLOWN IT FOR GOOD
Complete change is needed
"I SHOULD be celebrating with my family and friends today.
I was really looking forward to it.
Instead I'll be hoping to get through it as best as I can, because in all honesty I'm embarrassed and sad in the pit of my stomach.
In fact I'm so sad I'm frightened.
Forty years ago on December 20, 1969, I was ordained a priest in St Michaels College, Enniskillen.
But there will be no celebration. There is nothing to celebrate.
It would be an insult to the thousands of innocent children who were cruelly abused by my colleagues - priests, brothers and nuns - who used the power of religion to destroy their trusting victims.
Celebration of priesthood would be yet another arrogant twisting of the knife in the backs of the many disillusioned, barely-believing Catholics, who are left leaderless and rudderless, as they try to figure out how they could have been taken in for so long by popes, bishops and priests.
Ashamed
And anyway it's not about me and my petty priesthood anymore.
Friends tell me I've nothing to be ashamed of. But that's not the point. I must learn that roles have changed forever.
Priests can't go on expecting to be forgiven for what happened in the Catholic Church, simply because they tried to be helpful ministers of the Word and sacrament.
I realise now that I was taken in and I have to accept responsibility for my own unquestioning naivety.
I believed in our church. I trusted the leaders because I convinced myself they had the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I forgot that guidance is a twoway street. The Holy Spirit was stifled.
Fifteen years ago, I went to Africa to avoid celebrating 25 years as a priest, because of the Brendan Smyth scandals.
You'd think, if we were serious, we'd have got it right by now. And if we were serious about protecting children above all else,we would have. I fear that we clergy still haven't realised we've blown it for good.
It's true the system was flawed and enabled abusers. But we priests (and some laity too) willingly became subservient to the system and, whether we like it or not, also enabled abuse.
Henri Nouwen, the late writer, philosopher and priest, once said that the three great temptations for priests were to be (a) relevant
(b) popular and (c) powerful.
Flawed
Those destructive cravings are continually fed in the clerical club culture.
On the other hand Christ merely asked "Do you love me?"
The first priest left us a lasting image: hanging powerless on a cross with outstretched arms - the praying, redeeming vulnerable, trusting leader.
Looking back I realise what should have been obvious to me before now. The hierarchical church needs to reform in two essential areas: (a) its sadistic misuse of power, and (b) its pathetically dysfunctional theology of sex. Power and sex, it's as simple as that.
Bishop Geoffrey Robinson, in his book Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church, (essential reading surely) wrote: "Child abuse...is most likely to occur when three factors come together: an unhealthy psychological state, unhealthy ideas concerning power and sex, and an unhealth community in which a person lives."
It's no longer about tweaking the system.
Poverty
We need a complete new way of being Christian, and of living responsible, healthy, human and spiritual lives.
That's a good place to leave it for this week.
Christmas is about new beginnings, love and the birth of our saviour in the midst of poverty and outcasts."
Thank you for sharing.
Thank you for sharing.
As far as I understood, the
As far as I understood, the Irish bishops who now resign, did exactly that what they were told to do, in 1962 by cardinal Ottaviani, later on confirmed by the then cardinal Ratzinger, now pope Benedict: to keep strictest secrecy about all sexual abuse, under the threat of excommunication. I think it is the wrong people who now resign.
If you're correct, I agree!
If you're correct, I agree!
Wasn't it the Council of
Wasn't it the Council of Chalcedon that said the people should elect their priests and, by derivation, their bishops?
Horrible as the sexual abuse aspects of this crisis are, here and in Ireland, its roots lie in the lust for power and control exercised by Rome. It was Lord Acton who said, "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." He was speaking about Pius IX and that pope's collosal power play of ramming the "doctrine" of infallibility through Vatican Council I.
Dear Lord, we beseech thee to
Dear Lord, we beseech thee to hear our prayers for all of your priests, religious and the laity who believe in you and live their lives in complete commitment to your Word. Please bless our current church leadership and provide us a new generation of religious who accept their calling to serve others in your holy name. Please also do not allow those who leave the church to fall from your daily blessings and forgiveness. We love you and beg for your forgiveness and please send your Holy Spirit to assist all who love you and beleive in your name and the Truth. It is only through you that we will all find and live the life of service, holiness and complete dedication to our Lord, Jesus Christ. In this we pray. Amen
At last Fall's USCCB
At last Fall's USCCB gathering, Cardinal George is quoted as saying that it's time to move on from the sex abuse scandal. Really, now? Perhaps, the US hierarchy hasn't really dealt with the deeper issues...only the tip of an iceberg. Sexual abuse, as all forms of abuse across a lengthy continuum, must also address (not simply acknowledge) the abuse of authority and power from top to bottom and side to side. Sadly, for many bishops it appears that dealing with the tip of the iceberg is sufficient enough. I hope we can learn from how the Irish church is dealing with this ..and say to our bishops,
"Oh, yeh, not so fast. The charter may be a first step, but it is not the ONLY step..time to take a look at how you're addressing exercise of authority, you're ability to truly listen, your readiness to address structural changes in a significant way, you're humility to call for further episcopal resignations, your fearlessness in truly being more transparent and collaborative...if you ever, repeat, ever, hope to regain the trust of the Catholic faithful (laity, clergy and religious). And, please, stop smoke-screening the issues by saying an anti-Catholic media is playing it up...that in itself is a rather "childish" response that further diminishes your credibility.
"Cardinal Bernard Law was
"Cardinal Bernard Law was forced out of the Boston archdiocese, but he was reassigned to Rome, where he continues to hold positions on some of the most powerful Vatican agencies, including the congregation responsible for appointing bishops."
The FOX is still guarding the CHICKEN coop!
Fr Allan J McDonald.....You
Fr Allan J McDonald.....You are joking....are you? A problem with priest facing the priestly People of God?....is this not what Our Lord did on the night he gave us the Eucharist? The loss of the "majesty" that should characterize the RC priest.....forgive me, Your Majesty, but that is a load of b...s...!
Lets have a good pruning of the Church and get rid of a lot of the dead-wood: (Most) Holy Father (surely, only God the Father is the Holy Father), Eminence, Excellency etc. Let's re-discoevr New testament Christianity with married "bishops" etc; with the "successor" of Peter not reigning as some monarch but being a simple, humble collaborator with the other Apostles and presbyters.
Abuse occurred in the pre=-Vatican II Church....yet you seem to gloss over it. I was a very traditional Catholic but I have learned that what I believed was "tradition" was, in fact, NOT. Let's honestly confess that much of the present day Roman Church's practise is a result of medieval regality.
"Fr. Timothy Radcliffe,
"Fr. Timothy Radcliffe, former master general of the worldwide Dominican order and a highly regarded religious leader in the British Isles, recently told a two-day gathering of Dublin priests: “I’m convinced this whole sexual abuse crisis is deeply linked with power and the way power operates in the church at all levels, from the Vatican to the parish sacristan. Often, it is not the power of Jesus who is gentle and humble of heart.”
This subject has been masterfully addressed at length by Australian Bishop Geoffrey Robinson:
http://www.amazon.com/Confronting-Power-Sex-Catholic-Church/dp/081461865...
And the way this bishop was treated by his "brother" bishops in Australia and subsequently in the USA only serves as further PROOF of Father Radcliffe's hypothesis:
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/0802769.htm
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=7200
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=7282
http://bishopgeoffrobinson.org/
http://bishopgeoffrobinson.org/reflections_on_usa_lecture.htm
"In contrast, the late Pope
"In contrast, the late Pope John Paul II largely ignored the crisis for most of his tenure and even celebrated the late Fr. Marciel Maciel, founder of the Legionaries of Christ, who had been repeatedly accused by former members of the order for abusing young seminarians."
http://www.amazon.com/Vows-Silence-Abuse-Power-Papacy/dp/0743244419
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHyhdaTQCS4
SUBITO SANTO? My eye!
Q: WHY IRELAND? "In the case
Q: WHY IRELAND?
"In the case of Ireland, Pope Benedict XVI has acted immediately. Following a Dec. 11 meeting with the country’s Catholic leadership, Benedict expressed the “outrage, betrayal and shame” he shared with Irish Catholics over the scandal. He has promised a pastoral letter on the crisis early in 2010."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK9b2O_Wdnc&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOyb-pV61zk&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IcO7UEf0IJ8&feature=related
A: Because the crisis has now reached epic proportions, has jumped the pond and is getting closer to the Pope himself who, unlike his predecessor's claims of ignorance, knew exactly what was going on GLOBALLY during his time at CDF. The only questions now are: WHAT did he know and WHEN did he know it? While the USA's RICO laws may not have the international clout to prosecute, it is just a matter of time before the European Union swings into action. And both HE and his legal advisors know it. That's WHY Ireland. Tic-toc, tic-toc.... Sleep in heavenly peace after getting knocked down during a non-Midnight Mass? I think not.
In the case of Ireland, the
In the case of Ireland, the pope has acted immediately by expressing his outrage, betrayal, and shame. A pastoral letter addressing the situation is coming in early 2010. Bishops in Ireland who ignored or covered up clergy sexual abuse are forced to resign. Bishops in the US who do likewise seem to become cardinals and are promoted to jobs at the Vatican.
While heartily praying for
While heartily praying for the pope and without any moral judgement I say that the pope is at the head of this mess; he knew about it well before he became pope and did NOTHING about it to save the many innocent children. As such he should resign as he showed himself incapable to lead and all evidence shows that he is a fraud; while hair-splitting on theology he was incapable to see the BEAM in his eye. He appears to be the biblical 'whitened sepulcher' His holiness appears in the external forum as debunk of all holiness; he is not the man in white that he appears to be. And all this time he is pontificating at the Altar saying Mass after Mass and preaching justice. He looked after his dignity and that of the Vatican at the cost of innocent children. Does that not remind you of the slaughter to the innocents at Herod's order?
I agree with you Geo. Pope
I agree with you Geo. Pope Benedict XVI is a fraud and he should not be representing Catholics as a leader for his knowledge of the sexual abuse of children for years by Priests and religious as head of the CDF and doing NOTHING about it to stop it. Cardinal Law should also resign and all the US Bishops who covered up the sexual abuse and enabled it and the People of God should choose their Bishops, not the power hungry priests. How dare he seat himself in power as the "Vicar of Christ" and how dare those who supported him continue to support this traitor of the Catholic Church, and traitor of Jesus Christ.
The Lord will serve these evil men the justice needed to heal the Church.
He protected not the little children and prevented them from coming to the Lord. It would have been better had he not been born is what Jesus said about those who prevent the little children from coming to the Lord.
He is not worthy to be called a servant of the Lord. He has served his own interest and not the Lord's. He is "debunk of all holiness."
One article you will never
One article you will never see from this publication, "LCWR Orders Confront their Sex Abuse Crisis." Partly because NCR cannot say anything bad about their dissenting sisters, and second because unlike bishops and dioceses, they have refused to admit any wrongdoing, refused to release any records, and ahve refused to meet with any survivors.
Sin is Sin. All of us are
Sin is Sin. All of us are held accountable by God. Anyone envolved in child abuse is not only a sinner but must be held accountable by the local government of the country in which it occured. No one is exempt. That goes for doctors, laywers and Indian Chiefs and those proclaming to be ministers of the word of God, regarless of their religion. Some clerics blow up people to teach the word of God. Others preach love, forgiveness and repentance. But all are subject to the law of the land in which they live. This is a mess beyond comprehention. God help us and the victims and punish the guilty. Pray for the good priests who are feeling the rath of some people who are out to get all priests. Let there really be peace and love of God as Jesus taught and love of neighbor.
To those who think the
To those who think the problem of sexual abuse of children by priests is new, and to anyone unfamiliar with Church history, some starting points:
Sex, Priests, and Secret Codes: The Catholic Church's 2,000 Year Paper Trail of Sexual Abuse, by Thomas P. Doyle. A.W. Richard Sipe, and Patrick J. Wall.
Before Dallas: The U.s. Bishops' Response to Clergy Sexual Abuse of Children, by Nicholas P. Cafardi.
For example, in the 4th century, St. Basil of Caesarea set up a detailed system of punishment to deal with clerics at his monastery who molested boys. Perpetrators were to be flogged and put in chains for six months; they were never again allowed unsupervised interaction with minors.
http://articles.latimes.com/2004/jun/20/local/me-priests20
Where we are today. As
Where we are today. As already stated by some writers here, to blame the orientation of the priest at Mass, changes in liturgy or any aspect of the Second Vatican Council for priest abuse is crazy.
I attended trials of priests and the victims never pointed to the liturgy as causing them to fall victim. Rather, it was the church that taught them in elementary catechism that priests were "like Christ" and anything they said or did was okay. Well, mature and informed Catholics know that is far from the truth.
There is already evidence that priest abuse existed long before VII, though it is likely we'll never know the extent because victims and abusive priests are mostly dead or not willing to talk of a horrible thing in their old age.
But the fact that priest abuse has been exposed today in almost every culture/country, especially Catholic ones, is prime evidence that priest abuse has both a human and institutional origin. Were their other institutions/churches with abuse problems? Sure there were/are, but we're concerned here about our church.
Fathers Radcliffe and Doyle seek the truth and are getting to it. Reporter Tom Roberts is, thankfully, reporting it. No where else in the Catholic press today is truth of church wrongs being reported. Even at the height of the crisis, only a few Catholic papers reported in detail the stories of the victims or published letters of outraged from Catholics. Diocesan newspapers now are all about being the pep squad for their bishops, and bishops are about containing the crisis --- not seeking reform of the church.
Bishops are Vatican agents
Bishops are Vatican agents and will remain so until the Laity and clergy can choose their leaders rather than have them imposed through some secretive arrangements
Remove the word Ireland and
Remove the word Ireland and substitute any other country and the story will be the same. This stupid protecting the Church story is too lame to be repeated. You could say we hushed up the crime and removed the guilty to protect the Church, you would be wrong but it would be possible. This was not done. After the crime was known the hiearchy moved the guilty to insure they had access to more innocents. The enormity of this is too much for most of your readers to face. The "protect the Church" argument boils down to "we kept feeding the children to the abusers for the good of the Church". The Nazi pope and all his minions must be removed before the Church can resume it's Holy Mission. To ignore their role and that of jp2 is to continue to feed innocents to the beast. Is there any Catholic who thinks this does not continue? I do not know any.
When will it ever end? Time
When will it ever end? Time to find another church
Allan: what a lot of
Allan: what a lot of blathering, very much like we heard in Boston from so many men in black. The heart of the problem is "father." The term led so many young astray and made them so vulnerable. The men in black are supposedly special, "ontologically" different from the rest of us. In the end, no different and they should dress and act like us, they would be better for it. It is an effort in fruitlessness, they want to be different and they will continue to tell us that they are different - they enjoy the status of the position, simple as that.
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe has
Fr. Timothy Radcliffe has been citing a crisis of power versus one of sexual abuse since 2003 at least, when he spoke at Boston College on “Why is the Church Undergoing a Crisis of Affectivity and a Crisis of Governance? The videocast is available at http://www.bc.edu/church21/webcast.html, and enter Timothy Radcliffe in search box.
His identification of the cultural milieu of clericalism is on target, but Radcliffe has never to my knowledge spoken of measures of accountability for bishops, like resignation. That seems outside his frame of reference, which is disappointing in the extreme. In the videocast, when asked about bishop resignations, he simply asks if people have talked to bishops to hear their side of the story.
Never mind the attorney generals in the US who investigated, or the verbal gymnastics of bishops in legal depositions, forced to testify under oath, where evidence abounds of their criminal negligence, and failure to report under the law. And of course, the Ferns, Ryan and Murphy reports in Ireland. We have listened patiently to the self-excusing Irish bishops, who like their US counterparts, claim they did nothing legally or morally wrong.
So, what is Radcliffe’s position about being responsible for the consequences of one’s actions? We yearn to hear about more than the necessity for humility in the future, and foregoing of ridiculous titles. Well, yes, of course, but the open sore in the Church is that bishops essentially got away with everything. It all just happened by itself, out of the ethers apparently.
Justice, even merciful justice, demands accountability beyond promotion to higher office that is the norm in the US, and was the norm before the recent forced resignations in Ireland --- though with protestations of innocence attached. Meanwhile, we must endure holdout Bishop Martin Drennan's unending apologias. One set of rules for the princes, another for everyone else. Why weren’t they all fired, here and abroad?
Instead, it was Dominican Tom Doyle who was fired for speaking truth to power. When will Radcliffe join Tom and Irish theologian Fr. Vincent Twomey in seeking genuine redress for enabling molestation of the innocents? Words are not enough.
Having been a traditional
Having been a traditional catholic for most of my 60+ years, our family left a parish where the Irish born & trained parish priest was eventually convicted of sex related crimes apparently known about previously but not acted upon. We then went to a parish where the parish priest was noted for his inclusiveness of all. He has been recently been suspended from ministry for using the incorrect words in baptism. Yes, the crisis in the church is very honestly and accurately identified by Geoffrey Robertson and Timothy Radcliffe as being all about power and control. God bless us with courageous leaders like them. I cant see how the present pope avoids some responsibility in this. Hopefully it also quickly kills off the move to promote John Paul 2 to sainthood .
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