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  Praying for a Listening Pope

By Jon O'Brien
Forbes
April 18, 2008

http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/04/17/pope-visit-church-oped-cx_job_0418church.html

Catholics, progressives and conservatives alike are celebrating the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Washington, D.C., and New York. We are all waving flags of welcome; we see the pope's visit as a celebration, not just of the man who is leader of the world's 1 billion Catholics, but also a celebration of our faith.

The visit comes at a critical time for the Catholic church in the U.S. We are still living through the tragic aftermath of the sexual abuse scandal. The mismanagement and subsequent cover up rocked any trust that Catholics had in the hierarchy.

When Archbishop Pietro Sambi, the Vatican's ambassador to the U.S., told us that we should expect a pastoral visit, not a political one, we had high hopes that it would be the first step on the journey toward reconciliation.

First impressions are positive. During his flight, Pope Benedict admitted to being "deeply ashamed" about the scandal. With the church acknowledging some 5,300 accused priests and more than $2 billion in payouts, that is perhaps the least we could expect. However, it is a positive move toward ending the great suffering that so many have experienced.

Benedict's recognition of the suffering that had been caused, and that the healing process is not over, gave succor to many. Also important was the fact that the pope seemed to contradict assertions that homosexuals in the priesthood were the root cause of the problem, rather than pedophiles. This stance is in marked contrast to that initially adopted by many in the hierarchy and their conservative allies who sought to dodge responsibility for the abuse by scapegoating homosexuals.

There are two concrete steps needed to move this process forward and put the pope's positive words into action.

1) The pope needs to meet with victims and their advocates and publicly seek forgiveness on behalf of the institutional church.

2) Bishops who were responsible for protecting and moving pedophile priests must be held accountable.

The pope's response to the sexual abuse scandal is a positive example of the glass half full. There are many parts of church life where the glass is half empty.

Pope Benedict is a great thinker and a towering intellectual. Our hope for this visit and visits to other countries is that the pope will reveal himself also as a great listener.

The Catholic faith as it is lived by the 1 billion Catholics the world over, including the 65 million in the U.S., is a far cry from that imagined in the lofty heights of the Vatican.

There is currently a great chasm between Catholics and their hierarchy. This is painfully apparent when we compare how Catholics live their lives with Vatican teachings.

The Catholic hierarchy bans divorced Catholics from receiving the sacraments. However, there are more than 6 million divorced Catholics in the U.S. The hierarchy must respond to them with compassion and recognize that sometimes, even with Herculean efforts, some marriages irretrievably break down. Couples in that situation must not be cast aside but instead feel the comfort and strength of the church.

In addition, in a direct rejection of Vatican teachings:

97% of sexually active Catholic women above the age of 18 have used some form of contraception banned by the hierarchy.

93% of Catholics supports condom use to prevent HIV and other STDs.

73% of Catholics believes the decision whether or not to have an abortion should be left up to a woman, her family and her doctor.

63% of Catholics support civil unions for homosexual couples (more than the U.S. population as a whole: 55%).

Clearly, the great majority of U.S. Catholics are thinking, believing and acting in a different way than the hierarchy. That does not make us bad Catholics, we do take our faith seriously, but we also live in the real world.

People often ask me whether change is possible, whether I believe that Pope Benedict would ever seek to narrow the chasm.

My first response? I believe in miracles.

When a church commission was set up to consider the issue of birth control in the 1960s, conservatives stacked it with hand-picked bishops who could be relied on to toe the party line. Yet, miraculously, those bishops listened to the testimony of pain and suffering that ordinary men and women experienced as a result of the ban on contraception and recommended that the hierarchy allow the use of birth control. Hearts and minds can change.

Tragically, at that time Pope Paul took the decision upon himself to ignore the findings of his own commission and in 1968, decided to retain the status quo. Today, one man can reverse that decision, and Catholics the world over are hoping and praying that Pope Benedict will listen to the church and in time make at least one change that will narrow the chasm between Catholics and the hierarchy.

For my second answer on whether change is possible, I agree with the pope when he said we "all have to learn from each other." He was speaking on this trip about the important role that secularism played in the founding of the U.S., the importance of a secularism that emerged "out of love for religion and for an authenticity that can only be lived freely." With these words he defined precisely a forward-looking vision of the true place for religion in public policy. It is a sign to legislators that they need to make public policy that is in the best interests of all people, not sectarian special interests.

We all want a church that is compassionate and caring, but that is not enough. We need also a church that reflects the totality of its own teachings, especially on freedom of conscience. We need a church that respects the well-formed consciences of Catholics as to when and whether to have a family. With that as a starting point, the Catholic church will bridge a chasm and the Catholic hierarchy may again become one with the Catholic people, together in the faith as one family.

 
 

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