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	Church Is Sullied by the Failings of Bishops By Brian Fitzpatrick Herald Scotland March 25, 2010 http://www.heraldscotland.com/comment/guest-commentary/church-is-sullied-by-the-failings-of-bishops-1.1015899# SCOTLAND -- There was applause last Sunday in our parish church. Clapping isn't part of our usual liturgy. We are more a middle-of-the-road congregation than a charismatic assembly. Yet we wanted to stand with our good priest who, commenting on the unfolding child abuse scandals rocking Catholicism, said we had been done an uncomfortable service by the media. It would be easy to dismiss the shocking revelations as yet more anti-Catholic reporting, were it not that the stories were true. Our priest paid tribute to the key role of lay people who have pushed the church hierarchy to address an issue it would much rather have ignored or covered up. It was our children who were put most at risk by those we had thought our shepherds. It would be easy also to claim the Scottish church has mainly escaped this Calvary. The lack of a church/state accord might have been a blessing: the reticence of civil authorities to "interfere" might be markedly less than in Poland, Ireland or Spain some years ago. Our hierarchy should not get too puffed up too soon. Scots Catholics, never blessed with the most intellectually top-drawer of hierarchies, know that, had our Episcopal Conference faced Ireland's troubles, it most likely would have responded in the same way. Let there be no doubt what most lay Catholics believe: any bishop who shielded or aided an abusing priest should heed the Pope and resign now. Our family remains honoured to have among us a retired bishop and a retired parish priest, both good and holy men. They would walk through machine-gun fire to protect children. Yet those men's service is sullied by the failures of bishops who should have known and acted better. True, child abuse is not peculiar to the Catholic Church and there will be the loyalists who insist the church's experience reflects society. If the only good outcome to this is that greater attention is given to the status and protection of children, so be it. But we were raised to believe our church, not least our pastors, should be a "light unto the nations"; not scrambling around insisting we are no worse than anyone else. Ill-advisedly, our cardinal took the Scottish Secretary to task for arguing that people of faith were motivated to let that faith guide their politics. We were told that, on his visit, the Pope might give the likes of Jim Murphy and Ian Gray "hell". Fortunately, the Pope has a more thoughtful approach. Cardinal Keith O'Brien might reflect more deeply on just who might deserve perdition. For the church to fulfil its mission, a proper and thorough reflection on what has unfolded is needed, not knee-jerk responses blaming secularism. It wasn't Richard Dawkins or the National Secular Society that was moving criminal priests from parish to parish with no thought for the safety of the families in those parishes. It was our Catholic bishops. We remain an infantilised church dominated by a small group of ageing men. Few parishes properly include their parishioners in decision-making; mainly, we are viewed as donors, not decision-makers. We need an open and frank discussion on topics including priestly formation (is it possible the celibate life attracts paedophiles who unsuccessfully seek to control their urges without seeking treatment?); parish and church structures; the rule on celibacy and a married priesthood; and the sad trend in recent years of much Catholic discourse evidently being located in the genitals rather than the Gospel. We already operate an unspoken dialogue of "don't-ask-don't -tell" in most parishes on contraception. We might find open discourse and discussion a more useful and fruitful path. It is a symptom of the failures of leadership from our bishops that there is no national forum in Scotland for Catholic lay people to raise and debate these issues, still less reach any conclusions. Despite the demands of the Second Vatican Council, not a diocese in the country appears to have a functioning diocesan council. God willing, our bishops might yet find that, from time to time, the Holy Spirit speaks to the church through the people of God, just as through the bishops.
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