You Cant Take Lessons in Morality from People Who Disgust You, by Ruth Gledhill, The Times, March 27, 2010

'You Can't Take Lessons in Morality from People Who Disgust You.'

By Ruth Gledhill
The Times
March 27, 2010

http://timescolumns.typepad.com/gledhill/2010/03/ordinary-catholics-ashamed-and-brokenhearted.html

UNITED KINGDOM -- India Knight writes in The Sunday Times of why she can no longer remain a Catholic: 'Religion — all religion, not just Catholicism — is supposed to be good for the soul, but everything I've written about here pollutes mine. You can't take lessons in morality from people who disgust you,' she says.

Tablet editor Catherine Pepinster's Thought for the Day was so profoundly moving that I hope the BBC won't mind if I reproduce it on Articles of Faith, below.

A BBC source tells me that normally, the staff in the Today programme office use the brief Thought slot to have a quick coffee break. But today, they all sat and listened. Alone at home, I also had a sense also of the nation stopping what it was doing, to listen closely to what this leading lay Catholic woman would say.

Another moving article, this one by lay Catholic Mike McCarthy, appears in today's Independent. 'The crisis affecting the Catholic Church is currently being treated as the failure of an arrogant institution, a sort of colossal religious Watergate, and indeed it is that, but we are starting to see that the trouble runs even deeper, right into the church's spiritual heart. Some sort of terrible worm has got into the bud of Catholicism; its crisis is only beginning,' he writes.

Niall O'Dowd at Irish Central's Periscope blog also offers intriguing insights into the past of the disgraced former Bishop of Cloyne, John Magee, once considered the most handsome man in the Vatican: 'What is known is that in 1978, on the death of John Paul 1 after only 33 days as pope, Magee covered up the fact that a nun found him and a statement was issued that he was the person who discovered the body. Why this was so has never been explained. Nor was the fact that he was briefly brought back to Rome immediately when Pope JohnPaul II died for unspecified duties. By all accounts he went into a deep funk when posted to Cloyne, a minor diocese in Ireland far from his beloved Armagh.'

Catherine Pepinster said on BBC Radio 4's Thought for the Day:

'Earlier this week I was fortunate to be able to visit St Walburge's, one of the most magnificent Catholic churches in the country. These days St Walburge's is open infrequently for most of the houses that once surrounded it have been demolished and the population has moved elsewhere. But as I looked around this stunning grade one listed church in Preston, I was aware of what I can only describe as its prayerful silence and the thousands upon thousands of ordinary people who'd prayed there over the years.

'It's a quiet that offers a balance and a well-being that you only get when, as Cardinal John Henry Newman put it, the busy world is hushed and the fever of life is cast aside. Many people find such peacefulness incredibly appealing. The maker of a new film about the nuns of Tyburn Convent, for instance, says that he has incorporated into his day an hour's quiet after he saw how the sisters lived with silence forming such a large part of their time.

'But there is another kind of silence that has also existed in the Catholic Church – a deeply-damaging silence – which meant that sex abuse of children by priests was kept hidden away. When courageous victims tried to speak out, they were ignored or even punished. Claim after claim tells of bishops responsible for abusive priests moving them around and doing little to help the victims. Accusation upon accusation has led to an unprecedented apology from Pope Benedict to the people of Ireland in which he expressed shame and remorse for what has happened.

'But for many it was still not enough.

'Tomorrow Catholics attending Mass on Palm Sunday will hear Luke's Gospel story of Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on a donkey. As the crowd shouts in acclaim, the Pharisees tell him to silence his followers. But Christ says: "I tell you, if these keep silence the very stones will cry out".

'Now it seems as if the very stones are crying out about child abuse. The damaging silence has been swept aside; the truth must be spoken.

'Next week is the most solemn week of the Christian calendar as people recall the crucifixion of Christ, and the harm done by this kind of silence will be on many Catholics' minds. We know that many of the child abuse cases date from years ago and changes, especially in Britain, have successfully been made to improve child protection in the Church, work with the police and keep clearer records. Yet ordinary Catholics like me are still angry, still ashamed, and still broken-hearted.

'In that other silence, the prayerful time of Mass, we will be wondering what can be done to heal the victims, and yes, heal our Church too'