Sins of the Fathers Will Be Purged, The Australian, April 2, 2010

Sins of the Fathers Will Be Purged

The Australian
April 2, 2010

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/sins-of-the-fathers-will-be-purged/story-e6frg6zo-1225848394257

Acknowledging sexual abuse of children by some priests is a start to healing in the Catholic Church

HOLY Week is traditionally a time of reflection, penitence and expectancy. This year it has been marred by the unrelenting avalanche of clerical sex abuse scandals in the church, widely reported by The New York Times and Britain's The Times.

In these circumstances it is understandable that the reaction of much of the laity is a bit like that of a child who has found that a loved parent cannot be trusted.

Contrary to the assumptions of many cynics who assume that the faithful laity will defend the actions of the clergy no matter what, among ordinary, mass-going Catholics these revelations have caused a mixture of shame, anger, confusion and ultimately the most heart-rending sadness for the church we love.

But why should the church be any different from any other human institution? Why should a priest be subject to any more or less benefit of the presumption of innocence than, say, an actor ?

Well, precisely because he is not like anyone else. We call a priest "father" for a reason. The priesthood is not a job. A priest is anointed and, like a parent, the hierarchy of the church has a moral authority quite unlike that of any secular authority.

Its foundation and purpose is divine. So lay people who argue that the church is simply made up of human beings, which it is, who must be sinners, which we are, are not getting the point.

These priests and the bishops who shielded them should have been better than other people. The argument that these awful crimes against children occur in other walks of life, which they do, is not really getting the point, either. Yes, we live in a milieu of dehumanising sexual licentiousness, which normalises sterile perversions and robs the young of their innocence. But the fact the cancer is everywhere doesn't excuse the failures of clergy who are supposed to guide us out of this morass. The irony is that many people, particularly campaigners for sexual libertarianism, don't think the clergy should be better than rest of us.

According to the atheistic inhabitants of a looking-glass world, and the pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage and "free condoms for all" campaigners, the church should quit teaching sexual morality based on the natural law.

These scandals are very difficult for the ordinary Catholic laity to face because they are mixed up with so much anti-Catholic opinion and downright falsehood about the church and the hierarchy that is fostered by its enemies. Therein lies a problem.

So, while ordinary lay Catholics want these scandals uncovered and purged, there is anger at the vulgar, secular, media pot calling the church kettle black.

Indeed there seems to be a frantic attempt to get as many scalps as possible, the ultimate one, of course, being the Pope's.

But there has been a backlash. US religious magazine First Things published a scathing condemnation of The New York Times by distinguished American lay theologian George Weigel, who acknowledged the gravity of the cover-up in Milwaukee of the abuse of young deaf boys but condemned the Times's further attack on the Pope.

Raymond de Souza, a priest and chaplain of Queen's University in Ontario, also attacked the flimsy evidence for a cover-up by the then cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Benedict XVI, and questioned its sources, particularly the principal source: the disaffected former archbishop of Milwaukee, Rembert Weakland.

Weakland is a disgraced cleric widely known for mishandling sexual-abuse cases during his tenure and who used $US450,000 of archdiocesan funds as hush money to a former homosexual lover blackmailing him.

Weakland had responsibility for the notorious case of priest Lawrence Murphy between 1977 and 1998, when Murphy approached Ratzinger's office, eight months before Murphy's death.

He did nothing about Murphy -- accused of having molested up to 200 deaf boys from the 1950s to the 70s -- until 1996, although the allegations went back to the 70s. Weigel describes the "descent into tabloid sourcing and innuendo" as more offensive because of recent developments that underscore the Pope's determination to root out what he once described as the "filth" in the church.

This has been particularly necessary in the Irish church, with its quasi-establishment status and puritanical character, which made it difficult to be open about sexual impropriety, particularly of the homosexual variety.

In Ireland -- where a priest in the family was a practical ambition and a glorified ideal -- too many very young boys were herded into junior seminaries where they were never going to mature properly, a recipe for homosexual pedophilia.

Homosexuality was tolerated in some seminaries, particularly in the Anglophone world, but in the present politically correct climate it seems that we are not allowed to mention that problem even though it seems to have been the bulk of the matter.

In the end, though, the trendies, the modernisers and others who ridicule the church's teachings on sexuality should remember the hierarchy often did what it was advised to do by psychologists and other so-called experts. It got priests counselling and treatment -- but admittedly then stupidly moved them on.

With the reports of the scandal creeping closer to the Pope, perhaps the laity is justified in asking whether the episcopal structure should be renewed to bring the laity and hierarchy closer.

Certainly training for the priesthood has changed dramatically since many of these scandals first happened. Candidates are older and aspirants are encouraged to have life experience.

With an influx of married Anglicans, people are talking about the parish clergy being permitted to marry which, although no remedy against pedophilia, brings clergy closer to the people.

But amid all the media clamour we should remember the church is part of a very long story without borders. There are more baptisms in The Philippines each year than there are in France, Italy, Spain and Poland combined.

We should be thankful that these scandals are being acknowledged and purged at last. The church has gone through worse, but it needs to heal itself if society is to be healed too.