The Hypocrisy and Denial of the Catholic Church

By Zachary Bailes
Addicting Info
February 15, 2012

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/02/15/the-hypocrisy-and-denial-of-the-catholic-church/


On February 14th the New York Times published an editorial entitled “His Eminence in Denial” decrying retired Cardinal Edward Egan’s revocation of his apology for the Catholic Church’s sexual abuse cover-ups. Cardinal Egan simply stated, “I should never have done that.” Juxtapose that against the Vatican’s global conference on sexual abuse held last week, and it’s clear that sexual abuse weighs heavy on the Catholic Church. Yet the Catholic Church seemed surprised when people were outraged about the Church’s furious anger about the infringement upon their religious liberty with the Obama Administration’s contraception decision.

The Catholic Church, infuriated about the contraception decision, for decades demonstrated little outrage about sexual abuse. Religious liberty, to be sure, holds center stage in the discussion of rights and liberties. Morally, sexual abuse scandals expose the larger systemic, hierarchical moral bankruptcy of the Catholic Church leadership. Individual Catholic parishioners are not to be blamed for this, but rather the cloak-and-dagger approach supported by the institutional Church for so long.

Cardinal William Levada leads the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican office charged with enforcing church law, which Pope Benedict XVI held before he became pope in 2005. More than 4000 cases have been reported to his office in the past decade. Cardinal Levada states that those accused of sexual abuse “are a tiny minority of an otherwise faithful, committed clergy.” He continued to say that the Church has an “obligation to cooperate with the requirements of civil law.”

The question at hand is when did it suddenly become an obligation? Why wasn’t cooperation with civil law an obligation before?

Though the Catholic Church has and will have a moral responsibility to report such horrible atrocities to civil law, they have not had to report it because their privilege in the larger society protected them. Though not always holding sway in the larger public eye, they did have Christian privilege. Privilege slowly erodes because of pluralism, globalism, and postmodern hostility toward hierarchy.

Theological convictions aside, the Catholic Church cannot claim protection of religious liberty and sweep sexual abuse under the rug. Cognitive dissonance appears as the accepted status quo within the Catholic Church. The global conference held in the Vatican on the issue of sexual abuse is a day late and a dollar short. True commitment requires an actual sexual abuse-zero-tolerance policy that doesn’t simply ship off priests accused of abuse. While grace demands attention in this conversation, I’m not convinced grace solves the problem.

Society must deal with sexual abuse—not an archaic, medieval, sickly institution that would rather lie than be honest. Which makes me wonder, just how far do these “scandals” reach? How many priests or bishops know or initiated sexual abuse? If a zero-tolerance policy were initiated perhaps there would be more priest-less parishes than one can imagine.

Sexual abuse is not only a Catholic problem, and perhaps that where my greatest contention rests. An organization with unparalleled resources could ignite an awareness-raising campaign concerning this issue. According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse, & Incest National Network) every 2 minutes someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted, 60% of sexual abuse cases are not reported to police, and while 1 in every 6 women has been a victim of rape, 1 of every 10 men have been raped. An institution that attempts to embody the call of Christ, loving all and working for justice should lead the charge in awareness and support for victims of sexual abuse. It’s a two-way street: society needs greater awareness and the Catholic Church can assist.

Whether or not the Church will ever repent for their actions one cannot say for sure. But if they were to do so, I’m not sure any act of contrition as demanded by society would pay the price. For those that have committed their lives to Christ and do so in humble service of the cross we might see that as noble. For those that do the same but use their power to abuse and then cover it up, only God can write the final word for them. I am confident, however, that issues of religious liberty should always take a backseat to sexual abuse. Unfortunately the Catholic Church hierarchy does not have its priorities in line. If “His Eminence” is in denial, then it’s time to move on to the next stage of grief: anger. God knows enough Catholic parishioners and Americans are already there.