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Can Bishop Geoff Robinson's Bold Initiative to Bring Catholicism Back from the Brink of Oblivion Succeed?

The Catholica
May 14, 2013

http://www.catholica.com.au/gc0/bc3/126_bc_140513.php



Internationally, the Catholic Church continues to slide towards oblivion — or at least towards the "smaller, purer Church" envisaged by Pope Benedict. There are possibly only three ways the slide can be reversed: by the offering of more rosaries and masses for God to intervene and send more vocations and halt the slide; Brian Pitts in our forum today outlines, with the help of Dr Hans Küng, the second way — by a return to the simplicity of the Gospel message of Jesus [LINK]; or the third way, for those who believe if it is to have any chance of restoring credibility in the educated, first world might well be by the program being offered by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson in his new book "For Christ's Sake: End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church ... For Good". The editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne, today offers a review and overview of Bishop Robinson's new book and what he is proposing.

For Christ's Sake : here's a positive contribution you can make to our world...

Let me lay my cards on the table at the outset: I am pessimistic that Catholicism can be restored today to a position of primacy, or even significant relevance any longer, in the big debates that go on in society that shape the future of civilisations. I think we (all of humankind) might be living through a huge sea-change in outlook towards the entire religious and spiritual dimension of life. Religions as influential and large as the Catholic Church have disappeared before today into the sand that archaeologists sift through centuries and millennia later. They all believed their religion would last forever and was guided by some Supreme Deity. I don't believe though we are watching the rise of atheism, or any sort of anarchism, as the significant alternative. Many people today might have been sucked out of the church by the things people like Pope Benedict blame, such as relativism, secularism, consumerism, etc., etc.. Many though still place great importance on the spiritual side of life. They might have given up on the traditional church communities that nourished their forebears, but they are still searching for the language and means of understanding those powerful forces, or that powerful force, that seems to draw us forward to create a better, more civilised and loving world.

Bishop Geoffrey Robinson is about to launch a project on the 3rd June, based around a new book, that outlines one of the two proposals that I believe, outside of some direct miraculous intervention from God himself, offers any hope of bringing Catholicism back from the brink of societal irrelevance. If it is to work though it requires your enthusiastic input.

An overview of the book and its argument...

The best way for me to give you an insight into what Bishop Robinson is proposing is to provide you with an overview of his book. It is not a heavy tome but can be read by the average adult reader in a few hours. It is written in very accessible language. My personal belief is that the sexual abuse crisis afflicting the Church today is merely a symptom of a much deeper malaise and crisis in faith. Not a crisis of faith in God though but a crisis of faith in the leadership of the Church. That though is probably too much of a bite for the average person to chew on. What Bishop Robinson is proposing is a more limited objective of solving the clerical abuse crisis — which most Catholics, and lapsed Catholics, might be enthusiastic about — and, in the process of addressing that particular matter much greater good than that might be achieved. In other words it might lead to some cure of the underlying disease and problems that have caused the clerical abuse crisis to manifest itself.

Bishop Robinson's book is divided into three parts:

  • Part 1: Factors Contributing to Abuse;
  • Part 2: Factors Contributing to the Poor Response; and
  • Part 3: Enabling a Healthy Response
There are fourteen chapters overall and in the First Ten Chapters (Parts 1 and 2) the author outlines the systemic factors that have not only contributed to the abuse crisis — but also the flawed response which has now led to the embarrassment of civil governments having to step in and clean up the church's enormous mess at massive cost to the public purse. In recent days it has been announced that the Royal Commission in Australia is going to cost over four hundred million dollars. One would have expected the Catholic Church, of all institutions in society, to be the one at the forefront of preventing this sort of moral degeneration from occurring. These first ten chapters though might also be profitably read by the more astute reader as pointing to the deeper problems that have led so many to cease practising and believing what the Church has to say about matters way beyond clerical abuse.

Chapters Eleven to Fourteen constitute Part 3 of the book and lead up to Bishop Robinson's proposal for the "voice of the people — the sensus fidelium" to be heard via firstly a petition calling on the Pope to convene a new Vatican Council and one with an immediate focus of addressing the clerical abuse crisis and ending this sort of abuse in the Catholic Church for good. Let's look at the content of the individual chapters:

PART ONE: Factors Contributing to Abuse

1. Moving From a Religion of Fear to a Religion of Love

This Chapter is essentially an argument for a total re-examination of the entire picture we have in our heads of the nature of the relationship into which God calls humankind. A picture has grown up of this "angry God" who runs around perpetually judging us. Is that truly the picture of God that Jesus Christ presented? Bishop Robinson argues we need to re-discover the alternative image of a "loving God", which is equally strong, in our theology. He argues (and you really need to read the entire chapter to see how) that it has been this paradigm of an "angry God" that has contributed significantly to the atmosphere that eventually led to the climate in which clerical abuse occurred. In this chapter Robinson traces the development of morality in human society from way back in the Old Testament. he argues how we are all called to higher standards in moral and spiritual maturity.

2. Moral Immaturity

In this Chapter Bishop Robinson outlines the ways in which we are called to higher levels of maturity and contrasts that with the places in which this hasn't happened. He ends the chapter with:

 The defects in moral teaching that I have highlighted run the serious risk of producing morally immature human beings. I believe that has been a common feature in sexual offenders, contributing to the quite distorted moral thinking that is so prevalent among them ('I'm only showing these boys how to love', 'God made me the way I am, so He must have wanted me to act this way'). There needs to be a concerted effort to bring about healthier and more mature moral thinking.

I have written in the Catholica forum that I think these two opening chapters, if introduced as a core part of the required study in senior high school years would, in themselves, go a long, long way to making Catholicism more intelligible to today's young people.

3. Sexual Morality

In this third Chapter Bishop Robinson essentially rips into the entire distortion that has been introduced into Catholic moral theology in the realms of sexual morality. The way some people think and behave you'd think the only morality Jesus taught was centred around their sexual organs. Bishop Robinson argues at length in this chapter how the distortions about sexual morality have been a significant contributing factor to the rise of sexual abuse. He argues:

 The traditional teaching of the Catholic Church on sexual morality fostered belief in an incredibly angry god. And belief in such an angry god—specifically in the field of sex—has been a most significant contribution to the unhealthy culture I am seeking to describe in this book.

4. The Male Church

One constant theme running through the entire book is this sense that a mature, Jesus-inspired Church, has to embrace and listen to all of its people – lay as well as ordained and vowed but more especially women as well as men. He argues in the first line of this Chapter that "[t]he sexual abuse of minors is overwhelmingly a male problem". Later in the Chapter he argues: "It is surely reasonable to assume that, if women had been given far greater importance and a much stronger voice, the Church would not have seen the same level of abuse and would have responded far better to this overwhelming male problem". He goes on to examine the entire dog's breakfast that has resulted from the attempted commands of the late John Paul II and Benedict XVI to suppress even discussion in the Church on the issue of the ordination of women and argues "if the Pope is not listening to the bishops, then even less will he be listening to the whole Church. This in turn means that there will be no seeking of the opinion of women on any subject of importance, let alone on a subject such as sexual abuse where they might well have some strong things to say about how the Popes themselves and all the men around them have acted."

5. A Culture of Celibacy

Bishop Robinson spends a good deal of this chapter repeating the argument of his earlier book about how not so much celibacy per se, but mandatory or forced celibacy, has contributed to the sexual abuse crisis. He argues:

 Celibacy is a charism that, when freely embraced and accepted by the individual, can produce great gifts for the Church. The example of many saints shows this in a wonderful manner. The Church is on much more precarious ground, however, when this charism is institutionalised in law and required of a whole group of people who, even when striving to be good, are ordinary weak human beings, only some of whom have been or will be saintly."

6. The Mystique of the Priesthood

We, the laity, have helped place priests on some "pedestal of perfection" and they themselves and the culture of the institution has created these unrealistic expectations around the priesthood. It is time to undo the damage this has done – to the priests themselves, and to the institution. The bishop writes from his long experience:

 It is never easy to change an ethos or mystique, but this one must change, for it denies the essential humanity of the priest and so establishes a series of false relationships at the heart of the community. Priests are ordinary human beings. This ought to be obvious to everyone; but authorities, priests and Catholic people all need to consider more closely this truism. I find that wherever there are priests trying to climb down from their pedestal, there are always not only Church authorities, but also many Catholic people insisting that they climb right back up again. The insistence that priests be perfect, or at least appear to be perfect, is very real. An extraordinary number of people believe the naïve idea that 'priests are celibate, so they don't really have sexual desires and feelings the way the rest of us do.'

7. Lack of Professionalism

Continuing his treatment of the priesthood, Geoffrey Robinson, argues in this chapter that seminary selection criteria have to change – and he even expresses scepticism that the changes already forced in recent decades have gone anywhere far enough; and the on-going professional development of priests has to be vastly improved. Much of what he writes is sourced from his own experience both as a priest and, in his later years as an active bishop, in the supervision of priests. He argues for a significant raft of changes in the way the institution presents its priesthood to the world and how priests themselves present themselves to the world.

8. Unhealthy Living Environment

Bishop Robinson begins Chapter Eight with a discussion of historical environments that were unhealthy for priests and religious: such as placing them in charge of orphanages with day-to-day supervision of the most vulnerable young people. Often the people placed in the positions of supervision were the least qualified and mature in the Church. It was a 'time-bomb' waiting to explode and as we know through the stories of women like Ann Thompson from our own Catholica community, and the now numerous documentaries on orphanages, we know it did. Geoffrey Robinson goes on to argue though there are many other "unhealthy living environments" for priests most notably the priests increasingly living alone and struggling with the loneliness of their calling.

PART TWO: Factors Contributing to the Poor Response

9. Right Beliefs v Right Actions

Part Two of the book – Chapters 9 and 10 – turn their attention to two major systemic failings in the institution and its leadership that have contributed significantly to the sexual abuse crisis. Bishop Robinson argues:

 Protecting the good name of any institution or society one belongs to is a univeral human phenomenon. One sees it in families, clans, tribes, nations, governments, political parties, commercial enterprises, football clubs and, indeed, any group where people come together and invest their energy and good name. A Church, however, is particularly vulnerable to this danger, for it feels more strongly that it is essential that it appear perfect. ... The [sexual abuse] scandal has been so massive that it has led to even the best of Catholics to feel there is something rotten at the heart of the Church. To speak only of wrong action by individuals is seen as a shuffling of deckchairs on the Titanic. If right beliefs continue to be seen as far more important than even this scale of wrong actions, the Church would have little future. To overcome this scandal, it must look at itself again from the foundations up, and that must include looking at laws and beliefs such as those I have already mentioned.

The bishop ends this chapter with a pretty withering criticism of the tendency in the recent history of the Church to be promoting "theologically safe" individuals into the higher management ranks of the institution. This echoes the criticism I've been making on Catholica that they have ceased recruiting, or even promoting, "the best and brightest". If the Church is to have a future it has to cease this thinking and behaviour.

10. Papal Infallibility and Prestige

Bishop Robinson in this Chapter lets rip on the massive damage done not so much by the concept of infallibility but the phenomenon of creeping infallibility and the ways popes have been placed on a pedestal even higher than the one priests in general have been placed on. This culture – or is it cult? – of loyalty to the Holy Father is reinforced by the oath of fidelity and obedience all bishops have to take to the pope on their elevation to the episcopal ranks. They become afraid to speak honestly to the pope and offer honest advice that they are discerning from their pastorial experience at the local level. He ends the chapter with a discussion of the Italian cultural failing of 'bella figura' – keeping up appearances, or putting on a good appearance, whatever the underlying reality of filth, scandal or corruption might be the reality of any family, community, political party, government or even the Catholic Church. He argues:

 The responses to abuse must be total. In seeking to abolish both abuse and the poor response, we must be free to follow the argument wherever it leads, and we cannot place obstacles in the way. We cannot say, 'We must not even discuss this point because such and such laws or teachings prohibit it' or 'We cannot even discuss that other point because it would affect papal authority and prestige.' It is precisely this attitude—more than anything else—that has, I believe, got in the way of a full, honest, humble and compassionate response to both abuse and the poor response to abuse.

PART THREE: Enabling a Healthy Response

Bishop Robinson does not mention Cardinal Newman by name but Chapter 12 is a wonderful exposition of the thinking of Cardinal Newman in that wonderful series of essays he wrote in the 19th Century leading up to the First Vatican Council that was eventually published as the book "On Consulting the Faithful in Matters of Doctrine". The Church is not just the bishops, the cardinals and the pope. It is the entire "people of God". Just as Newman argued nearly one and a half centuries ago, the Church needs to represent to the world the voice of the entire assembly – the entire "people of God". While there are historical precedents for people other than bishops to be attending a Council and having a vote, Robinson – and the other bishops and people who support him – is essentially attempting to open up a global debate here:

 There is no reason why there cannot be significant numbers of non-bishops, especially laity, appointed as members of this new Council. I am not concerned here to present a fixed plan for such a Council, but in the next chapter I shall attempt to show that a new type of Council is at least possible and so to start a conversation concerning how it would work.

13. A New Council for a New Church

One of the challenges facing the Church in the half century since the Second Vatican Council is that the number of bishops in the world has doubled (in an almost inverse ratio to the rate people in the Western world have been deserting the pews, LOL). There is simply a logistical problem today in finding a place to accommodate six thousand bishops. St Peter's Basilica wouldn't be big enough. Robinson argues though that the inclusion of voices representing priests, religious and lay people might require a Council with ten thousand people participating. Logistically impossible you might think – not to mention prohibitively expensive financially. Geoffrey Robinson argues cogently though that by utilising modern technologies and a structured series of Local and Regional Councils it will be possible to develop a system – particularly if the end objectives are limited (i.e. just addressing the sexual abuse crisis) – that can embrace input from a representative selection of the entire "people of God".

This Chapter will leave the reader with many further questions – the bishop did say he was attempting to open up a conversation – and he attempts to elicit and address some of these in an Appendix to the book that will be of interest to readers who are particularly interested in logistics and how such an endeavour might be managed and organised.

14. The Voice of the People of God

Chapter 14 is a one and a quarter page summarising argument to motivate you, the reader, to get off your backside and demand a bit of action:

 Catholic people have not been used to telling bishops, let alone popes, what to do, but on the issue of abuse that is definitely changing. They have become intensely critical of the bishops and are not satisfied with verbal apologies from the Pope or, indeed, with any response that consists of mere words. What is needed is such a groundswell of public opinion by the Catholic people around the world that it eventually becomes a roar that even the Pope would hear. To achieve this, I would like to see millions of Catholic people from many countries signing a petition similar to the following:

The book then presents the wording of the petition and you can read, and sign it, online at:

www.change.org/forchristssake

As I argued in the introduction to this commentary, there are basically three options on the table to reverse the decline of institutional Catholicism to this "smaller, purer Church" envisaged by Pope Benedict that is basically irrelevant to society at large:
  • We can continue praying that this "all powerful God" will eventually intervene and "convert all the lapsi and heathen", and provide some great turn around in people "answering the call of vocations" and return the Church to its place of prestige and primacy in human affairs;
  • We can place hope in the sort of thing Brian Pitts and Hans Küng are discussing on our forum and in this week's Tablet that Pope Francis bypasses all the dogma and academic discussion — starve the pharisees and fttms of oxygen — and relies on the simplicity of the Gospel to re-vitalise the Church in a manner akin to St Francis of Assisi; or
  • We can explore this option offered by Bishop Geoff Robinson and his supporters which attempts to provide a response to the systemic and structural failings that have reduced the institution to the point where in the educated world nearly 90% of the baptised have given up listening and participating.
Take your pick. If the Almighty hasn't yet responded to the billions of decades of the rosary and masses that have been offered up for vocations and the health of the Church since I was in short pants, I honestly do not have any faith that he is going to have a change of heart and start intervening because Pope Francis is now in the chair. This crisis the Church faces today has been brought about by human failings and it is up to us to fix them.

I do think the second option — which might be the tactic Pope Francis adopts — may have a chance of success. I think it is a big "if" though. The disenchantment I pick up in the generations that followed my own is severe and I don't believe that can be addressed except by the Church owning up to the fact that is was wrong about a lot of other things besides the sexual abuse of young people if it is to regain their trust and respect.

My personal position is that what Bishops Geoffrey Robinson, Bill Morris and Pat Power are offering is potentially the most exciting thing that has happened in Catholicism since the Second Vatican Council. If I'm wrong about society being in the midst of an enormous sea-change in approach to its understanding of religion, spirituality and the place of the Divine in our lives and history, this has the greatest prospects of achieving some positive change. I strongly urge you to get hold of a copy of Bishop Robinson's book and, if you are persuaded by his arguments, to get behind this endeavour.

11. The College of Bishops

In part three the author turns to discuss what might be done to End Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church ... for Good! What the bishop offers might also go a long, long way to get the Church back on track to the evangelising mission it was charged with by Jesus and to again occupy a place of respect in society at large and even being looked up to as a place of authority and primacy on discussion of all matters connected with morality and spirituality.

In four tightly argued pages, Chapter 11 examines the various mechanisms for change and reform that exist within the structure of the institution. Bishop Robinson concludes that the best option is for a full Council of the entire Church but with a limited objective confined to addressing the causes and factors that have led to the sexual abuse scandal.

12. The Sensus Fidei of the Whole Church




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