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The Sex Abuse Scandal and a Lost Sense of Catholic History

By Massimo Faggioli
La Croix International
November 21, 2018

https://international.la-croix.com/news/the-sex-abuse-scandal-and-a-lost-sense-of-catholic-history/8896



The clergy sex abuse crisis has become an integral part of the current narrative of Catholicism. But we are still trying to find precedents in history to make sense of this moment. There are two major hypotheses on the similarities between today’s situation and other periods of turmoil.The first hypothesis was articulated recently by Cardinal Walter Brandmuller, a well-regarded Church historian who was one of the four cardinals who signed the dubia against Pope Francis. The German cardinal sees a precedent for today’s crisis in the 11th-12th centuries. It was during this period that St. Peter Damiani, in 1049, urged Pope Leo IX to take strong action against concubinage and homosexuality among the clergy.Around the same time the laity of Milan rose up and called for similar reforms in what was known as the Pataria or Patarine movement (which has some similarities with the current dynamic between Rome and U.S. Catholics).Another hypothesis sees a precedent to today’s abuse crisis in the Protestant Reformation of the 16th century due to similarities in the complex interplay between theological, cultural, and geopolitical rifts.There is no question that these two periods — the 11th-12th centuries and then the 16th century — represented the most important moments of reform in the Church’s structure and ecclesiology in the second millennium leading up to the Second Vatican Council (1962-65).On the other hand, Church historians tend to be more realistic about the effectiveness and limits of reform.For instance, it’s true that the there was a forceful movement...

 

 

 

 

 




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