AUSTRALIA
Green Left Weekly
Thursday, November 15, 2012
By Karl Hand
“The time has come for judgment to begin in the house of the Lord,” said the Apostle Peter to the early Christian Church (1 Peter 4:17). Very different issues were being faced then, but not too different. The church was facing intense public scrutiny, and Peter said that the suffering would be a cleansing experience. Those who were guilty (murderers, thieves and criminals, v. 15) would be exposed for what they are, and the innocent (v. 16) would be vindicated.
But ever since the alliance of church and state power, beginning in the fourth century, and coming to its climax when Pope Innocent IV appointed the Holy Roman Emperor in the 13th century, the Christian Church has managed to avoid the spiritual purification that comes from being held accountable for your actions by a secular state.
Sleaze
The sexual abuse of children by priests, and the systematic cover-ups by the church hierarchy, are the manifestation of a deeper rot – a lack of insight into the appropriate use of pastoral power.
Michel Foucault has described pastoral power as control over the destiny of a group of people, and individuals within that group, rationalised on the basis of the ancient oriental metaphor of a shepherd caring for sheep. According to Foucault, the acquisition of this kind of power by the medieval church laid the foundation for the governments of modern nation-states.
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