UNITED KINGDOM
Telegraph
By Stephen Hough
‘The Church is perfect, the spotless Bride of Christ; it is individual members who sin’, so traditional Catholic theology would tell us. From this viewpoint arises the imperative to protect the Church at all costs, and from this attitude has arisen so much of the scandal in recent years: bishops doing all they could to safeguard the reputation of the Church whilst leaving vulnerable children in danger. When Vatican II used the phrase ‘The People of God’ in the document Lumen Gentium in 1964 – suggesting a community before a structure, a living vineyard before the chateau which gave it its name – it marked an important sea change. People need protection not an institution, even one considered to be of divine origin. And all of this becomes painfully clear when it comes to child abuse: nothing should come before the welfare of the vulnerable individual. But vulnerability is not limited to such an extreme situation.
I wrote a post recently on this blog about ‘The O’Brien Moment’, suggesting that this moment of disgrace and embarrassment for Cardinal Keith O’Brien has the potential for great power. The Cardinal was once a defenceless child, growing up in a Church and a society which regarded homosexuality as sinful at best and criminal at worst. I can’t judge if the Cardinal is actually gay but there have obviously been times in his life when he was flooded with powerful same-sex attractions. The deeply imbedded reflex for human beings to find other human beings sexually attractive is the same for all, whether straight or gay; and such attraction is not unrelated to the desire to give and receive love and protection from another. Used well it is one of the noblest things we can experience. A sordid fumble in the dark is not evil as such (as long as it’s between two consenting adults) but is rather a misplaced reflex of a deep-seated desire to give and receive affection – a branch that needs training not pruning.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.