Priestly Paedophilia

It seems unlikely that Pope Benedict XVI will read and pay close attention to what I write here. But the main function of blogs, as ever, is to make the writer feel better.

I wish the Pope had not apologised, as he did at inordinate length, to the RC church and people of Ireland, for the many instances of priestly paedophilia which are being revealed almost daily. Benedict’s apology is at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7069664.ece

I can’t bring myself to read it closely.

Of course the media have also decided, from their once-over-lightly reading of history, that a papal apology is unprecedented -- popes simply don’t say sorry -- and therefore this one highlights the severity of the crisis.

Well, crisis indeed it is. Ireland has long been famous for clergy abuse, including sustained brutality of children, girls and women, the handicapped and helpless, in its schools and orphanages and other “Christian and charitable” institutions. But Ireland has never had any monopoly on this human disease. The latest is from Bavaria, the Pope’s own Heimat, where the Pope’s own brother, Father Georg, used to slap around the boys in the prestigious choir of Ravensburg Cathedral, the Domspazen, the Cathedral Sparrows. Stories of abuse are flooding in from almost everywhere. The USA, some years ago, was only the start, probably because it has more people aware of the possibilities of litigation and compensation.

But this is now beyond apology. The Pope should have made a simple address from his position of awesome power and prestige in the church, and said: It is a crisis. I intend to deal with it. These activities, whatever their cause, are intolerable. They are an abuse of power inconsistent with the way of Christ. Priests and others in the church who abuse children will be expelled, and I am instructing the bishops accordingly. The church will no longer make arrangements for monetary compensation -- that is a matter for the civil courts.

Apologies have become a pastime in our culture, and they are largely worthless. I dealt with this in my own way some time ago, in my blog http://rosssmoment.blogspot.com/2009_05_01_archive.html

Of course, the media have now decided that the real problem is not the abuse itself, but the historic unwillingness of bishops to deal with the offending priests decisively. The bishops have been simply transferring them elsewhere. Crimes have been getting concealed from the police. There has been, and remains, a ecclesiastical culture of coverup. Thus, the church has been and is complicit in crime.

Well, it’s quite simple. All this has to cease. The Pope could instruct the bishops accordingly. The coverup has been disgusting. The expectation of the priests that mother church would protect them has to give way to the manifest right of children and others to protection from predatory priests, users, bullies, sadists, nohopers…

Obviously there are many contributory causes. The insistence on celibacy is one of them, but only one. Compulsory vocational celibacy outside monasteries is a silly, unnecessary and false doctrine.

Also, there is the malignant culture of power in the church. Hierarchy. Nothing could be less consonant with the way of Christ. Priests living apart and wielding power over the flock. Bishops poncing around in medieval gear and issuing orders. The miracle is that, within this structure, there have been so many christlike, scholarly, wise and thoughtful people, so many non-abusive and horrified by all this.

When John XXIII said he wanted the windows thrown open, one wonders now if he was thinking also of this whole area of clergy abuse and misuse of power.

Then there is the issue of vocation. Who becomes a priest, or a nun, or a minister or pastor? Who knows? There are complex admission procedures, tests, assessments. But it remains a human issue, and no one understands the echoes of personal loneliness or resentment, the subterranean areas where decisions may get made. Only a wise and developed theology of human fallenness and redemption can cope with this.

The victims…? It’s sad, profoundly sad. But victimhood is a chosen state. No one has to be a victim. I realise how unpolitical this statement is -- but it is possible to get over it, to get on with life. That may be the main and heroic task.

Meanwhile, it is utterly tragic that all this continues now to be dealt with on the level of who should pay for what happened.