“Sorrow” by Auguste Rodin 1881-1882 Reading reports of the trial of Monsignor Lynn, the first Roman Catholic church official to be tried in the US in the sexual abuse scandal, I remembered a column I wrote two years ago that dealt with the issue of hierarchy culpability and the need for accountability and repentance. During that Holy Week news of widespread abuse in Europe and Ireland was making headlines. The column was never printed. I knew it would not be, yet I had to write it; I had to put into words the betrayal and frustration I, along with many other Catholics, felt.
Two years later, the news again is of complicity and cover up, but this time, an official of the Church is on trial. I say it is about time. The monsignor’s defense claims that he passed the information on to the now deceased Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and others in the Philadelphia archdiocese. No matter. The cardinal is now beyond the reach of civil law, and the defense is the same “passing the buck” that we have heard for over a decade. Civil authorities should have been contacted. The Monsignor could have spoken out. As Rowan Williams, head of the Anglican Church, said two years ago in an interview, when forced to choose between protecting itself and revealing secrets that could damage their image, Christian institutions have chosen the former. He continued, Weve learned that that is damaging, its wrong, its dishonest and it requires that very hard recognition which ought to be natural for the Christian church based as it is on repentance and honesty.
Again the news surfaces during Holy Week, when Good Friday offers theGood Friday offers an opportunity for the Church to admit wrongdoing, repent, and ask for forgiveness, as all Christians are encouraged to do. Will this Good Friday pass as it did two years ago without church hierarchy taking advantage of it? I imagine so. Until it is grasped, and Church leadership is honest with itself and with the world, its credibility is lost and more faithful will find other communities to join for worship and Christian life.
………………………………………………………….Old Man in Sorrow by Vincent van Gogh
Below is my unpublished column from Lent, 2010….
I write this column at the beginning of the Triduum with a few things on my mind. First is todays feast, the liturgy celebrating the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist. I love this liturgy, and attended faithfully until a decade ago when I was smoked out by a priest overzealous in his use of incense. As billows of it rolled down the center aisle, I made my way to the closest exit and spent the remainder of the service waiting in the car for my husband. I have attended sporadically since then, always on the lookout for celebrants who insist on using large gestures when a smidgen of the smelly stuff would do.
Still, I love the feast. Eucharist is at the center of my spirituality. In times of distress and struggle as well as of quotidian and joy, the desire to receive Communion often is what drew me to church. The scholastic attempt to explain the presence of God with transubstantiation, substance, and accidents had nothing to do with my experience of the Mystery. Why try to figure out how the glorious impossible is possible? I prefer to dance with the mystery of the Holy Ones longing to bring us to union in a most ordinary and extraordinary way. I, and I venture many other Catholics, rely instead on personal experience of the sustenance and strength that floods my being when I share in the Eucharist.
The next day of the Triduum is Good Friday, a time for prayer and reflection on the suffering and death of Jesus as well as on our sin that contributes to ongoing pain and evil in the world. I often am aware of emptiness – Jesus is closed up in the tomb, not yet risen to flood the world with light and hope. Once, walking through the woods on Good Friday night, I stepped on a board that had been left near a narrow creek, perhaps for use in crossing the water. One end of the board leapt up when my foot came down on the other. It seemed tense, eager. I stopped and looked around; the whole wood seemed to be waiting. That is Good Fridays gift: awareness of emptiness and the need for God to fill it up.
This Good Friday, newspapers report sexual abuse scandals breaking out across Europe. Many Americans are saying enough already, having gone through a similar flood of revelations. Some think the Church is being attacked, but I see this as a Good Friday event. It is time to face the reality again. We hear familiar outrage against the priests who have committed the crimes and the zero tolerance stance that the American Church has taken. What is rarely heard, and in my opinion what must be heard, is acceptance by the hierarchy of their part in enabling the scandal to reach the proportions that it did by shuffling offending priests around under a veil of secrecy.
Todays news (Gillian Flaccus, AP) reveals a letter written in 1963 by Rev. Fitzgerald, head of the Servants of the Holy Paraclete, an order that treated pedophile priests, warning Pope Pius VI of the danger of returning these men to ministry. The Pope had requested Rev. Fitzgerald to write the letter after the two had spoken in person about the situation. What is particularly disturbing is the rather offhand way Tod Tameberg, a spokesman for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, dismissed papal responsibility by saying the Pope probably never saw the letter. How can that be, if he requested it? Was the request disingenuous? If not, why was he not given the letter to read. I know such correspondence passes through the hands of secretaries. Understandable. But why would the Pope not have read the opinion he asked for?
These statements, these realities make many Catholics feel betrayed, not only by the priests who committed such acts, but also by those in leadership roles who will not accept responsibility for their complicity. This is surely a Good Friday experience for the Church.
A well-spent Good Friday leads to the celebration of Easter, which is brightening our days this week. I wish a blessed, happy Easter for all. I hope for a resurrection and time of renewal for our Church, which, after owning sins of commission and omission as we all must, will enjoy the new life of Easter.
Speak Your Mind