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Thinking Outside the Box

by Paul Varnell – July 1-7, 2010

Catholic Church to Obey Law

The Catholic Church in India made a startling statement in May. It said it would henceforth report claims of sexual abuse by clergy to the civil authorities.

The statement was startling not so much because the Catholic Church was obeying the law, but because it indicated that the church has not been reporting priestly abuse to civil authorities up to now.

As a church that sees itself as divinely instituted (based on what is surely a late, inauthentic addition to one of the gospels), the church has usually had a strained relationship with civil authorities and has vigorously resisted all governmental attempts to investigate its internal operations.

To maintain its autonomy, the church has employed a variety of dissimulations (discussed at length at the radio program “This American Life”), subterfuges and a virtual shell game regarding responsibility. And it has employed an extensive panoply of excuses, blaming variously modern sexual liberation doctrines, homosexuals, vaguely specified “enemies of the church” and a hostile press (led by the New York Times) for its current problems.

But the result was that abusive priests were seldom punished. At most they were transferred to a different diocese, where they could continue their behavior, with no explanation to the old or the new parish of why the change was made. Or abusive priests were sent off to a supposed therapy treatment (which almost never works) or told to practice prayer and repentance. (How many genuinely repented their behavior is unknown.) Few if any were laicized or defrocked. After all, the Catholic Church has a shortage of priests as it is.

This is a widespread phenomenon: In Europe and the U.S. there has been extensive coverage of the claims by youths who say they were sexually abused. Already three, or is it now four, bishops have resigned as a result of questions raised about their handling of the abusive priest issue. And all this has apparently generated a virtue sea-change in the church’s attitude as it gets a black eye for its inaction.

Finally the Pope has spoken out about the issue. Here is what he said: “The greatest persecution of the church does not come from enemies outside the church but is born from the sin inside the church. The church has a profound need to learn on the one hand forgiveness, but also the necessity of justice.”

This is a remarkable statement of a new attitude. What we all await now are actions that will give life to these fine sentiments from the pope, indicating a fairly complete turnaround. The proof of the pudding…

Comments can be emailed to Paul at Pvarnell@aol.com.