Let's Move Forward

I keep hoping that a fresh breeze (the Holy Spirit?) will blow through the corridors of the Vatican and "air out" the fecund and stagnant atmosphere surrounding the Church's handling of the abuse crisis. Like Peggy Noonan in her excellent Wall Street Journal column a couple of weeks ago, (click here), I despaired because the prisoners have been guarding the prison:

Many—not all, but many—of the men who staff the highest levels of the Vatican have been part of the very scandal they are now charged with repairing. They are defensive and they are angry, and they will not turn the church around on their own.

I despaired, however, until I read a transcript (translated from Italian by the National Catholic Reporter) of Pope Benedict's comments to reporters aboard his plane on his way to Portugal on May 10

(A)ttacks against the Pope or the Church don’t come just from outside the Church. The suffering of the Church also comes from within the Church, because sin exists in the church. This too has always been known, but today we see it in a really terrifying way. The greatest persecution of the Church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside, but is born in sin within the Church. The Church thus has a deep need to re-learn penance, to accept purification, to learn on one hand forgiveness but also the necessity of justice. Forgiveness does not exclude justice. We have to re-learn the essentials: conversion, prayer, penance, and the theological virtues. That’s how we respond, and we can be realistic in expecting that evil will always launch attacks from within and from outside, but the forces of good are also always present, and finally the Lord is stronger than evil. The Madonna for us is the visible maternal guarantee that the will of God is always the last word in history.

No blaming the messenger here. There is much to criticize in the way the press has covered this scandal. We must remember, however, that the Fourth Estate did not fabricate the sordid details of this saga or the account of its coverup. If those predisposed to hate Catholics were given fodder for their bigotry, the Church has no one to blame but itself. The only way that the we can begin to counter this negative sentiment, is by engaging in a dispassionate, open dialogue with our critics (see the fascinating exchange [click here] between Scott Appleby, Notre Dame Professor of History and New York Times Executive Editor, Bill Keller).

The Pope finally seems to be showing a willingness to conduct (as those Catholics among us learned in the second grade) an examination of conscience. The Church has gone astray many times in it's history, but over the long term it has never swerved from its inexorable march toward oneness with Christ Jesus and his message of love for all mankind.

I leave this subject on a hopeful note. Let's pray that the revelation of the sad secret history of these scandals will result in a stronger Church with a less arrogant hierarchy. The Church can then get on with God's work, which it has done for over 2,000 years.