Unjustly Accused
Posted by Rebecca Teti in News on Tuesday, March 16, 2010 2:00 PM
The Church in Germany, like the American church before it, is facing up to the misdeeds of certain clergy and failure to confront those sins adequately at the time.
(That’s about as nicely as I can treat such an ugly topic in this forum.)
The good news is, Pope Benedict is and has been on the forefront of forthright confrontation of these matters.
The bad news is, many in the press, particularly in Europe, are unjustly trying to connect the Holy Father to a case of abuse.
Over at our sister site, Jimmy Akin has a good post explaining the rank injustice of some of the headlines you may be seeing.
This is a difficult topic to discuss because the nature of the sin involved is so base that we (or I, anyway) mostly can’t think of anything but the horror suffered by genuine victims of abuse and the immense damage done to the Church and the priesthood by these kinds of crimes. I personally have three college friends who have left the Church because they have simply and genuinely been scandalized. And I understand them.
It is an injustice, however, to try to lay the burden of guilt at the foot of the Holy Father. Of all the figures in the Church since we all first became aware of the pedophilia scandals, he appears to me to be the most vocal and forthright in response.
Jimmy Akin links to a fascinating interview with Msgr. Scicluna, who is essentially the Church’s chief prosecutor in cases of what is known as “grave delict.” He says of the accusation that the Pope has somehow been negligent:
That accusation is false and calumnious. On this subject I would like to highlight a number of facts. Between 1975 and 1985 I do not believe that any cases of paedophilia committed by priests were brought to the attention of our Congregation. Moreover, following the promulgation of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, there was a period of uncertainty as to which of the “delicta graviora” were reserved to the competency of this dicastery. Only with the 2001 “Motu Proprio” did the crime of paedophilia again become our exclusive remit. From that moment Cardinal Ratzinger displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases, “sine acceptione personarum” [without respect to persons]. Therefore, to accuse the current Pontiff of a cover-up is, I repeat, false and calumnious.
It was I’m sure then- Cardinal Ratzinger’s experiences with such cases that led him to pen his famous and beautiful 9th station meditation from the 2005 Stations of the Cross:
What can the third fall of Jesus under the Cross say to us? We have considered the fall of man in general, and the falling of many Christians away from Christ and into a godless secularism. Should we not also think of how much Christ suffers in his own Church? How often is the holy sacrament of his Presence abused, how often must he enter empty and evil hearts! How often do we celebrate only ourselves, without even realizing that he is there! How often is his Word twisted and misused! What little faith is present behind so many theories, so many empty words! How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to him! How much pride, how much self-complacency! What little respect we pay to the Sacrament of Reconciliation, where he waits for us, ready to raise us up whenever we fall! All this is present in his Passion. His betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison – Lord, save us (cf. Mt 8: 25).
This meditation was followed by a prayer:
Lord, your Church often seems like a boat about to sink, a boat taking in water on every side. In your field we see more weeds than wheat. The soiled garments and face of your Church throw us into confusion. Yet it is we ourselves who have soiled them! It is we who betray you time and time again, after all our lofty words and grand gestures. Have mercy on your Church; within her too, Adam continues to fall. When we fall, we drag you down to earth, and Satan laughs, for he hopes that you will not be able to rise from that fall; he hopes that being dragged down in the fall of your Church, you will remain prostrate and overpowered. But you will rise again. You stood up, you arose and you can also raise us up. Save and sanctify your Church. Save and sanctify us all.
I have no intention of bashing our bishops, many of whom in our own American crisis were innocent men forced to carry the burden of cleaning up after their predecessors. But I longed at the height of the scandals in our own Church to have someone in leadership speak not only in the technical language of “regret” and “steps will be taken,” but also in the moral language of horror and shame. No doubt many did in their own dioceses, and in their meetings with victims, but I felt the absence of a “red-blooded” public response keenly. I therefore could have kissed Pope Benedict when he came to the States and even before he’d landed he said this before going on to a more technical answer:
It is a great suffering for the Church in the United States and for the Church in general, for me personally, that this could happen. If I read the history of these events, it is difficult for me to understand how it was possible for priests to fail in this way in the mission to give healing, to give God’s love to these children. I am ashamed and we will do everything possible to ensure that this does not happen in future.
Then, if you’ll recall, while he was here he quietly met with victims of abuse without announcing the meeting beforehand so as not to use these people further—a gesture he has repeated on pastoral visits elsewhere.
I think the Pope has been a fearless prosecutor, a just administrator and a sensitive pastor in these ugly cases, and I can’t bear to see him calumniated.
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