Inside
NCR
American women religious are not
only the stalwarts of the church in action. Their congregations are also a
living history of who we are as American Catholics and where we came from, as
well as a living U.S. history.
A sidelight on the Loretto story (see Page 14) reminds us what
this country once held. Loretto Sr. Patricia Manion, who takes people on the
Santa Fe and Oregon trails, in her book Beyond the Adobe Wall, captures
the excitement and newness facing the four brave sisters who set off from St.
Louis for New Mexico in 1852. On that journey Sr. Magdalen Hayden wrote
nothing gave us so much alarm as the Indians, at one time we were
surrounded by some thousand
whether through curiosity or in order to
frighten us, I do not know. Perhaps for both purposes.
The sisters had their first buffalo dinner, shot by a
hunter from the thousands of bison
overwhelming
herds in
thousands in a wave.
A world gone by. Blessedly, their sister descendants are very much
still a part of our lives. Those wishing to make the Santa Fe Trail Loretto
150th anniversary commemorative trip can contact
www.lorettocommunity.org.
The recent sex abuse scandal has
been likened to a wound in a body; someone else has said it is like a fever, a
sign that the body is dealing with deep hurt. Such images come to mind easily
for Catholics who are so steeped in that sense of connection, one to another.
When one part of the body is wounded, we all hurt. So we look to signs that we
are breaking through the ache to some kind of healing. We cant be too
quick in our expectations. Thats why the recent round of extended
apologies from the pulpits seems not to have made much difference.
But there was an act of sorrow and remorse that I found
profoundly moving (see story Page 10). The original report was done by the
gifted religion writer, David Briggs, whose work on this subject for the
Cleveland Plain Dealer is a splendid example of the craft. Briggs and
James F. McCarty wrote a recent series on the sex abuse scandal in the
Cleveland diocese that painted a not very flattering picture of Bishop Anthony
Pilla, under whose leadership victims were often further victimized by
aggressive legal tactics.
In a story that appeared after the series, Briggs describes the
scene of Pilla washing the feet of a woman who, as a child, was sexually abused
by a priest and then treated badly by the church. That scene speaks more than
hours of homilies and prepared-text apologies. It appears a genuine act of
love, a pastor restored to what he was called to do, and a member of the
community, forgiving and urging forgiveness.
The examples and lessons that emanate from those simple activities
on a Holy Thursday night are not only deeply moving, they also begin to point
the way to health and healing better than any set of plans or strategies. They
involved an act of trust by the bishop. It was he, this time, who became
vulnerable and dependent on the response of a woman who had been deeply
wounded. It was the kind of connection, human to human, that has been missing
in this awful crisis and one that will have to be reestablished over the long
haul of healing.
Though it was in the right direction, it was a tiny step. The
power of the moment will only be fulfilled by credible acts of the clergy, real
compassion for victims, zero tolerance for the abuse of youngsters, putting
into place a variety of programs for parishioners and priests dealing with sex
abuse, and a serious and deep examination of the secretive clergy culture that
allowed children to be harmed and then protected the perpetrators.
-- Tom Roberts
My e-mail address is troberts@natcath.org
National Catholic Reporter, April 12,
2002
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