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Church in
Crisis Commentary As Peter said: Repent, be baptized
The following was an Easter homily delivered by Fr. Bob
Oldershaw, pastor of St. Nicholas Church in Evanston, Ill.
I want to speak with you today about
clerical sexual misconduct with minors. The constant flood of reports about the
church, priests and bishops tells us of sin, failure, betrayal of trust, a
reckless ineptitude and a disregard for truth and justice.
How can we not be affected? How can we not be absorbed in powerful
anger, grief and sadness? How can we not be cut to the heart by
this profoundly troubling scandal, like the people in Jerusalem blistered by
Peters preaching? Can our question be any different than theirs? What
must we do?
First, we must look at the wounded body of Christ of which we are
all members, the Christ who himself bore our sins in his body on the
cross so that, free from sins, we might live for righteousness. This body
is wounded by sin and evil.
When we look at clerical sexual abuse we are looking into the jaws
of sin and evil. There is the broken trust of priests and bishops with
individual victims. There are the attempts of some bishops to cover up their
crimes in order to protect their image instead of addressing the reality of
evil in their midst. There is the sin of reassigning abusive priests to other
parishes where they could again violate children. This sin, whether it happened
10 months ago or 30 years ago, whether it is the abuse itself or the attempt to
deny, avoid or camouflage it, is fundamentally about the use and misuse of
power.
This was understood in a letter I received this week from a parish
member. She wrote: Most, if not all the problems surrounding clerical
misconduct both with children and women religious, stem from related systemic
aspects of the church -- an abuse of power and the complicity of the all-male
priesthood in protecting and serving that power. These are harsh words
but we need to hear them.
This abuse of power is not only a sin. It is a crime. The abuse
itself that has physically, psychologically and spiritually damaged hundreds,
perhaps thousands, of children and their families, and the failure on the part
of church leadership to report credible allegations to public authorities is
criminal. No one is above the law, especially when it comes to the protection
of children. Being beyond the statute of limitations or where reporting is not
mandated makes it no less criminal.
It is a psychological aberration in most instances. Most abusers
are in the grip of a crippling, compulsive disorder that is marked by denial
and self-delusion. Current research indicates that pedophilia, the sexual abuse
of prepubescent children, is treatable but not curable. Ephebophilia, the
attraction to adolescents, appears to be both treatable and curable. This was
not clearly understood 20 years ago. It may not be fully understood even today.
But in no case should a person who has been so-called cured be in a
situation with either prepubescent or adolescent children. None of this
exonerates either the abuser or the church. Over the years, young people have
been hurt and scarred forever. The denial and self-delusion not only marked the
abuser but branded the churchs leadership.
The most common abusers
Clerical misconduct with minors is not restricted to Catholic
priests. It is a subset of a much larger and pervasive problem of child
victimization found in every religious community, in every profession and
mostly in the family. The Christian Science Monitor reports that
most congregations hit by sexual abuse are Protestant, and abusers are church
volunteers. Psychologists tell us that the profile of a pedophile is a white,
middle-aged, married male. This would challenge assumptions that sexual abuse
of minors is necessarily related to either celibacy or homosexuality. None of
this data mitigates the terrible evil and often irreparable damage done by
priest abusers who, held to a high standard, violated a sacred trust bestowed
on them through ordination.
It has been suggested that this has been blown out of proportion
by the media who have given the impression that a large number of priests have
been preying on minors. The scandal may be misunderstood at times, but that
does not mean it is overblown. One priest abuser is one too many. And, as the
CEO of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights said last week:
It is a lie to say that the media created the problem. We created the
problem. It is not Catholic bashing to report on it.
What must we do? Peter responded: Repent and be
baptized. Our church has a responsibility to reach out to victims who
have experienced tremendous pain and hurt and to their families whose lives
have been affected by sexual abuse of their child. We need to comply with and
exceed the law in order to protect the innocent. Models like that established
by Cardinal Joseph Bernardin more than 10 years ago, with a lay-dominated
committee, including a victim or victims relative, a non-clerical
gatekeeper and a well-publicized hotline must become standard and mandatory
across the country. And they need to be reviewed periodically to see if they
are working.
There must be honest dialogue, efforts to heal, forgive and
support and an urgent quest for whatever can be restorative for victims,
perpetrators and the community at large.
What must we do? We bishops, we priests? Repent and be baptized.
Our bishops need to repent and be baptized, to be plunged into the pain and
suffering of their people. They must be willing to listen humbly to their
peoples complaints and opinions. Transparency and accountability must
replace the closed, secretive and authoritarian modes that have helped to cover
up the abuse for so long. We need to open the windows of the church as Pope
John XXIII did 40 years ago. It is also time to stop saying that certain topics
are off limits for discussion in the church. As much as we need closed files to
be opened, so too we need closed topics to be opened -- womens
ordination, married priests, celibacy, authority, discipline and equality.
Loyalty has always been upward. Its time to change the direction.
Acquiescence in the culture
We priests, too, bear responsibility for our acquiescence in the
Catholic clerical culture that has impeded efforts to detect and remove priest
molesters. We need to join the bishops in apologizing to victims and their
families, to you, and to the whole community. But apologies, however heartfelt,
are not enough. We need to repent and atone for the sins of our brothers.
As your pastor, I stand before this community on the eve of my
40th anniversary as a priest, and I apologize with all my heart and strength
for the sins of my brother priests and bishops. I pledge to do whatever is
necessary to heal the wounded body of Christ.
What must we do? What must you do, you, the laity of the church?
Vatican II in the Constitution on the Church, says: The laity
have the right to receive from their pastors the spiritual goods of the church.
By reason of their knowledge and competence, they are sometimes obliged to
express their opinion on things which concern the good of the church.
You are the best-educated and most fully engaged Catholic laity in
the churchs history. Spend your baptism. Hold your bishops and priests
accountable. You have a right to comprehensive reports on how your
contributions are being used to further the mission of the church. You have a
right to be informed about priests who have credible allegations brought
against them for various kinds of misbehavior, not only sexual transgressions.
You have a right to see more laywomen and laymen in church leadership
roles.
What must we do -- all of us? Repent and be baptized! The body of
Christ is wounded. It has borne many wounds throughout the past two millennia.
What must we, what can we do together to heal those wounds? The gospel speaks
of Jesus as Shepherd, Jesus as Gatekeeper. In Israel, the shepherd often was
the gate for the sheep. He lay down in the entrance of the enclosure at night
so a wolf or other marauder would have to pass over his body to get at the
sheep. Ultimately we are all both shepherd and gatekeeper. You, the laity of
the church, we the priests and bishops, are all shepherds who must keep the
gate and protect the vulnerable from marauders. And the vulnerable can be
people of the Middle East or those of the Midwest, our children, our girls and
boys.
Good touch, bad touch
I want to speak for a moment to you girls and boys -- the children
of our community. We have been talking about you and our concerns for you. You
are our treasure, our most cherished gift, which we hold in trust together. You
are our future, the future leaders of our church. We want you to be safe,
secure and happy. What must you do? Yes, there is something for you to do, too.
In school you have learned about good touch and bad touch. Pay
attention to that. If you ever feel uncomfortable because of someones bad
touch, tell your mom or dad or someone dear to you. Never hesitate, never be
afraid!
Sisters and brothers, as members of this wounded body of Christ,
we all need to atone for the sins of the church and beg forgiveness of the
victims and of God. Plunged into the paschal mystery of the dying and rising of
Christ, with sins forgiven, gifted with the Holy Spirit, we hold a promise -- a
sacred promise -- for ourselves, for our children, and for those who are far
away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls. Always, always remember, never
forget: Christ who himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so
that free from sins, we might live for righteousness. By his wounds we have
been healed.
National Catholic Reporter, May 24,
2002
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