Interact: In a Quandary

The Pope sees the Devil behind the timing of the world being made aware of the scandal of priestly sexual abuse. It was done to coincide with the ”Year for Priests.” 

John Allen reports from the Vatican: “Since the Catholic sexual abuse crisis erupted a decade ago, there have been numerous attempts to explain its causes, from a lack of fidelity to an over-emphasis on celibacy and clerical privilege. This morning in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI pointed to a deeper unseen force lurking behind the crisis, especially its timing: the Devil. It’s no accident, the pope implied, that precisely as the Catholic church was celebrating a “Year for Priests” in 2009-2010, the sexual abuse crisis once again took on massive global proportions. “It was to be expected that this new radiance of the priesthood would not be pleasing to the ‘enemy,’” Benedict XVI said. “He would have rather preferred to see it disappear, so that God would ultimately be driven out of the world.”The term “the enemy” is a traditional Catholic way of referring to the Devil.”

When I first heard it, that excuse reminded me of Flip Wilson’s old Geraldine routine’s “The devil made me do it, honey!” Here’s a skit on YouTube here! 

Seriously, I think people at times are open, vulnerable or willing to be instruments of evil. The Devil does exist.

But in the sexual abuse crisis, I see those instruments of the Devil not as the priest perpetrators–who had serious social and psychological problems–but the bishops, cardinals and popes who calmly and steadfastly who covered up for them, and let innocent children be hurt and betrayed in the process.   

“It was the devil who brought to light the sexual abuse of children that had taken place for decades?” an NCR reader remarked. “So it is now the devil who brings to light that which was hidden? So who is the light and the truth?”

Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory of Atlanta weighed in on the issues of unity and diversity in the Church during the homily, May 7, at a Mass for the Catholic Cultural Diversity Network Convocation at meeting at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.

Archbishop Gregory highlighted the differences between building unity as a nation and in the Church.

“Our efforts at national unity often depend upon bringing peoples’ diversity into something of an artificial harmony that seeks to minimize the uniqueness and distinctiveness of people. The Catholic Church on the contrary focuses upon what we all share in common which is our faith and our oneness in Christ,” Archbishop Gregory said.

“To be a Catholic one need not abandon one’s individuality.  In fact, the Catholic Church is most perfectly herself when all of her children display that rich diversity that God has fashioned into the very heart of humanity,” the archbishop said. “We are most Catholic when we reflect our oneness of faith and worship that is achieved in response to our rich mixture of human variety through the grace of the Holy Spirit.”

Were this only universally true….

The June 4th issue of Commonweal magazine had a terrific article by Jo McGowan called Hiatus – Why I Stopped Going to Mass.  She articulates the exclusion many Catholic women feel and are always aware of, even in a parish they love and appreciate.

“I can deal with the grasping after money, the popes with children, the Crusades, the persecution of witches, even the sexual abuse of children–we are human beings, and we fail spectacularly and repeatedly (as I have proved to myself on many occasions.) But such sins, while institutionalized and elaborately committeed and concealed, are not matters of doctrine. They don’t touch the church in its essence. To my mind, the church’s policy on the ordination of women may.”

“The ordination of women was not an issue during Jesus’ brief ministry. Yet he left us with principles and rules of conscience that he expected us to apply with intelligence and creativity in whatever place or era we found ourselves.”

“In the gay (Catholic) community, it would seem, the maxim is: love the sin and love the sinner, but hate anyone who calls it a sin or sinner.”

What do you feel about Fr. Neuhaus’ statement? Do we “hate” people who think we are “sinnners;” especially those who say so from public pulpits?

From the article, “Sins of Admission: Why Wouldn’t Gay Parents Pick a Catholic School?” in Commonweal Magazine:  “It is one thing to be a gay Catholic, another to take the step of dating. I realized I would never have an answer for those who say, ‘God will give you the strength to bear whatever burden you have.  He will give you the grace to be a faithful, celibate gay woman.  You need only pray and fast.’ If I protest and say that I have prayed, I did fast (every Wednesday, for years), my continued existence as an unrepentant gay Catholic simply provides them with their own ready answer: ‘You need only pray and fast more.’ And who can disagree with that?”