A culture in need of reform

From the National Catholic Reporter (my bolds).

Some will be surprised at the revelation that Cardinal Godfried Danneels of Belgium urged a victim who was abused by his uncle, a bishop, to remain quiet, accept a private apology and allow the bishop to retire and not “drag his name through the mud.”

Secretly made recordings of meetings among the cardinal, the victim and the perpetrator leave little room for Danneels to explain his way out of his own words. He didn’t call the police, he didn’t immediately seek removal of the bishop, he didn’t act immediately to find out whether there had been other victims.

One press report termed the leaked recordings “ some of the most damaging documents to emerge in the scandal rocking the Roman Catholic Church.” That may be a bit of overstatement. But what the recordings underline is the fact that when church leaders are caught in their own words – in depositions, letters, memos, directives, in the tens of thousands of pages, for instance, archived at bishopaccountability.com – the true nature of the scandal is bared. The deepest part of it, that part which refuses to go away with countless pro-forma apologies and programs, has little to do with sex and much to do with a culture that sees itself above accountability.

That’s why analyzing the scandal requires seeing it as much broader than a referendum on a certain ecclesiology or a particular view of reform or orthodoxy. And that’s why some of the recent thinking and comments by church leaders in different parts of the world becomes important. Whether the questions that are being raised in other countries have any “legs” is itself an open questions. Who knows whether those raising the questions have the stomach for pursuing them beyond their own diocesan borders.

Danneels was generally seen as one of the last of the Vatican II generation who knew that council intimately and supported its reforms. He would be, for lack of a better term, a liberal by many of today’s ecclesiastical measures. But it doesn’t matter. So was Archbishop Rembert Weakland, and his handling of some abuse cases was notoriously callous, and in his own attempt to hide a homosexual liaison he saw fit to lift nearly a half million dollars from archdiocesan coffers without telling anyone.

By contrast, Cardinal Anthony Bevelacqua of Philadelphia was a noted conservative, one of those who could be described as leading the reversal on Vatican II reforms. The Philadelphia Grand Jury report on his role in hiding sexual predators and using the law to avoid accountability is deeply disturbing reading. So are the documents in which Cardinals Bernard Law and Edward Egan are depicted overseeing the handling of abuse cases in their respective dioceses. Both are staunch conservatives and would be considered by many as protectors of a traditionalist approach to ecclesiology and church teaching.

Wherever members of the hierarchy are on the political, theological or ecclesiological spectrums, they meet first as brothers in a unique culture of celibate men who have sworn oaths of allegiance to the papacy and who have repeatedly acted to protect the institution while shunning the plight of thousands of child victims of abusive priests.

Which is not to say that abolishing celibacy as a discipline is the answer.

But there does seem to be a tendency to show more sympathy to the priestly abusers who face disgrace later in life when someone finally comes forward to lay charges than for the victim, who is always, of course, an alleged victim. Like why can't that victim just suck it up and forget about it, the poor priest, he's crying because his name is being dragged through the mud. And really, I don't think money is the answer for these victims. They want a priest or a bishop with a real fatherly love, a love that comes from the Father, to tell them they understand what they have gone through and to say they are so sorry and that they will do everything they can to make sure it never happens again---and mean it.

The nephew of the bishop in question in Belgium was five years old when the abuse started.
FIVE freakin' years old.

As people who are involved in counseling victims of abuse, the Catholic Church still doesn't get it. They do not understand the lifelong damage this can cause.