Righteous Indignation: My Response to the Pope's Scandal

We started Catholic Labs to escape writing about wedge issues, church politics, or any other nonsense that has little relevance to the daily lives of Catholics. Neither one of us, however, can ignore the elephant in the room any longer.

I am sick to my stomach. I've been a Catholic since birth, and I made a commitment before I was confirmed that I would learn about my faith and accept its tenants so that I would not be making promises that I did not understand. I attended The Catholic University of America, I've studied my religion, I've participated in my Parish Pastoral Council, and I've taught religious education. I've defended my faith from slander, attempted to educate the ignorant. Even when I've struggled in my own faith, or when I have fallen from grace, I have NEVER attacked the Church. This Church has failed us all. If you are not angry, you might want to look into this more deeply. If you are angry, don't you dare let anyone convince you that you have no right to be.

This does not mean that I believe everything I've read. It does not mean I am making drastic statements, like calling for resignations of the Holy See. It doesn't even mean that all of the charges and allegations against the Bishops, and Benedict XVI, are accurate or fair.

Here is what all of this means. Even when the Bishops have aggressively pursued allegations of wrong doing by their priests, which is a rarity, they have done so behind closed doors. Until recently, they have never apologized for their cover up. No Pope, before Benedict, has ever met with the victims of sexual abuse. Pope Benedict has been praised as the most aggressive member of the church to investigate sexual abuse, as he was head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith which was given this responsibility under John Paul II. Previous to this, however, Cardinal Ratzinger was written a memo describing the transfer of a priest, accused of sexual abuse, into his diocese. The letter was ignored. The priest abused again. From Ireland, to Ratzinger's diocese in Germany, to the now infamous Wisconsin case, the Pope's hands have been tarnished by the very scandal he has been trying to fix. The tragedy is that, despite evidence that no one in the Church's hierarchy worked harder to fix this mess, the CEO of a business who took similar actions as Cardinal Ratzinger has taken during a similar scandal would be facing jail time if proven guilty. Is the evidence there? Can this possibly be true?

I want to tell you that the evidence isn't there. I want to say that these are lies made up by the media that has an anti-Catholic agenda. I can't. The fact is, I've spent days trying to figure out what I can say.

Part of my message came to me on Palm Sunday, during the reading from Isaiah.

Reading I
Is 50:4-7
The Lord GOD has given me
a well-trained tongue,
that I might know how to speak to the weary
a word that will rouse them.
Morning after morning
he opens my ear that I may hear;
and I have not rebelled,
have not turned back.
I gave my back to those who beat me,
my cheeks to those who plucked my beard;
my face I did not shield
from buffets and spitting.

The Lord GOD is my help,
therefore I am not disgraced;
I have set my face like flint,
knowing that I shall not be put to shame.

This spoke to me. I believe (the readers of my blog may argue this) that I have been given a well-trained tongue, and God knows that the Catholics of the world are weary. So, I opened my ears, and this is what I heard.

I am not disgraced. We, the Catholics of the world, are not disgraced. We have done nothing to warrant the shame that too many of our leaders and priests now wear. We must not rebel, or turn back, because the sins of other men have nothing to do with our Covenant with God. Clearly, we have been and will be abused, but we need to set our faces to stone.

Then came second reading came, when Paul describes the humility of Jesus, how He emptied himself to become like man and be crucified for our sins. I once again realized what the church needs now.

We need humility. The crimes of the institution of our Church are now front page news. The frailties and failings of the Church are nothing new, either. From inquisitions, to Crusades, and relentless persecutions of some pretty amazing scientists, the Church has proven that it is made up of human beings, and human beings who are not part of the Holy Family are pretty far from perfect. The problem, as Mark will point out in his next article, is that we, the Catholics of the world, have let the institution be the Church for far too long. But WE, the Catholic people, are the church. We need to hold our leaders accountable. But we also just need to do a better job of being good, faithful Catholics. We need to engage, not retreat, we need to repent, not rebel. We need to be ambassadors for our faith, and we need the world to see it. Simply put, we need to become the Catholic Church.

The message of the first two readings was flowing through me. I knew now what I needed to say, how I could possibly tackle such a disastrously treacherous subject at the sex abuse scandal without either defending the Pope nor condemning the Church. The promise of the first reading, that I may open my ears and my well-trained tongue would know how to handle all of this...

...came to a screeching halt. Instead of the Passion of Jesus as told by Luke, my pastor had replaced the "Gospel of the Lord" with a poem. As the sing-songy poetics, loosely based on the Gospel, washed over me, and as I opened my ears once again, I heard a new message.

Righteous indignation. Too many of our priests have gone astray. My own Pastor breaks canonical law on a daily basis, by changing the words of the consecration, removing the responsorial psalm, and replacing religion with theatrics. My friends in Africa tell me stories of seminarians who become priests because it is a good paying job with free education, and then they sneak off to have sex at night. Our Bishops have failed to keep our deviant priests in check (my Bishop has been written about the infractions of my pastor, so we shall see if I get a response). The Bishops have operated unchecked themselves, neither by the Archbishops, nor by the Pope, nor by the throngs of Catholics who number over 1 billion.

How did we get to this dismal place? Because the overarching rule that the Bishops, Cardinals, and even the Popes have followed is that under no circumstances should the church look bad. Exposing scandal should be avoided at all cost, and the path of least resistance should be followed, because the entire institution of the Church must maintain, according to this way of thinking, an aura of perfection, infallibility on God's Green Earth. This guiding principal has transformed itself into an apparent megalomaniacal attitude that the leadership of the Church, despite being composed of tragically flawed men, can operate with impunity. We've been taught that we should not even challenge them.

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan said this week that, "Palm Sunday Mass is surely a fitting place for us to express our love for and solidarity for our earthly shepherd now suffering from the same unjust accusation and shouts of the mob as Jesus did." The arrogance of this statement, in the face of the current crisis and the history behind it, makes my stomach churn. It was the fear of public backlash that caused the Bishops to bury these allegations, and empower some very sick priests to continue victimizing the weakest in our society. It was the vanity of the pursuit of the image of holiness that brought us to where we now are. For Archbishop Dolan, and the Pope himself, to blame the media for the outrage is to wash their hands of the sins that they themselves have not committed, but they have enabled. How dare any Bishop compare the suffering that the head of the Church, an elderly man surrounded by luxury, has endured because of his own actions to the wounds of our Savior himself? How dare the Bishop insinuate that to question or criticize the Pope or the Bishops is tantamount to inflicting pain upon Jesus? Where is the humility?

Dolan should be ashamed. So should the Pope. So should my pastor, and if actions are not taken then so should my Bishop.

Is there other evidence of the arrogance of the Bishops? Plenty. We, the Catholic laity, deserve better. We deserve the shepherding from the priests that I know and love. We deserve the humility of those who listen.

The time has come for us to realize that we have let the leaders of our Church become the Church, while we've been along for the ride, sitting in the back seat and rarely questioning where we were going. The time has come, not for rebellion, or slander, or retreat, but for courage, the courage to speak truth to power, the courage to stand up and be counted as Catholic. The time has come to become the Catholic church.

Do not be afraid. The Lord, our God, is our help, therefor we shall not be put to shame.