februar 2019

Jeg nevnte de første to brevene skrevet av Xavier Rynne II for noen dager siden (se her) om bispesynoden “FOR THE PROTECTION OF MINORS”, og her tar jeg meg de viktigste delene av hans brev nr. 6 (se også brev 3, brev 4 og brev 5):

1. Did the summit recognize that sexual abuse is a global plague?

Even prior to the summit, Father Federico Lombardi, S.J., made this point and suggested that the Church ought to make combatting sexual abuse a pastoral priority. There seemed to be a tacit recognition of this among many of the participants. And the pope laid out the available facts in a lucid and concise way in his discorso concluding the meeting. ….

2. Did the summit recognize that, in a Catholic context, this is a crisis of fidelity that cannot be resolved by “best practices” alone?

Yes and no. …

3. Did the summit avoid using “clericalism” as an all-purpose explanatory factor in the sexual abuse crisis?

There were numerous references to the abuse of sacerdotal and episcopal power during the meeting, including a lengthy section of the pope’s final statement. And no one should doubt that “clericalism” in this sense of the term—taking advantage of the reverence for the priesthood and episcopate that is deep in Catholic DNA—was and is a factor in sexually abusive behavior by clergy. What was not said, or at least not said often enough and crisply enough, is that “clericalism” in this sense is a facilitator of sexual abuse, not its cause. ….

4. Did the meeting recognize that optional celibacy is not the answer to the abuse crisis?

Few participants in the summit seem to have bought the line being peddled by some in the meeting’s Off-Broadway dimension, that a married clergy would mitigate the crisis of clerical sexual abuse. …..

5. Did the meeting underscore the importance of a deep reform of seminaries?

This theme came up frequently, and it was good that it did. What is now necessary is another “exchange of gifts”: namely, those seminary programs that are models of reform (many of which are in the Anglosphere) helping other seminary programs (in old and new Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia) …

6. Did the meeting recognize that the abuse crisis is also a crisis of episcopal credibility?

If there was an “American issue” at the summit, this was it, and in many respects the meeting vindicated the approach that the American bishops have been trying to take (impeded on occasion by the Vatican) since the 2018 Summer of Shame. At least half of the twenty-one points for reflection proposed by the pope reflected American experience and American practice since 2002. …..

7. Did the meeting encourage bishops to treat their priests as sons and fellow-workers in a unified diocesan presbyterate?

This may have come up in the meeting’s small-group discussions, but it did not figure prominently in the summit’s public sessions. ….

8. Did the meeting recognize that episcopal authority is strengthened, not weakened, by drawing on the expertise of dedicated laity in the governance of the Church?

As suggested in #6 above, the door now seems open, across the world Church, to serious collaboration between bishops and laity in addressing the sexual abuse crisis and in addressing issues of episcopal accountability. This is a very tough idea for the standard Curial mentality to grasp, but ….

9. Did the meeting grapple with the need for reformed criteria by which bishops are selected?

In a word, no. But the critiques of episcopal misgovernance that were heard for four days surely point toward the necessity of such a reform. …

10. Did the meeting grasp that deep and authentic Catholic reform is every Catholic’s responsibility?

There was insufficient discussion of this, as there was insufficient discussion of the more comprehensive crisis of chastity in the Church. The Holy Father’s closing statement, however, pointed in this direction, and it is surely a theme to be stressed in the months and years ahead. ….

There was even modest progress on another issue that went largely, and unfortunately, unremarked during the meeting: the relationship of doctrinal dissent to the abuse crisis. ….

….. Perhaps (this is) the end of the beginning, in the struggle to get “Rome” to understand that the Americans were not exaggerating the gravity of the situation and its impact on the Church’s evangelical mission. Perhaps the end of the beginning of the struggle to get hidebound or fearful bishops to understand that engaging the collaboration of knowledgeable lay people does not diminish their authority but enhances it. Perhaps.

For the moment, no further damage was done. And a door that was closed this past November seems now to have been opened. So full marks to those who made some modest but real accomplishments possible—and who gave the people they serve grounds for hope.

En kjent amerikansk journalist og redaktør, Peter Steinfels, har skrevet en svært lang artikkel der han kritiserer The Pennsylvania Grand-Jury Report (som kom i august 2018, er på 800-1300 sider, og går gjennom alle kjente tilfeller av seksuelt misbruk av katolske prester i seks bispedømmer i Pennsylvania de siste 70 år), og kaller den «Inaccurate, Unfair & Misleading». Han skriver bl.a.:

In fact, the report makes not one but two distinct charges. The first one concerns predator priests, their many victims, and their unspeakable acts. That charge is, as far as can be determined, dreadfully true. Appalling as is this first charge, it is in fact the second one that has had the greatest reverberations. “All” of these victims, the report declares, “were brushed aside, in every part of the state, by church leaders who preferred to protect the abusers and their institutions above all.” Or as the introduction to the report sums it up, “Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all.”

Is that true?

Almost every media story of the grand-jury report that I eventually read or viewed was based on its twelve-page introduction and a dozen or so sickening examples.
On the basis of reading the report’s vast bulk, on the basis of reviewing one by one the handling of hundreds of cases, on the basis of trying to match diocesan replies with the grand jury’s charges, and on the basis of examining other court documents and speaking with people familiar with the grand jury’s work, including the attorney general’s office, my conclusion is that this second charge is in fact grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate, and unjust. It is contradicted by material found in the report itself—if one actually reads it carefully. It is contradicted by testimony submitted to the grand jury but ignored—and, I believe, by evidence that the grand jury never pursued.

Hele artikkelen kan leses her.

Tidsskriftet First Things publiserte under bispesynodene i 2015 og i 2018 mange artikler skrevet av den anonyme forfatteren «Xavier Rynne II», og de fortsetter med denne praksisen under bispekonferansen som begynner i morgen. Første artikkel (fra i går) begynner slik:

The whole course of Christianity from the first … is but one series of troubles and disorders. Every century is like every other, and to those who live in it seems worse than all times before it. The Church is ever ailing … Religion seems ever expiring, schisms dominant, the light of truth dim, its adherents scattered. The cause of Christ is ever in its last agony.

-Blessed John Henry Newman, Via Media (1834)

John Henry Newman’s tart view of the ongoing mess that is the history of the Church was written when he was still an Anglican, but it seems unlikely that his sense of things changed materially after he entered the Catholic Church—indeed, it probably intensified. Nonetheless, Newman’s panoramic, if mordant, overview of Christian history can be consoling whenever Catholicism finds itself in crisis, as it surely does now. Things have undoubtedly been worse than they are today. And for all the muck, pain, and anger of today’s Catholic crisis of sexually abusive clergy and failed ecclesiastical leadership, the Church has not been abandoned by its Lord or by the Holy Spirit. Many good and life-giving things happen throughout the world Church every day: the sacraments are celebrated and grace is bestowed; sins are forgiven and wounded souls healed; those with nowhere to go find a home. And in its social doctrine the Church continues to bear a message that an increasingly incoherent postmodern world badly needs to hear. …

…

Dagens artikkel (nr. 2) kan leses her.

Vatikanet har egne nettsider for denne konferansen for å samtale om overgrep og beskyttelse av barn (fra torsdag 21/2 til søndag 24/2).