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).

Jeg er nå nesten ferdig med andre gangs gjennomlesning av boka The Western Church in the Middle Ages av John A. F. Thomson (jeg leste den sist for tre år siden). Det er heller ikke den eneste boka jeg har lest om Kirkens utvikling i middelalderen, men jeg har fått gjenoppfrisket en del viktig informasjon. Amazon skriver om den:

From its origins in the ancient world as a rival to traditional paganism, Christianity has become one of the great world religions. How the Church took over spiritual control of Western Europe to become the foundation of medieval life, setting the moral agenda of society and dominating its intellectual world, is the guiding enquiry at the heart of this book. Covering the period between the fall of the Roman Empire and the Reformation, the account is structured in three chronological blocks, starting with the gradual development of unity within the Western Church up to the 11th century, followed by the period of centralization between the 11th and 13th centuries, and concluding with the break-up of this centralization in the later Middle Ages. Organizational developments and changes in spirituality and doctrine are examined, and the history of the papacy is situated in the wider context of both ecclesiastical and lay society. Intellectual developments and the rise of heresy, at both elite and popular levels, are the focus of an exploration of the mental world of medieval Christendom.

Vårt Land skriver i dag på lederplass at (i sin ingress): At OKB har brukt ulovlige metoder er kritikkverdig, men kirken bør få beholde støtten for dem som faktisk var medlemmer. Les hele lederen på Verdidebatt.

Med en slik støtte vil OKB faktisk i praksis slippe å betale noe som helst tilbake til stat og kommune, siden myndighetene i 2015 allerede har tatt fra oss minst 25 millioner i samlet statlig og kommunal støtte for medlemmer som alle var bekreftet (siden de hadde bekreftet noen få uker etter nyttår 2015).

Det er selvsagt usikkert hva lagmannsretten vil ende opp med, men her er i alle fall det meste av Vårt Lands lederartikkel:

Vi har tidligere kritisert kirkesamfunnet for registreringsmetoden man benyttet for å lage medlemslister. Den kritikken fastholder vi. Det er ikke dermed sagt at det er riktig av staten å kreve alle disse pengene tilbake. Et av de viktigste argumentene fra OKB er listene senere ble kvalitetssikret. Det viste seg at 85 prosent av de registrerte personene faktisk var katolikker.

Vi mener at det er urimelig at staten krever hele summen tilbakebetalt. Staten legger til grunn at Grunnlovens paragraf 16 fastslår at «Alle tros- og livssynssamfunn skal understøttes på lik linje» (med folkekirken). Hvis man først skal ri prinsipper gjør folkekirkens egen noe lemfeldige praksis med medlemsregistrering det naturlig med en viss ydmykhet fra statens side.

I et rundskriv fra 2015 går Kulturdepartementet langt i å hevde at intensjonen bak trossamfunnsloven minst siden 1976 har vært at medlemmer som har kommet til Norge fra andre land «selv aktivt og uttrykkelig gir melding om eller bekrefter til trossamfunnet at han/hun ønsker å være medlem her i Norge». Samtidig vet vi at trossamfunn som prinsipielt har vært imot medlemsregistre i mange år mottok støtte basert på lister de selv satte opp. Denne tradisjonen for å akseptere tilpasninger har vært nødvendig av hensyn til nettopp religionsfriheten.

Vi har forståelse for at staten trenger gode og etterprøvbare retningslinjer for støtteberettiget medlemskap i et trossamfunn. På den annen side ville det kledd det norske samfunnet å ta hensyn til det enkelte trossamfunnets særpreg. Den katolske kirke er en verdensvid kirke, og det oppleves som unaturlig for mange av dens medlemmer at de skal melde seg inn i den samme kirken de har vært medlemmer av hele livet. At OKB har brukt ulovlige metoder er kritikkverdig, men kirken bør få beholde støtten for dem som faktisk var medlemmer.

Før jul kjøpte jeg denne boka (Reformasjon uten folk) i St. Olav bokhandel og nå (som den første av bøkene jeg skal lese i januar) har jeg lest den ferdig. En del av innholdet kjente jeg selvsagt til fra før, men jeg fikk også med meg mye ny informasjon om reformasjonen i Norge St. Olav forlag beskriver boka slik:

Reformasjonen ble i Norge gjennomført som et kongelig dansk pålegg i 1536/-37. Fra da av skulle staten og dens borgere i det dansk-norske dobbeltmonarki bekjenne seg til den evangelisk-lutherske tro. Trosskiftet hang sammen med tap av nasjonal selvstendighet og kom som en omveltning uten forankring hverken i det folkelige eller i det nasjonale. Det var først fra 1537 at reformasjonsarbeidet startet, og dette var en lang prosess som kanskje ikke ble avsluttet før på 1800-tallet.

Religionsskiftet dikterte et brudd med de religiøse og kultu­relle praksiser og forestillinger som gjennom mer enn fem århundrer var blitt en innleiret del av folkets virkelighetsforståelse. Disse lot seg ikke uten videre utrydde. De hadde et langt etterliv hos befolkningen, men ble av den nye kulturelle og religiøse eliten omfortolket og utdefinert som overtro og trolldom.

Motstanden mot reformasjonens innføring var både et grasrot­fenomen og et nasjonalt og kirkelig prosjekt ledet av Norges siste erkebiskop, Olav Engelbrektsson. Senere ble Norge en del av Romas motreformatoriske strategi, alt mens befolkningen i mangt og meget fortsatte å praktisere sin tro på «gamle­måten».

I denne boken presenteres den lange historien om tros­skiftet i Norge i hele sin bredde. Her skildres det religiøse og politiske spillet rundt reformasjonens innførelse, fromhets­livet i norsk sen­middelalder, katolske martyrer, hemmelige jesuittmisjonærer og vitale katolske tradisjoner i etterreformatorisk tid. Forfatteren presen­terer hittil ukjent materiale så vel som kjent stoff i et nytt perspektiv. Denne historien har aldri tidligere vært samlet mellom to permer.