pratclif.comIn 1962, the saintly pope John XXIII signed a confidential note that outlined a policy of strictest secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse by priests and threatened those who spoke out with in excommunication. It was dispatched to bishops all over the world. This document that has recently come to light and has been hailed by lawyers acting for the victims of abuse as a blueprint for an official Vatican policy of deception and concealment. A spokesman for the Catholic church has denied this, claiming that the lawyers have distorted the document, which deals only with the church's internal disciplinary procedures, by quoting it out of context.
This misses the point. One of the most chilling aspects of this latest revelation is that it has caused barely a ripple among Catholics. Sadly this is what we have come to expect from an institution which has consistently involved bishops, priests and laity alike, in a network of denial and deceit ever since 1870, when by dint of coercion and political chicanery, Pius IX got the first Vatican council to promulgate the highly controversial doctrine of papal infallibility. Once the authority of the pope was exalted above the priesthood of all believers, it became impossible to admit that the church had ever been wrong.
The sex abuse scandal is only one instance of this determined flight from truth, justice and compassion. We have also seen it in the Church's relations with the Jewish people. Pope Pius X encouraged the Catholic press to denounce Jews as the external enemies of the Church. When Pius XI tried to back away from this anti-Semitic policy towards the end of his life, Vatican officials who expected his imminent death, blocked his encyclical. The cardinals subsequently elected Pius XII, whose apparent failure to condemn the Nazis has become a notorious scandal.
To this day, Catholic officials find it well nigh impossible to admit that Pius XII was in any way at fault. When the second Vatican council tried to address the Jewish question in the 1960s, the more conservative bishops refused to pass a document that referred explicitly to any Catholic persecution of Jews in the past. The present pope, John Paul II, has issued an apology to the Jewish people that has widely been dismissed as anodyne, and he still supports the proposed canonisation of Pius XII. Once an institution declares that it enjoys unique divine guidance, it becomes constitutionally unable to admit culpability. Cover-up has become automatic.
The same process of cumulative denial is also evident in sexual matters. In the past, the church had no fixed teaching on contraception, and until the 13th century it was possible for priests to marry. But Paul VIs views were so inflexible that he could not accept the findings of his own commission on birth control, and flew in the face of science, biblical scholarship, and the poignant experience of married people. His encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968) split the church, with the hierarchy upholding the ban, and the laity virtually ignoring it. Many Catholics have felt spiritually impaired by the struggle to be loyal to Rome while disregarding its solemn dictates in the most intimate part of their lives.
Still more disturbing has been the present Pope's refusal to change the laws on clerical celibacy, even though it appears that some 40% of the clergy simply do not keep their vows. The greatest casualties of this disastrous policy have been the victims of those priests who have been unable to remain celibate and have' esorted to compulsive pederasty and abuse. The suffering of thousands of children and women, who have also been abused and abandoned by priests, goes unacknowledged by a church that seems more concerned with its own image than with the demands of truth and charity.
Idolatry is not simply the worship of a false god; it occurs whenever a purely human value becomes the chief focus of religious aspiration. In its concern to shore up their authority, Catholic officials are often guilty of institutional idolatry. But they are not alone. It is becoming increasingly unusual to hear any religious leaders frankly admit the failings of their own co-religionists and institutions.
The hierarchy of the Church of England, which has recently withdrawn from the election of a homosexual bishop, seem currently in denial of the fact that, whether they like it or not, many of their priests are gay. Too many Muslim clerics are wary of issuing an outright condemnation of suicide bombing, even though it violates cardinal principles of Islam. Again, it is rare to hear a prominent rabbi condemning Israel policies that clearly flout the golden rule propounded by the great Rabbi Hillel: “Do not do unto others as you would not have them do unto you”.
Religious leaders are basically politicians, and secular politicians also seem to find it impossible to apologise or admit error. The Hutton inquiry is revealing yet another web of half truth and evasion of responsibility. Some relatives of the Lockerbie victims have refused the compensation offered by Libya, because they do not believe that the whole story has yet come to light. Cover-up seems to be a prevailing sin in the political arena at present, it is perhaps unreasonable to expect Rabbis, Imams or Bishops to be any different.
But religious politicians are Committed to ideals that fly in the face of this idolatry. Many of the founders of the peat world faiths were iconoclasts, who vehemently denounced the establishment of their day. The prophets subjected the kings of Israel to ruthless criticism and forced their people to face up to their own shortcomings. The same is. true of the Buddha or the Prophet Mohammed. Jesus is depicted in the gospels as a rebel, who refused to submit to laws and institutions that got in the way of charity, truth and the alleviation of suffering. It is not difficult to imagine what he would say about the abuse of children by his priests and the Vatican's persistent avoidance of responsibility for their pain.
The religions are all committed to the quest for truth, however uncomfortable. In very different ways, they also insist upon repentance, atonement and the conversion of life.. They speak all of the practice of compassion, which in every one of the major world faiths is the litmus test of any true spirituality or ideology. It is only when a religion has become debased that it speaks of loyalty to the Institution as a supreme value.
Jung, I believe, once said that a great deal of religious practice , seemed designed precisely to prevent people from having a truly religious experience. All idolatry is a retreat from God. There is unanimous agreement that the religious quest cannot begin until we see things as they really are.
We cannot function effectively while trapped in enervating structures of denial and a church that ignores the suffering of those it has injured in order to shore up its own authority has lost its way. There can be no healing for either the church or its victims unless the hierarchy learns once again to speak the truth that sets us free.
Mis à jour le 21/07/2007 par Pierre Ratcliffe. Contact: (pratclif@free.fr)sites web http://pierreratcliffe.blogspot.com et http://paysdefayence.blogspot.com
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