I need to preface this by saying that I have deep respect for the piety and practice of the Roman Catholic faith. I cannot however stand by silently, while my fellow Christians defend the abysmal failures of Roman leadership.
Today, on Good Friday, a priest claimed the status of victim for the Pope and the Church in regard to the abuse scandals. Moreover, he had the nerve to quote a Jewish friend, saying that the confrontation of the Church is akin to "the most shameful acts of anti-semitism."
This is absurd. Anti-semitism is baseless bigotry based on sectarian hatred. Questions of the church hierarchy about actual abuse cases, in which Catholic priests unquestionably raped and molested people, is not remotely comparable with anti-judaism.
The Roman Catholic church cannot have their cake and eat it too. You cannot have a hierarchy, where power is concentrated more and more as you rise to the top, without having responsibility go along with that power.
The claim is that the Pope, then Cardinal Ratzinger, didn't know what was going on. If you're going to say that bishops and cardinals and popes should be taken more and more seriously as they rise through the hierarchy however, then they need to take more and more responsibility for the people over which they preside. I don't care what he knew or didn't know, I care that his office was responsible for it, and they didn't do their job.
As pope, his authority and responsibility go hand in hand. A letter of apology doesn't cut it. If the pope is truly sorry, then he needs to initiate real, lasting, systemic change in the way clergy relate to parishioners in the Catholic church. Anything short of that is an insult to Jesus Christ and us, his followers.
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Hi man - I preached about this the other day so I'm going to just crib some notes from that sermon -
I am reminded of that fateful performance by the Irish songwriter Sinead O’Connor, in 1992, when she appeared on American television and proceeded to rip up a picture of Pope John Paul the Second.
She explained that she was protesting the ongoing cover-up in the Roman Catholic Church, of the Church leaders protecting child-molesting priests by moving them from parish to parish. She was universally denigrated and her protests were dismissed as a “wild conspiracy theory.” The following week, when American actor Joe Pesci appeared on the same show, he said that had he been there, “He would have given her such a slap.” Sinead O’Connor was, and is to this day, a devout Roman Catholic. And a decade later, her testimony was verified – it was found out that she was telling the truth. Today the church, truly, all churches – Catholic and Reformed alike, are coping with these tragic revelations, revelations that demonic forces have been at work in our very midst. Sinead O’Connor deserves an apology – but has eschewed it – in a recent op-ed she wrote in the Washington Post, she states that, “All I regretted was that people assumed I didn't believe in God. That's not the case at all. I'm Catholic by birth and culture and would be the first at the church door if the Vatican offered sincere reconciliation.” She sacrificed her entire career, her art, that she might speak truth to power – her only failing was that she was one of the first to speak up.
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