These ridiculous old men have made their coffin and now they can lie in it, for all I care. It's probably the best thing for them really, to end their miserable, petty lives, their lonely, loveless, sexless existence.It would be a mistake, however, to think that what is imploding is the church. The church is, in many ways, just fine. What is imploding, rather, is a culture of clericalism, especially the hierarchical layer of that culture, which has become so disconnected in many of its expressions from the core mandates of Christian scripture that it seems to barely function at all.The authority that has been slowly leaking from the structure for decades is now gushing out as bishops contort themselves in attempts to convince the world of their good intentions and transparency while simultaneously railing against those within the church and without who are working to reveal the truth.
The shocking raid of a bishops’ meeting in Belgium is but the latest indication of the degree to which the old protections and privileges enjoyed by the clerical culture are disintegrating. It stands as a clear symbol that an age is ending. The disintegration could be seen occurring during the past quarter century in the United States under the grinding weight of revelations that the Catholic hierarchy had repeatedly protected those who had sexually molested children and had hidden the crimes from the church and the wider community.
It continued in Catholic Ireland, where the deep betrayal of the community caused a serious exodus from the church amid lingering anger. In one of the greater absurdities of this period of crisis, church leaders in Rome have decided to send bishops from the United States to determine what happened in the Irish church.
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Meanwhile, the world outside this favored culture is beginning to realize that one of the most powerful men within it during Pope John Paul II’s papacy, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, once secretary of state and now dean of the College of Cardinals, took money from the likes of the late Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, founder of the Legion of Christ. Maciel was a favorite of the former pope, and a man who abused his young seminarians and is accused of fathering children, including a son, whom he also allegedly repeatedly abused.
Sodano was one of Maciel’s most ardent backers.
That Sodano should be nowhere near any level of control at the Vatican is apparent to most everyone who has given this scandal the slightest thought. But there he is, still posturing, offering paeans to a beleaguered pope during liturgies, and dismissing the growing chorus of charges against fellow bishops as petty gossip.
And when one of those fellow bishops, Cardinal Cristoph Schönborn of Austria, dares to call him out, as someone should, in one of the more rational comments that anyone inside the culture has yet made, Sodano is able to manipulate a meeting with Schönborn and the pope. The world is subsequently informed that such criticism is not to occur cardinal to cardinal. Such power is reserved for the pope alone. The pope remains silent and Sodano remains influential.
The protection from scrutiny previously enjoyed by the culture, a reflection more than anything of royal prerogatives and palace behavior, has disintegrated to the point where the U.S. Supreme Court gave approval for a suit that seeks to hold the Vatican responsible for the transfer of pedophile priests from place to place, transfers that occurred without warning to law enforcement bodies or to the communities involved.
The sex abuse crisis, as we’ve said in this space before, is a crisis of the clerical culture, a crisis of authority and ecclesiology. The sex abuse crisis is the awful symptom of much deeper problems.
Projection is occurring on a global scale as the bishops grasp for ways to explain how so much has gone so wrong so quickly. Relativism! Secularism! Cultural influences! All those bad things out there, they reason, are influencing the people to revolt, to backslide, to not believe as they should, to disregard the hierarchy’s rulings and pronouncements. It is the bishops who fail to recognize that they, themselves, are the best living examples of the relativism and secularism they decry.
...What seems clear at this moment is that the hierarchy as it has evolved in the past half millennium is deeply damaged from within. And there is little evidence of the imagination, the creativity, the spirit, necessary to repair or rethink the structure.
The second half of 2010, it seems, may be just as disheartening to the Holy Father, just as bumpy, as the first.
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5 comments:
A good article.
Perhaps the implosion will be a blessing and lead to the recovery of Christianity rather than the control-freak model by, supposedly, celibate 'old men'.
WDTPRS has is wrong. Okay, so the NCRepoter is known for being on the far liberal end of things. They've got their abuse reporting right. There's no more time to choose up ideological sides when the church has made little or no progress in protecting chlidren and reforming itself into a morally credible organization. This renegade trad thinks that one of the true marks of a RT is placing aside liturgical concerns and joining up with "the other side" when it really matters.
Yeah, I know Cdl. Schonborn's Masses are a bit whack. Still, if there's any papabile out there that's willing to call it like it is, it's him. Maybe he'll finally make the tough decisions that need to be made instead of the Vatican shell game. I can put up with a balloon and laser Mass if this guy can clean house. You know that he'll never get past the curial politics to become pope and clean up the muck. He might just be the ticket, though.
I'd be all for a Schonborn papacy now. I doubt he'd bring lasers and balloons to the Vatican. Which is one of the things that does disturb me a bit about him: some of those things he seems to do merely to try to appease the sorts of groups that arrange those sorts of things, which in some ways is just as political and petty. And if that non-conformism is the result of his own politicking, maybe his other non-conformism and outspokenness likewise has a political origin rather than being truly out of moral conviction or fiber.
It's interesting that you excluded the hopeful VII comments of the original article in your transcription.
I'd be wary of being critical just for the sake of critique. That the author chose to include a sign of hopeful light at the end of his article is for a reason -- and that just by itself proves that he is not merely out to lash at the bishops avant garde.
Perhaps, but I simply disagree that that is a light at the end of the tunnel. The Vatican II model of "openness" that the NCR (which is, after all, a VERY leftist publication) espouses...is not the solution.
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