Displaced Faith, or Misplaced Faith? (Series on the Scandals in the Catholic Church)
(I hereby officially invoke my freedom of speech, my freedom
of press, and my freedom in Christ.
Onward.)
Pre-amble
A few weeks ago in August, the pastors in our diocese were
required to read a letter to their congregations at all weekend Masses
announcing the intended settlements for victims of clergy sexual abuse. We were told that this is what “Justice”
required. We were told that we, our
immediate envelope dollars, would not pay for it but rather the reserves
(savings, nest eggs) of each parish would.
We were told that this was for the abuses committed by clergy, coaches,
and volunteers. With all due
respect: Bullshit.
If the clergy weren’t involved in this – to the staggering
number over the decades – then the coaches and volunteers who were abusers would
be left to their own resources to consider how to give “Justice” to
victims. I remember QUITE clearly how a
youth ministry colleague came home from a Diocesan meeting of Directors of
Religious Education & Youth Ministers at the very outset of this debacle
back in the 1990’s. She quoted Sister as
saying, “If you, as a lay minister in the Church, have an allegation posed
against you – even if it is false – you will NEVER do ministry in this Diocese
again.” Just the thought that the
statement of a sophomore in high school who didn’t like the grade he/she got,
or didn’t like me presenting the teaching of the Church on any topic could,
with one FALSE accusation, destroy my ministry, my career, my reputation, my
relationships with people who would not give the benefit of the doubt, made me
absolutely ILL. And yet it lodged in my
mind that False Accusations are possible … and somehow that prepared me for the
next thing to come… when someone I respected was falsely accused. It also made me understand intuitively that
the Church itself would NOT stand with its lay ministers (non-ordained,
non-clergy) even if they are innocently accused. How very Petrine.
Peter was outside the courtyard as the trial of Jesus, the Innocent One, was going on. “A servant girl came over and said, ‘You were one of those with Jesus the Galilean.’ But Peter denied it in front of everyone, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ (The third time he was asked he replied) ‘I don’t know the man!”
(Matthew 26:69, 74)
I am going to tell you how my brain is processing this whole
thing. You may agree. You may disagree. Agreement is not my concern. I have to process it from the parameters of
my own faith journey, my own life experience, my own knowledge of good and evil
as I have seen it. But I do hope it
makes you think. And frankly, my intent
is not to tear-down, but to throw the spotlight so that more Truth is evident,
more dots are connected. I want to
strongly encourage you (and to remind myself) of two things: Let us not throw the baby (our deeply
personal faith + our relationship with the Lord and HIS faith community that is
very essential to us) with the bathwater (our frustrations of how this has and
has not been handled or managed over the years) AND that there are some VERY
GOOD, VERY HOLY priests and pastors out there who are suffering from the
fallout around them. I am sure they pray
every day to not become victims of false witnesses.
For those who are guilty, I have very few words: May you be locked in a gymnasium full of
angry Catholic parents. You would rather
that the court throws you into Alcatraz, you’d fare better. If someone touched MY children and did such
things to them, my family better take out a tape measure and start custom
fitting me for my own orange jumpsuit.
Just sayin’.
So, I want to air-out a few things. First, I want to talk about the Allegations themselves. Then I want to talk briefly about the nature
of institutionalism. Then, I will ramble
about the pay-outs, oops, I mean renderings of justice. Lastly, I will talk about the good
clergy. I do not know how long I will
write for, perhaps until I am out of steam.
We will see how it goes.
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