Ordinary 21

The Twenty-First Sunday in Ordinary Time
2018 – Cycle B
Joshua 24:1-2, 15-17, 18; Psalm 34; Ephesians 5:21-32; John 6:60-69

On 16 August of this year, a New York Times headline declared, ‘It’s Really Hard to Be a Catholic’.  The reference was to the grand jury report on clergy sexual abuse within six dioceses of Pennsylvania.  Every time a new report or allegation is made public, I find myself asking, will this scandal never end?  For the victims of sexual abuse the wounds are deep and I expect will remain open throughout their lives.  Only those of us who have never experienced sexual abuse have the luxury to ask, will this scandal never end.

Since 2002 when the sexual abuse of Catholic clergy was first uncovered in the Archdiocese of Boston, I have never spoken about the issue until today.  I’ve had to wonder, what can any Catholic priest say that will not be interpreted as self – serving or self – indulgent and in turn sound like it minimalizes the continued suffering of abuse victims?  What credibility do I have?

I therefore ask your indulgence as I struggle and meander to reflect on this issue within our church, a crisis caused by our brothers and their superiors.

What response is adequate in the face of the tragedy, pain and shattered innocence that has been experienced by a child who has been raped by a priest?

There are some human experiences that the only response I can contemplate offering is silence.  A silence that honours in deep humility the experience and the person.  For what words would be adequate?

It is in respectful silence that we all need to listen to the stories of victims of sexual abuse.  Is it the only way we can share in their pain.  For to spiritualize the experience of sexual abuse at this time is only to put nice, gauzy, churchy words around the experience that make us feel comfortable and distanced from it all but continue to isolate the victims.

As much as we Christians are called to forgive, this is not a time of forgiveness but rather a time for justice.  Biblical justice is the stark acknowledgement that something is terribly wrong and needs to be made right.  Without such justice, forgiveness has no power to heal.  As we move forward, our dilemma will be to discern between justice and revenge.  For it is too easy to look on the sexual perpetrator as a degenerate animal.

Whenever we degrade a human being or any group of people in such a way, it is easy to act violently against them without impunity or simply eliminate them because we have deemed them having no value.  We have seen governments, including our own, dictators, “strong men” and ourselves at times(?) use such debasing images against Jews, homosexuals, drug dealers and cartels, African – Americans, migrants and refugees, Roma gypsies, serial killers, Muslims, the foreigner and anyone not like us or from our tribe.  We are also terribly aware of the results of such judgements which include the lynching of black men, the Nazi Holocaust, genocides, racial profiling and Charlottesville.  Though for the victims of clerical sexual abuse might they be offered an indulgence if they think in such a manner as a way to vent their deep feelings in the pattern of the cursing psalms found in the bible?

Therefore, one of the most difficult teachings of the sacred scriptures to live out at this time is that every person is created in the image and likeness of God and never, never loses their human dignity.  If it is true for me, then it must also be true for the person who suffers from and has acted upon their inclinations of pedophilia destroying and wasting the lives of children.

My deepest challenge is how to respond to those bishops, superiors, priests and others who covered up the actions of pedophile priests and bishops.  Whatever their motives, corrupt or blind as it may have been to protect the institution, they deserve the severest of condemnations.  To look away when innocence is being perverted and harmed is unconscionable.  Yet, they too are our brothers and sisters.

In this light, another challenging aspect is that the risen Christ has only broken, wonderful, sinful, gifted, even morally deformed people from which to choose to do his work in the world.  A recent sign in front of a church declared, “Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”   There must always be held in the heart of the church the hope of redemption for every person, perpetrator and those who covered – up their actions.  Without this deep hope of redemption we are all condemned to judgement.

A stark realization is that we will never rid the world or the church of people with pedophilia.  Pedophilia is not about sex but about power.  Power of one person over another person.  Pedophilia therefore is not a Catholic crisis.  It is not a clergy versus laity problem.  It is not an issue of celibacy versus marriage, male versus female or homosexual versus heterosexual.  Pedophilia is a devastatingly human tragedy whose victims are forever changed.  And our pedophilic brothers and sisters are sick and in need of care as are their victims.  And we cannot expect one person, the Pope, despite certain actions he can take, to solve this alone.  The followers of Jesus have always spoken in terms of family, of a body, where all the members are needed.

Therefore, how do we together reclaim truth, integrity, and the protection of our children?

In an age of ‘fake news’ claims, false stories gone viral on social media and lies, cover – ups and betrayals from church leaders to Wall Street; from corporations to government officials, Pilate’s question echoes over the centuries, “What is truth?”.  How do we reclaim a sense truth in our church?

Experiencing the betrayal of priests and bishops, can we bishops and priests ever reclaim your trust?   And what will that look like?  Will we ever be able to lay claim again to the teaching authority of Christ?  Or will that trust and authority only be given back to us when we all accept that we are disciples of Jesus, that is, learners, and at various times are also all teachers to each other in Christ Jesus?

If we are all called to be vigilant so as to protect our children and form an environment where for their sake as well, people suffering from pedophilia cannot act on their inclinations, how does such protective vigilance occur without suspicion of people?  For is not suspicion simply a guilty verdict hiding under another name?

And lest we forget, there are our sisters and brothers, along with many victims, who have left the Catholic Church or whose faith in God has been deeply damaged.  And can we blame them?

As we pray for them, there are those of us priests, bishops and you who continue to stay.  Might we all need to ask ourselves and share with others why we do stay?  Why do we continue to gather around this altar when we could be doing something else at this shameful and scandalous time in the life of the church?  Might we need to ask, as some do, why a man would consider the priesthood in the Catholic Church today as a vocation?

I came to realize I may not have spoken on this issue all these years because of the shame I have felt each time a new allegation or report has come out.  What might I say that will be believed or have value?  Yet the feelings of shame and at times of being under suspicion pales in comparison to the weight our sisters and brothers carry who have experienced sexual abuse because of the actions of our brother priests and bishops.

I have today tried to make some feeble attempt at putting this issue in the context of our prayer and reflection.

For the victims for clerical sexual abuse, for priest sexual predators, and the priests, bishops and others who covered up these horrific attacks and protected the institution rather than our children and for us, might today be summoned up in the response posed by Peter to Jesus when he asked “Do you also want to leave?”.  Peter responded, “Master, to whom shall we go?”  Yes, to whom shall we go?

I stay because I trust that the promised Holy Spirit is always present and working in the Church.  I stay because I believe in hope and redemption.  I stay because the greatest gift I have ever undeservingly received is that I am a priest of Jesus Christ in the Catholic Church.

Why, when it is really hard to be a Catholic, do you stay?