Dominus Vobiscum

Child sexual abuse is the earthquake that has shaken the Catholic Church to its foundations, but will the Church collapse  – and should it? Pope Francis recently held a summit on the abuse issue at the Vatican. While the result is essentially a series of promises to deal with this problem, it is not enough for  abuse victims, who feel there are no real specifics for action. Is the Pope trying to lead the Church forward, or is he simply playing catch-up?

I was raised in Catholicism, and though I no longer practice it, I believe the pontiff to be genuine in his intentions. Like many large organizations, including corporations and public agencies, the Catholic Church, for decades, and even for centuries, has kept  its dark side hidden within the family. There are plenty of bad priests, and plenty of higher-ups in the Church who have known full well what’s been going on. Yes, the sins must be revealed, the bad eggs thrown out, and the victims compensated. Then what?

Perhaps the required pastoral vow of celibacy is the problem. Those who vow to be celibate are shutting off part of their humanity for a higher purpose. That may be admirable for those who can keep such a commitment, but the level of abuse shows that there are a great many who can’t.

The question arises, would the abuse of children stop, or at least decrease, if Catholic priests were allowed to marry? The worry for Catholicism is, would the Church still be the Church if the current practice were changed? This is above my pay grade, so to speak, so I’m not going to debate that here, except to say that I am old enough to remember that the Masses I attended as a child were delivered almost entirely in Latin. The Church gave that one up and still managed to survive. In the case of sexual abuses committed by those in clerical authority, we are learning that this problem is by no means confined to the Catholic Church.

As for Pope Francis, it may appear that he is coming at this too little too late, and we may well ask, over his long service in various Church posts, what he knew and when he knew it. The necessary reforms may not happen with the speed that some are insisting on, but they have to start someplace, and Francis is trying to turn a really big ship around in the middle of the ocean. We must also remember that there are millions more involved here than just abusers and victims: the many millions of Catholics in the middle who have a say in what happens, too.

Habemus Papam

"...If the Christian is a restorationist, a legalist,  if he wants everything clear and safe, he will find nothing...Those who always look for disciplinarian solutiions, those who long for an exaggerated doctrinal 'security,' those who stubbornly try to recover a past that no longer exists -- they have a static and inward-directed view of things. In this way, faith becomes an ideology among other ideologies."

It has bgeen crystal clear for years that the Catholic Church has needed an overhaul. Perhaps it will begin with the sea change that has occurred at the very top. The words above are from an interview given to a Jesuit journal by Pope Francis I -- a welcome breeze through the musty catacombs of an institution that needs it.

I am no longer Catholic, but I was raised that way in a time when things were different.The Mass was in Latin. Fridays, and quite a few other days, were meatless -- I had one of those calendars with the fish icons signifying when meat was off-limits. I kept close track of my sins, so much so that I was afraid to fly unless I had been to confession, in case the plane should crash and I should die with a blot on my soul and be sent to the place with eternal central heating. It was a scary time to be a child, much less an adolescent. The church has since lightened up, to a point.

There's something about religions. They start out with a simple mission and then turn into corporations with a hierarchy and sets of rules, regulations, and judgments -- often combined with the conviction that the world won't be quite right unless everyone is converted. Judaism had turned into one of these when Jesus came along. If he had a mission, it was to bring religion back to its original purpose. Would he approve of what has been done in his name since he left? For that matter, would the Prophet Muhammad (blessings and peace be upon him) be happy with what's happened to Islam? I think we know the answers.

I am becoming less "religious" as I age, when I've always been told it should be the other way around. My problem with most religions is that they consider being human some kind of inferior status. When we screw up, we're told we're "only human." The phrase "human nature" usually refers to something negative. I often wonder what would become of art, music, and literature in a world where humanity is continually discounted. Would we all be singing hymns instead of love songs?

A worthy goal of religion would seem to be to put us into alignment with our "better angels." But it also has to let us breathe. I may be reading too much into the new pope's words, but I think this is one of the things he's trying to tell us. It will be enlightening to hear what else he has to say.

Catholicism and Me

I am a long-since-lapsed Catholic, but having been raised in this faith, the election of a new pope remains a story that catches my attention. The white smoke/black smoke thing is no less dramatic now than it was when I first heard CBS correspondent Winston Burdett, in his incomparable style, intoning, “Habemus papam!” My earliest pope, BTW, was Pius XII.

Why did I lapse? Many reasons, but a common thread that runs through many organized religions is that they get too complicated. I recognize the need for the Ten Commandments, but it usually doesn’t stop there. Catholicism added all kinds of stuff about meatless Fridays, venial and mortal sins, confession, penance, etc. I actually sort of miss the Latin Mass, believe it or not, and preferred just going to the service and leaving without having to turn around and greet others in neighboring pews, but that’s a side issue.

The meatless business was kind of annoying. We used to have one of those calendars with fish on it. On Fridays and certain days in Lent, as I recall, the fish was colored blue, and that meant no meat at all that day. If the fish was an outline only, that meant you could only have meat at the “principal meal” of the day.

Once we were invited to a barbecue put on by a non-Catholic family, on a Friday, of course. They served me steak, and I ate it -- probably the best I’d ever had. I was terribly guilty about this, and felt the need to mention it in confession on Saturday. The kindly priest said, “In this case, you didn’t really sin; it would have been rude, as a guest, to refuse the main thing they were serving you.”

“But Father,” I replied in deepest shame, “I had seconds!”

I was often terrified as a child to take an airline trip if I hadn’t been to confession. If something should happen to the aircraft in flight and I was not in a “state of grace,” the only solution was to make a “perfect act of contrition” while the plane was going down. I despaired of ever having the presence of mind to be able to do that, so my knuckles were white on the smoothest of flights.

Don’t even get me started on what the Church put in children’s heads regarding sexuality, especially males. Impure thoughts, self-abuse, etc., some of you may know the drill. Of course, we’ve learned in recent years that many of the priests were not too adept at practicing what was preached in this area.

The election of Pope Francis I could mean a significant shift in the way the Church does business. His humility and experience working with the poor have been praised. Many of the faithful also hope that he will do something about financial corruption and increase transparency, as well as deal more forcefully with the child-abuse issues. And, of course, he is the first non-European pope.

But he isn’t expected to do a lot of reforming in basic church doctrine. The “thou shalt nots” that sent me on such guilt trips as a child are expected to largely remain, so I don’t think I’ll be un-lapsing anytime soon.