Church Crisis - A Rebirth in Pain

On 4 July 1994 Vaclav Havel, poet, playwright, and peace activist,  then President of the Czech Republic, was award the Liberty Medal by the American government in a ceremony in Philadelphia.

In his speech he reflected on the extraordinary changes taking place on a global scale, changes that have only increased in the intervening years.

He spoke of death and new birth.

He said: 'Today, many things indicate that we are going through a transitional period, when it seems that something is on the way out and something else is painfully being born. It is as if something were crumbling, decaying and exhausting itself, while something else, still indistinct, were arising from the rubble.'

I was very struck when I came across these words recently.

They speak powerfully to the situation we are experiencing within the Catholic Church here in Ireland and in many parts of the world.

Something is 'on the way out' - a whole model of Church rooted in clericalism and authoritarianism. Before our very eyes we see it 'crumbling, decaying and exhausting itself'.

Something new is being 'painfully born', arising from the 'rubble'. But what is being born is as yet  'indistinct' for we live in a 'hinge period' in Church history.

Such a time demands courage and hope from courageous souls. We are being asked to hold firm in the trust that, despite signs to the contrary,  the same divine Spirit who brooded over the dark waters at the dawn of history drawing creation out of chaos, watches over this new work of God's creative goodness.

Standing Steady

Any human being who is alert is conscious of the tension, the conflict that goes on between light and darkness around them and within their own hearts. St Francis de Sales said the border line between the kingdom of darkness and the kingdom of light passes through every human heart.

For members of the Catholic community in Ireland and in many other places in the world these are very difficult days when the awareness of that struggle is hard and painful. The church is being purified and that work has to go deep. We are called to live out our Christian commitment in a time of darkness and uncertainty.

The struggle is real but so is the strength and courage that comes from the good Christ at this time.

As Christians we are not meant to downplay the reality of this struggle with darkness within our church and in our very hearts. We experience it; we see the consequences of it all around us. But if we are not meant to deny the darkness nor are we meant to be overwhelmed by it.

The Lord  knows what he is doing. I do not need to know how his grace is working as he purifies and brings healing. He alone can bring light from darkness, grace from sin and sorrow and shame, good from mess and failure.

Only his light can drive out darkness. And that is what he is doing now.

So now is the time for us to stand steady in that light.

Now more than ever we are called to hold firm, take heart and open ourselves as a faith community to receive from the Risen Christ the compassion that heals and frees us from the past, the trust that gives us courage in the present, and the wisdom and integrity that will enlighten our future path.

After the Cloyne Report

Last week the report on the handling of allegations of clerical sexual abuse within the Cloyne Diocese was published. Since then there has been a great outcry over  the mishandling of some cases, and especially about what was seen as interference by the Vatican.

Some politicians have demanded that the Papal Nuncio be expelled, and the Minister of Justice has spoken of bringing in legislation that would require priests to break the seal of confession if they learn of any sexual abuse.  The hard-hitting speech given by Taoiseach Enda Kenny in the Dail has received almost universal praise, including from many clergy.

Much of this anger is justifiable and very understandable.

But, writing in The Irish Independent, David Quinn asks some questions:

"How many people in Ireland know that the clerical abuse scandals peaked in the 1970s and 1980s? How many know that of the several hundred allegations received by the church in the last two years, almost none relate to incidents that happened in the last 10 years?

How many know that a large section of public opinion grossly overestimates the number of child abusers in the priesthood, as a Royal College of Surgeons survey ascertained?

How many know that Catholic priests are no more likely to abuse children than comparable groups, which is what 'Newsweek' magazine discovered when it contacted US insurance companies to determine whether they charged a higher risk premium for Catholic priests than for other clergy?

How many know that the Cloyne Report itself acknowledges that the church's child-protection guidelines are better than the State's guidelines? It says that compared with the church's guidelines, the State's are 'less precise and more difficult to implement'."

Quinn continues: "It would be safe to bet that only a small proportion of the public could correctly answer the above questions. The reason for this is that our media have no interest in making the answers known so instead we have a public that believes the phenomenon of child abuse is a particularly and peculiarly Catholic one."

In an atmosphere of hurt and outrage it is very difficult for the full truth of an issue to be held. This is especially the case when different agendas are at work.