“Sometimes very badly handled,” said Pope Benedict XVI to his bishops, referring to the handling of the sexual abuse crisis in this country. In tonight’s landmark speech to the U.S. bishops, following a vespers service at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Benedict offered a lengthy analysis of the clergy abuse crisis that has devastated the Catholic Church. The abuse has caused “deep shame.” Bishops must “attach priority by showing compassion and care to the victims…those so seriously wronged.”
Even veteran Vaticanologists were surprised that Benedict chose to address the problem at such length, and in a public setting — before the assembled bishops and cardinals, and before the television cameras. In essence, before the world. His earlier comments, en route from Rome, indicated that he would address the issue, but few thought he would tackle the question so directly. Or so soon. Or so publicly.
Remember that the pope could easily have chosen two other options: speaking with the bishops privately about the matter, or not at all.
But was it enough?
To answer that question adequately you will have to ask a victim of clergy abuse, or a family member, and many of them will weigh in with their reactions to the pope’s words.
For me, however, his words were a sign that the pope is intent on tackling the subject head on, reminding the bishops not only of the “scale and gravity” of the problem but also of their responsibility to “bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust,” that is, the wounds caused by abusive priests and the bishops who moved them from parish to parish.
Some of Benedict’s message may be vitiated, for some, by his placement of the abuse crisis in a “wider context” of a permissive society. (That is, some may interpret the pope as saying that the abuse was largely the result of a morally lax and sexually permissive society, when most Catholics believe it was more a result of shocking negligence on the part of some bishops.) Some might also believe that tonight’s talk should have focused more on the victims, rather than on the innocent priests (that is, the majority, who were not abusers), who were compared to Christ suffering through his Passion. Whatever innocent priests have suffered pales in comparison to what victims and their families have undergone.
But the pope’s address was notable as much for what it did not say, as for what it said. Think about what he did not say, in contrast to what some officials have said in the past.
He did not blame it on the media, as some have. He did not blame it on homosexuality, as some have. (Earlier, on the plane from Rome he explicitly, and rightly, distinguished between homosexuality and pedophilia.) He did not speak largely in somewhat abstract theological terms, as Pope John Paul II did, who called the crisis a reflection of the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of evil. (To be fair, John Paul, who was aged and severely ailing during the crisis, gathered together the American cardinals and spoke out forcefully against keeping abusive priests in ministry.) Finally, Benedict did not simply advert to the crisis in vague terms or speak about the crimes obliquely, but called it by its rightful name: the source of the church’s shame was the “sexual abuse of minors.” In the Gospels, when Jesus exorcised a demon named “Legion,” one of the first things he did was to name the demon. (Father James Martin)
Even veteran Vaticanologists were surprised that Benedict chose to address the problem at such length, and in a public setting — before the assembled bishops and cardinals, and before the television cameras. In essence, before the world. His earlier comments, en route from Rome, indicated that he would address the issue, but few thought he would tackle the question so directly. Or so soon. Or so publicly.
Remember that the pope could easily have chosen two other options: speaking with the bishops privately about the matter, or not at all.
But was it enough?
To answer that question adequately you will have to ask a victim of clergy abuse, or a family member, and many of them will weigh in with their reactions to the pope’s words.
For me, however, his words were a sign that the pope is intent on tackling the subject head on, reminding the bishops not only of the “scale and gravity” of the problem but also of their responsibility to “bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust,” that is, the wounds caused by abusive priests and the bishops who moved them from parish to parish.
Some of Benedict’s message may be vitiated, for some, by his placement of the abuse crisis in a “wider context” of a permissive society. (That is, some may interpret the pope as saying that the abuse was largely the result of a morally lax and sexually permissive society, when most Catholics believe it was more a result of shocking negligence on the part of some bishops.) Some might also believe that tonight’s talk should have focused more on the victims, rather than on the innocent priests (that is, the majority, who were not abusers), who were compared to Christ suffering through his Passion. Whatever innocent priests have suffered pales in comparison to what victims and their families have undergone.
But the pope’s address was notable as much for what it did not say, as for what it said. Think about what he did not say, in contrast to what some officials have said in the past.
He did not blame it on the media, as some have. He did not blame it on homosexuality, as some have. (Earlier, on the plane from Rome he explicitly, and rightly, distinguished between homosexuality and pedophilia.) He did not speak largely in somewhat abstract theological terms, as Pope John Paul II did, who called the crisis a reflection of the mysterium iniquitatis, the mystery of evil. (To be fair, John Paul, who was aged and severely ailing during the crisis, gathered together the American cardinals and spoke out forcefully against keeping abusive priests in ministry.) Finally, Benedict did not simply advert to the crisis in vague terms or speak about the crimes obliquely, but called it by its rightful name: the source of the church’s shame was the “sexual abuse of minors.” In the Gospels, when Jesus exorcised a demon named “Legion,” one of the first things he did was to name the demon. (Father James Martin)
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