Carrying the can

by Editor · May 1, 2002

Although the disgrace of some priests sexually abusing minors has itself not touched the Southern African Church at least publicly the local clergy is feeling the pain caused by such cases in Europe, North America and Australia.

The scandal doubtlessly will have profound repercussions in the way the hierarchy, clergy, religious and laity interact. Particularly in North America and Europe, the laity will demand and expect from the hierarchy a greater level of accountability and involvement in decision-making processes.

Within the clergy, much introspection is going on. Fr Christopher Clohessy, a priest of the archdiocese of Cape Town, recently put it this way: “[This] is an hour in which we need seriously to re-evaluate the priesthood and how it ought to be lived and an hour in which we need to reiterate as strongly as possible that Jesus Christ is the touchstone against which the mettle of the priesthood must be tested.”

Paradoxically, from the painful scandal, a renewed and purified clergy may emerge.

Public anger, however, is not so much directed at the clergy in general as it is at Church leaders who have been party to covering up the crimes of individual priests with the apparent endorsement of the Roman curia, which has emphasised a supposed need to keep cases of abuse “confidential,” ironically in order to prevent scandal and to protect the good name of the clergy.

While stringent reform is certainly needed in the selection of candidate priests, ruling out from the priesthood chaste men with a homosexual orientation, as has been mooted, may well be seen as an attempt by the Church leadership to scapegoat in order to deflect attention from its own pivotal role in the scandal.

The real ignominy has not been the sickening conduct of a few priests it would be naive to presume that there would be no bad apples in the ecclesiastical cart but the betrayal of the faithful by those in authority who have put children at risk of abuse by men known to be sexual predators.

This is why many good and loyal Catholics are calling for the resignation of Boston’s Cardinal Bernard Law, whose archdiocese has been at the centre of at least two of the most shocking cases of negligence.

While clerical introspection is inevitable and commendable, our virtuous priests should not need to carry the solitary can for their few errant colleagues. This burden must be borne by those in authority who cultivated, by commission or omission, what has been aptly described as a “conspiracy of silence.”