Defend your Church

As we move into 2011 many people will be following the age-old tradition of making New Years resolutions. Perhaps the most appropriate resolution that Catholics could make for the coming year is to start defending our Church against those, particularly in the mass media, who see Catholicism as an easy target.

They dont attack Islam and the Jewish faith much anymore because they know that they will get more than just a slap on the wrist. So what do we do and how do we do it? Well, perhaps the following might give us some inspiration.

Doing the rounds in South Africa right now is a talk given almost ten years ago by an American businessman, Sam Miller, who is not Catholic but Jewish, but remains fighting mad about the concentrated effort by the media to denigrate the Catholic Church.

Im going to say things here today, he said, that many Catholics should have said months ago. Maybe its easier for me to say because I am not Catholic, but I have had enough, more than enough, disgustingly enough.

During my entire life Ive never seen a greater vindictive, more scurrilous, biased campaign against the Catholic Church as I have seen in the last 18 months, and the strangest thing is that it is in a country like the United States where there is supposed to be mutual respect and freedom for all religions.

This has bothered me because I too am a minority in this country. You see, unfortunately, and I say this very advisedly, the Catholics have forgotten that in the early 1850s when the Italians, the Poles, the Latvians, the Lithuanians, all of Catholic persuasion, came to this country looking for opportunity because of famine, they were already looked upon with derision, suspicion and hatred. Consequently the jobs they were forced to take were the jobs that nobody else wanted bricklayers, ditch diggers, Jewish junkmen, street cleaners, etc.

This prejudice against your religion and mine has never left this country and dont ever forget it, and [sic] never will. Your people were called Papists, Waps, Guineas, frogs, fish eaters, ad infinitum.

And then after the Civil War, around 1864, the fundamentalists, conservatives, Protestants and a few WASPs began planting burning crosses throughout the country, particularly in the South. And today as far as Im concerned, very little has changed. These gentlemen now have a new style of clothing they’ve gone from bed sheets to gentlemens suits.

There is a concentrated effort by the media today to totally denigrate in every way the Catholic Church in this country. You dont find it this bad overseas at all. They have now blamed the disease of paedophilia on the Catholic Church, which is as irresponsible as blaming adultery on the institution of marriage. You and me have been living in a false paradise. Wake up and recognise that many people dont like Catholics. What are these people trying to accomplish?

From the Sojourners Magazine dated August, 2002, listen carefully to a quote: While much of the recent media hype has focused on the Catholic Churchs paedophilia scandal, relatively little attention has been given to the high rate of sexual misconduct in the rest of American Christendom. This is truly a crisis that crosses the borders of all religions.

Now let me give you some figures that you as Catholics should know and remember. For example, research by Richard Blackman at Fuller Theological Seminary shows that 12% of the 300 Protestant clergy surveyed admitted to sexual intercourse with a parishioner; 38% acknowledged other inappropriate sexual contact. In a 1990 study by the United Methodist Church, 41.8% of clergywomen reported unwanted sexual behaviour by a colleague; 17% of laywomen said that their own pastors had sexually harassed them. Phillip Jenkins concludes in his book Paedophiles and Priests that while 1,7% of the Catholic clergy has been found guilty of paedophilia, 10% of Protestant ministers have been found guilty of paedophilia.

This is not a Catholic problem. This is a problem of pure prejudice. Why do the papers, day after day, week after week, month after month, see fit to do nothing but come out with these scurrilous stories?

Obviously, this is not just a Catholic problem. And solutions must be broader and deeper than those carried out by Catholic cardinals. The whole Church has a responsibility to offer decisive leadership in the area of sexual misconduct whether it is child abuse, sexual exploitation, or sexual harassment.

Space restrictions prevent me from recording the entire speech here. It can however be found on the Internet by following link abyssum.wordpress.com/2010