Blue Eyed Ennis: John Allen Article on the Belgian Abuse Crisis

John Allen Article on the Belgian Abuse Crisis

This an excellent article by John Allen from the National Catholic Reporter. (posted 13th September) is on the Belgian sexual abuse crisis and the role of the Bishops.

I really did not want to post this latest revelation, the Cardinal Danneels scandal. It just seems to get worse.

The crime itself, the cover up, the easy and incompetent discounter statement : "you can always blame it on a few retired "bad apples,")... They just continue stumbling along hoping things will magically get better.

This cover-up didn't happen decades ago--it happened in April of this year!

Like so many articles on these and other contentious issues in the church it becomes ever more difficult to plough through them without revulsion, a deep sense of unease and a heartfelt desire for renewal in my church.

Because I am writing at a time when Catholics are awaiting the papal visit in the UK, I also hesitate as to what to write these days but I can't ignore what is going on or collude with whitewash and defensive stances that are so obviously just a desperate buttress against the truth and these issues are important to everyone.

Undoubtedly,there has been some awful one - sided vitriol in the media against my church and this too needs countering but I can only go by my conscience in deciding to air these articles and hope that they are chosen with some discernment and recognition of the integrity of the author. I believe John Allen is a respected journalist.
I also believe that these articles are part of a much bigger blog that celebrates and honours the word of God and the love of Jesus Christ who wants us all to be "One".

The comments section that follows John Allens report is thoughtful and has many diverse points of view.

I agreed with this comment by Tom W.

"There still remains ONE other fraternity to which they all belong: priests trained before Vatican II. I see many conservative Catholics blame the sexual abuse crisis on the "permissive" or "lax" theology that was ushered in after the Second Vatican Council, but in fact it was the openness of Vatican II that seems to have empowered victims to come forward.

As is the case with much of the abuse itself that took place, so too with this fraternity of disgraced bishops: it was the training and teaching of pre-Vatican II priestly formation that has proven to be a constant throughout the abuse crisis.

I mention this because many of our younger priests and newly-minted deacons increasingly see the "old" ways as the better ones, and I fear that the abuse crisis (or something similar) will rear its ugly head in new ways as this "reform of the reform" continues on its path."
and also this one by Joseph Jaglowicz

As you've suggested, these abuse cases were handled by men trained in the Tridentine church. The clerical culture, centuries in the making, elevated the ordained and subordinated the laity.

And now we have a pope whose response has been muddled at best. On the one hand, B16 sentenced Maciel to a life of prayer and penance, but, on the other hand, Ratzinger has been hell-bent on restoring all the cultural artifacts and beliefs of a monarchical papacy that lie at the heart of the institutional rot and decay of the Church of Rome."

But as one of the comments quoted , I too I find this statement below by Pope Benedict incredulous ...........
"The problem of abuse by clergy is solved more by a spirit of penitence and conversion by its members than by a radical change of church structures, Pope Benedict XVI said" (NCR).
and as another commentator says

"Can the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church be blind to the fact that its actions in continuing on its present course are speeding up an already unprecedented erosion of credibility among the ordinary faithful who want to cling to the belief that church leadership is capable of telling the truth and being accountable for its failures in protecting children?..............................................................."

My own view concurs with this fear even though the laws on sexual abuse have been clarified and revised now (Thank God).
None of this sits light in my heart and mind and soul and I all I can pray today is that the visit of Pope Benedict will not be a shallow and futile flop.

2 comments:

colkoch said...: Phil, I would have chosen the same two comments. The crisis in leadership is a product of pre vatican II training and it is precisely that clerical world which Benedict is desparate to save.

But the second states the real truth. Does the hierarchy even care that the laity are losing all trust in the Vatican's ability to tell the truth or submit to any real accountability. Actually I wonder how many of them are capable of seeing the truth, much less telling the truth.

It is all so frustrating and at the same time heart breaking.; 14 September 2010 at 18:44
Blue Eyed Ennis said...: Hi, Colleen,
It is great to have your comments
It is also relief and a great support to hear your own comments are in agreement as I really am questioning my own self when I am writing about the mess the church is in. But every day the hierarchy responses get clearly more and more guarded or so appallingly condescending it makes me cringe.
Blessings; 14 September 2010 at 19:01

More from Seamus Heaney

“History says, Don't hope
On this side of the grave,
But then, once in a lifetime,
The longest-for tidal wave of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea change
On the far side of revenge
Believe in miracles....”

“The aim of poetry and the poet is finally to be of service, to ply the effort of the individual into the larger work of the community as a whole.” ―

“I can't think of a case where poems changed the world, but what they do is they change people's understanding of what's going on in the world.”

and five more......

On his inspiration: 'The completely solitary self: that's where poetry comes from, and it gets isolated by crisis”

On which animal he'd prefer to be: "I might enjoy being an albatross, being able to glide for days and daydream for hundreds of miles along the thermals. And then being able to hang like an affliction round some people's necks."

On fame: "The gift of writing is to be self-forgetful, to get a surge of inner life or inner supply or unexpected sense of empowerment, to be afloat, to be out of yourself. The prizes can’t help you at all.”

On becoming a poet: "My quest for precision and definition, while it may lead backward, is conducted in the living speech of a landscape and a language that I was born with. If you like, I began as a poet when my roots were crossed with my reading."

On authority "At home in Ireland, there's a habit of avoidance, an ironical attitude towards the authority figure. "

Easter Hope All Year Round

Celestial spirit that doth roll
The heart's sepulchral stone away,
Be this our resurrection day,
The singing Easter of the soul -
O gentle Master of the Wise,
Teach us to say: "I will arise." ~
Richard Le Gallienne

"The great gift of Easter is hope - Christian hope which makes us have that confidence in God, in his ultimate triumph, and in his goodness and love, which nothing can shake."
-- Basil C. Hume

Celtic Christianity may offer us a lifeline in the form of an approach to faith which is rooted in the imagination...[Celts] excelled at expressing their faith in symbols, metaphors and images, both visual and poetic.
They had the ability to invest the ordinary and commonplace with sacramental significance, to find glimpses of God’s glory throughout creation and to paint pictures in words, signs and music that acted as icons opening windows on heaven and pathways to eternity
Ian Bradley The Celtic Way

Favourite Quotes from Pope Francis

“Thanks to magnanimity, we can always look at the horizon from the position where we are. That means being able to do the little things of every day with a big heart open to God and to others. That means being able to appreciate the small things inside large horizons, those of the kingdom of God.

This offers parameters to assume a correct position for discernment, in order to hear the things of God from God’s ‘point of view.’ … However the risk in seeking and finding God in all things, then, is the willingness to explain too much, to say with human certainty and arrogance: ‘God is here.’ We will find only a god that fits our measure. The correct attitude is that of St. Augustine: seek God to find him, and find God to keep searching for God forever.”

-- Pope Francis

Carlo Caretto's Love Letter to His Church

How much I much criticise you my church and yet how much I love you !

You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe you more than I owe anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence.

You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in the world have I seen anything more obscurantist, more compromised, more false, yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous or more beautiful.

Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face – and yet, every night, I have prayed that I might die in your arms!

No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you.
Then too – where should I go? To build another church?

But I cannot build another church without the same defects, for they are my own defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ’s church. No, I am old enough. I know better!"

Did the Woman Say ?

Great Quotes

A blank piece of paper is God's way of telling us how hard it is to be God.

Sidney Sheldon

There are things you can’t reach. But
you can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of God.
And it can keep you as busy as anything else, and happier.

Mary Oliver

“A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul.”

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"There is an Indian proverb or axiom that says that everyone is a house with four rooms, a physical, a mental, an emotional, and a spiritual. Most of us tend to live in one room most of the time but, unless we go into every room every day, even if only to keep it aired, we are not a complete person."

~Rumer Godden, A House with Four Rooms, 1989

“And

"
"You can get all A's and still flunk life."

"Lost in the mystery of finding myself alive."

Walker Percy

"The day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

A tough life needs a tough language-and that's what poetry is. That's what literature offers- a language powerful enough to say how it is. It isn't a hiding place. It is a finding place.
Jeanette Winterson

There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way.”

- C.S. Lewis

The independent hearts of Celtic descendents everywhere still yearn for the solitary place, still rejoice in the goodness of creation, still see the Lord beside them as they walk, still see Him in the face of friend and stranger. The gospel light with its eastern fire still gleams. The truth still lingers in the heart.
Pat Robson – The Celtic Heart

People are itchy and lost and bored and quick to jump at any fix. Why is there such a vast self-help industry in this country? Why do all these selves need help?

They have been deprived of something by our psychological culture. They have been deprived of the sense that there is something else in life, some purpose that has come with them into the world."

-- James Hillman

Loyalty to the country always. Loyalty to the government only when it deserves it.
--Mark Twain

During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
--George Orwell

We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice: - we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past.
-- George Orwell

Never for the sake of peace and quiet deny your own experience or convictions.
--Dag Hammarskjöld

If you want to build a ship don't herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
— Antoine de Saint-Exupery

For what are we, without hope in our hearts, that someday we'll drink from God's blessed waters?"
-Bruce Springsteen

"Sometimes grace works like waterwings when you feel you are sinking."
-Anne Lamott

"A prayer may be a wordless inner longing, a sudden outpouring of love, a yearning within the soul to be for a moment united within the infinite and the good, a humbleness that needs no abasement or speech to express it, a cry in the darkness for help when all seems lost, a song, a poem, a kind deed, a reaching for beauty, or the strong, quiet inner reaffirmation of faith. A prayer in fact can be anything that is created by God that turns to God."

Paul Gallico

"God does not die when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illuminated by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason."

Dag Hammarskjold

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world.”

― Paul Hawken

The greatest religious challenge of our age is to hold together social action and spiritual disciplines. This is not just a theological necessity, dictated by the need to integrate all of life around the reality of the living God. It is a matter of sheer survival. The evils we confront are so massive, so inhuman, so impervious to appeals and dead to compassion, that those who struggle against them face the real possibility of being overwhelmed by them.”

~ Theologian Walter Wink

One day you will ask me which is more important? My life or yours?
I will say mine and you will walk away not knowing that you are my life.

~ Khalil Gibran

Blue Eyed Ennis

John Allen Article on the Belgian Abuse Crisis

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John Allen Article on the Belgian Abuse Crisis

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