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The Crisis in the Catholic Church



The Catholic Church suffered a double whammy during the summer with the resignation of 88-year old Cardinal Theodore McCarrick  because of credible accusations of sexual abuse with an altar boy in the 1970's and later with numerous seminarians. This was followed by a voluminous grand jury report in Pennsylvania detailing many lurid stories describing the abuse of more than a thousand children by three hundred priests over seventy years - with more to follow.


These shocking events must be viewed as part of the shameful revelations of sexual abuse by priests and brothers, monks, friars, bishops and nuns in dioceses all over the world.


No wonder that the Catholic Church is in crisis. The sexual abuse of children involves such awful and reprehensible acts of terror by  trusted adults against innocent children that trying to come to terms with this widespread abominable behavior has sapped the spirit of Catholics everywhere. Instead of pride in their church community, many are deeply ashamed of their membership in what they see as a corrupt and decaying institution.


A recent metaphor that describes the Catholic Church as a walking corpse, an aimless specter, trudging around in the dark as it recedes into oblivion is only a slight exaggeration.  No organization that abuses its young can hold its head up high. No group that allowed and then covered up the depraved ruination of so many children's lives can claim any kind of Christian mandate. All the undoubted good work performed by so many fine people cannot cover or even mitigate the damnable acts against children by shameless and unhinged predators wearing clerical robes.


 Sex abuse of minors is only one dimension - albeit a very potent one - of the life-or-death crisis in the church.


 The Catholic Church is demonstrably a misogynistic organization. This shows clearly in its structures which diminish and demean women at every turn.


The Vatican published a document on the importance of family life that was prepared over two years in 2014 and 2015. Many of the recommendations were voted on by 279 members of a commission that, under the pope, prepared the final document. Not even one woman had a vote on these crucial family issues.


 It must be obvious to all thinking people - and especially to women - that only a church which is completely out of touch with modern realities would promulgate a document dealing with important family matters without even one female signature.


The Second Vatican Council  was established in the 1960's by the last great pope, John XX111. His goal was to move the church away from a medieval mindset which mostly described human behavior in terms of evil and sinfulness, and to focus  instead  on a more positive culture, open to the goodness and graciousness of followers of all religions.


The documents of that Council stressed the importance of consultation with the laity in the evolution of doctrine and religious practices in the church.


The idea that faithful Catholics everywhere should provide a significant contribution to the development of church beliefs is spoken of approvingly by theologians as constituting the sensus fidelium. This "sense of the faithful" involves a kind of solemn commitment by Rome to listen to the opinions of Catholics worldwide before pronouncing about  matters of church dogma or morality.


Unfortunately, the experts in the Vatican act as an elite within the church. They know best when they make ecclesial pronouncements, and the sensus fidelium is honored in Shakespeare's words "far more in the breach than in the observance."


Would the church have lost so much credibility if it paid any heed to the views of its members? Surely predator priests would have been shown the road by concerned parents far quicker than by aging celibates whose priority always seemed to be avoiding scandal and protecting fellow-clerics.


If there was any heed paid to the church membership would women still be excluded from all the important leadership positions, including preaching and administering the Eucharist? Clericalism rules! Men with clear conservative credentials, selected for appointment  to the bishoprics and the magisterium in Rome, rule the roost.


 These men say that public discussion of the pros and cons of women's ordination may not take place in any forum in a church-owned building.  Tough luck on the majority of believers in Western countries who support this basic change in church discipline. So much for the value placed in the Vatican on the sensus fidelium!


Rome's fallacious arguments for preventing female ordination were succinctly  rebuffed by former Irish president, Mary McAleese, as "codology dressed up as theology." Francis' response when questioned about this matter referred to a statement by John Paul 11 twenty years earlier that categorically ruled out any discussion of change. Case closed!!


In 1968, Pope Paul V1 published the encyclical Humanae Vitae, which prescribed that Catholics - married or unmarried - were banned from using contraceptives of any kind to limit the size of their families.  A clear majority of the group of international experts appointed  by Rome to counsel the pope on these crucial issues advised that married couples should be allowed to regulate the size of their families by using contraceptives. Their thoughtful counsel was disregarded in favor of a minority of traditionalists who argued that the pope had to follow the teaching of Pius X1 from forty years earlier.


Humanae Vitae still incorporates the official beliefs of the Catholic church, and the pope who disregarded his advisors and took a hard line on the use of contraceptives  is on his way to canonization. Some progressive commentators view his likely promotion to sainthood as payback for following strict traditional teaching in his controversial encyclical.


 Imagine defending the  Vatican teaching that a married couple using a condom to prevent pregnancy is engaged in sinful behavior. Do you know any Catholic who believes that  untenable moral position?


With professional sampling techniques, the Vatican could discern the movement of the Spirit by consulting with the people on various important issues. Stop the hypocrisy of pretending that somehow the pope and his magisterium possess special deep insights into moral issues because they have shown repeatedly over the centuries that they don't. They excel mostly in justifying traditional beliefs and practices.


Try a democratic approach, consulting the people about what they believe the magnanimous Christ of the gospels would be teaching today. Would he, for example, be referring to gay people as "disordered" and supporting laws that prohibit women from leading the celebration of the Eucharist?


In the unlikely event that Catholic leaders  in Rome will listen to the people about, for instance, priestly celibacy or the ordination of women or a new role for the laity or the treatment of gays, then we could be into the kind of major changes that are urgently called for in this serious crisis in the Catholic Church.

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