The text of the papal apology, delivered this morning at a Mass in St Mary’s Cathedral, can be read here.
The symbolism of the setting for the apology - a mass for seminarians and members of religious orders and the consecration of a new altar for the Cathedral - was no doubt intended by the Vatican to signal that the Pope was speaking sternly to those at the centre of the institution. But it’s also deeply problematic - as it suggests that the problem is only one for the church, excluding the victims who were left outside while the pomp and panoply of the liturgy took place for the exclusive benefit of the hierarchy.
Having said that, all the indications are that Benedict himself is deeply shamed by the tragedy of clerical sexual abuse. However - and again this is a worrying sign of an inward focus - he ascribes its causes to shifts in the teaching of moral theology in seminaries, as noted by Catholic journalist John L. Allen, jnr. This aspect of Benedict’s response in his press conference on the plane to Australia wasn’t picked up in the local media’s coverage of World Youth Day, though it probably should have been. It’s certainly inconsistent with what expert observers think the cause is. It suggests that the focus is on the church’s own conflicts between conservatives and progressives, rather than on getting to grips with what’s actually been causing these abuses.
Similarly, the culture warriors at News Limited - sponsors of World Youth Day - have been continuing to see recent events through their own rose-coloured spectacles. The title of Christopher Pearson’s contribution today says it all. He’s incapable of transcending the culture war script, paints Pell as the victim, and trains his polemical sights on Anthony Jones. It’s probably significant that all those who have been claiming that the demands of victims for justice are politically motivated, or whatever, pass over in silence the case of Emma Foster, preferring to concentrate their rhetorical venom on Jones - whom no doubt they see as a weak target. They’re also ignoring the appalling remarks of Bishop Anthony Fisher. There’s a big contrast between the special pleading and victim blaming of the conservative media here and the “outrage” over an unclothed photograph of a 13 year old in the Bill Henson photos controversy. Seemingly, an artistic image of a naked 13 year old is a much more urgent matter for moral angst than the vastly inadequate response of a powerful and conservative institution to the repeated rape of a 12 year old girl.
The hypocrisy is stunning.
But where do we go from here? The papal apology needs to be supplemented by a real change in the church’s stance towards victims of abuse. Whether or not that occurs will have a lot more to do with the choices that the hierarchy in Australia - Cardinal Pell and others - make than any words from the Vatican.
Here’s a Catholic view on what Benedict - and the church - should be doing.
Update: [by Mark] The Pope has met with victims of sexual abuse.
Update: [by MB] More commentary from Shakesville.
Kim, brilliant coverage from you and all at L.P.@ W.Y.D. etc.
As someone who ccpped more than enough abuse from the catholic clergy, for one lifetime, I congratulate you all for a bit of balance. Particularly as you all clearly care about an old friend who needs help and is still in denial.
The Pope apologised for the sexual abuse of minors, so there was no apology in respect of sexual abuse of adults.
That is how i read it too, P.
The world view that underpinned the Catholic Church, namely that Jesus Christ, God incarnate, redeemed the world from Original sin, giving deceased Catholics easy access to heaven via the sacrament of Confession which alowed Imperfect contrition, while other Baptised had the harder requirement of Perfect contrition; while the Pope as God’s representitive on earth had a pass to declare virtually what he liked to be Mortal Sin, and he did indeed like to declare matters of discipline Mortal in their omission; and there was heaps of pseudo-legalistic rigmraole, to entangle those who had reached the age of reason, namely 7 years of age, in years of deep anxiety. For God hated sin, and the sinner was in dire peril of dying in their sleep. And in any case there was no escape because God was a meticulous record keeper, and one day we would have to face the Last Judgment, both Particular and General.
And so forth and so on. This was real child abuse. This was the environment that drove the exclusivity of Catholic society. This is the kind of upbringing that makes the senior clergy kind of crazy.
I think this world view that informed Catholic, and Christian, belief is less tenable that it was several hundred years ago. I thought it was fading away. If they push it too hard it may crash, because without tenable belief to underpin it, it is no more than a scam.
Trackback.
I’ve tried to consider the criminology, not the theology involved in the various debates that have swirled around World Youth Day. I’m not a Catholic (in fact, I’m not an anything), but do find the whole event intriguing.
OK, everybody who knows me reckons I have lousy fashion sense but even I wouldn’t wear what those blokes are wearing, or even what the blokes who were leading Darth down the street in the photo a day or so ago were wearing.Isn’t there a mob called the ‘fashion police’ who are supposed to stop this sort of stuff?
I suppose someone will now take the contrary view and tell me that that clobber looks ‘cool’ or ‘ace’ or ‘wicked’.
Was taught by nuns/brothers in the 50s. No such thing as moral proportionalism was taught then, unless one is thinking of the distinction between mortal and venial sin. Venial sin - telling somebody you forgot to do something when you were just too lazy to do it; mortal sin - JWH’s whoppers. It might have been taught in Europe - Australian Irish Catholicism wasn’t exactly up to date with overseas trends.
hannah’s dad when i saw the above piccie i thought how appropriate the hatwear was.
It matches the opera house.
An apology? Is that all? WTF? Let me get this straight, your kids are raped by a priest, their lives destroyed as a result, you have to spend 8 years fighting the church to get a decent sort of compensation (Lateline programme other night) and now the Pope says “sorry”? Well Pope, it’s gonna take more than that. How about addressing the victims and providing services to them that your church has f*cked?
And how about getting behind us heathen and charging those priests who are HIV positive and raping kids, to be charged with attempted murder?
http://www.aworlddeceived.ca/current.html
I’m sorry, but a “sorry” from you just doesn’t cut it.
To end, was part of the No to Pope protest yesterday. Brilliant! You can find the photo set here if you wish to look at people who are very annoying:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/peterbarkla/sets/72157606262254440/detail/
TKN -
Is it? Are they? The facts are that homosexuality is a sin. Now God may have made homosexuals but that doesn’t mean He was wants them doing their dirty deeds. But the Church loves the sinner so it says unto them come and be celibate and we’ll lock you away in a place where you can beat yourself for your unchaste thoughts and sleep in a very uncomfortable bed.
.
And then after 20 years of flagellation and no masturbation we’ll put you in charge of a bunch of teenagers of the same sex. Now that’s an excellent idea. As practical as it is beneficial.
Update: [by Mark] The Pope has met with victims of sexual abuse.
Which is excellent. Were the Foster family tepresented among the four?
(And a pretty lame excuse for not acting earlier. But since the Pope has to wark with Pell for years to come I suppose he has to be a bit diplomatic.)
Sadly, not the Foster family or anyone connected with Broken Rites.
joe2 at 1, thanks.
” Thee cheers for the paraclete”, eh?
Re scepticlawyer, its more than intriguing, its bloody appalling.
Kim is spot on to note the elephant in the room- the curt refusal of the Hollow Men to recognise the Foster family. Unconscionably brutal and insentive, it’s an expediency driven move has blows their credibility out of the water for all time and
the church’s Right’s victory is as hollow as it is Pyrrhic.
P
Sexual abuse of adults? Que? What does that have to do with the pope?
JG,
it wasn’t just adults. Some children were abused also. It’s been in the Press a bit. Have you been overseas on holiday?
I was responding to P’s comment on “adults.”
Update: [by MB] More commentary from Shakesville.
Paul - we don’t know the stories behind those who did meet with the Pope - probably never will as they want to keep their privacy but for all we know they have been quietly asking to meet the Pope for a long time. I’m not sure that you should always respond to the loudest and most public first, though I think it would have been much better PR to do so in this case.
JG,
Any predatory sexual behaviour is offensive regardless of the predator’s sexuality. I can tell you from a heterosexual’s point of view, homosexual predatory behaviour is particularly offensive when the person directing it at you knows you’re not gay and that you find them repulsive but still persists.
It is especially offensive also in Catholic priests who have a duty of pastoral care and are vowed to celibacy, regardless of the age of the person they’re preying upon.
Chris at 19, it’s somewhat disingenuous at best to purport to respond to those who have criticisms not just of the original abuse but how the church has handled it by picking those who are happy with the church’s process to act as “representatives”.
JG, there are also people who have been victims of sexual abuse by clergy as adults, and they’re normally overlooked. That’s the point.
Someone rightly mentioned, on another thread, the damage done by members of the catholic clergy in enforcing discipline in schools. Quite often this behaviour was quite sadistic and is another area also “normally overlooked” when talking of church child abuse.
An apology for that would have been appropriate from the pope as well.
Mark @22, I agree there is a need for the church to address and engage lobby groups like Broken Rites. But there was also the other need for the Pope to directly meet with victims and these should necessarily be the outspoken ones. Its also only an assumption that those he met with were completely happy with the process and did not have complaints, just that they haven’t gone public with any complaints (which would be completely understandable for privacy reasons).
joe2: The pope could spend the rest of his life apologising for past sins of the Catholic Church. In terms of corporal punishment at school, other religous organisations as well as the governments could do a bit of apologising as well.
Chris, it’s not an assumption - it’s been stated as a fact by Pell.
“An apology for that would have been appropriate from the pope as well.”
Corporal punishment was routinely used throughout the Australian education system - private and public - until the 1970’s.
If there was something uniquely sadistic about its application in the Catholic system, it’s news to me.
“Its also only an assumption that those he met with were completely happy with the process and did not have complaints, just that they haven’t gone public with any complaints (which would be completely understandable for privacy reasons).”
Chris, this reliable link might also help.
“The four victims at the Mass had gone through the Church’s much criticised internal program for sex abuse survivors. The man who chose them has admitted he had looked for people who would be “comfortable in attending the Mass”.
http://www.cathnews.com/article.aspx?aeid=8202
Geoff Honnor,
Have you seen the sewn together straps the De La Salle Brothers had? Worse than the cane I can tell you. And parentys used to think it was a good thing the brothers gave you a belting. It was supposed to toughen us up. And you weren’t supposed to cry or show tears either. You got more if you did that becauses you weren’t behaving ‘like a man.’
Hope I haven’t gone too far OT.
Mark - I haven’t seen any quotes from Pell saying that the participants were happy with the process. You can attain “a certain level of peace” about it all, whilst still thinking that things could have been handled better.
Joe2- yes, the context in which they held the meeting (a Mass) would have made it very difficult for those very angry with the church to attend.
Organisations often get criticised for only responding to people when they go public either individually or through lobby groups. So I think its good they have responded to people who have not done so. I think this is my main reason for suggesting that its not all bad news.
Paul - at my non Catholic school a teacher ended up getting sacked for excessive use of corporal punishment. Getting whacked on the fingers with rulers was never much fun either. And I’d agree that corporal punishment used to have a lot of parental support (still does have support from some). I don’t think the teacher did anything much different than he had for many years, just failed to change with changing community expectations.
“The pope could spend the rest of his life apologising for past sins of the Catholic Church.”
And Chris, i am only left with a flippant reply to that comment……
“Wouldn’t that be fair enough for a pope, over the age of eighty, when huge numbers of the laity have been doing just that , in confession, since god knows when”.
“Have you seen the sewn together straps the De La Salle Brothers had? Worse than the cane I can tell you. And parentys used to think it was a good thing the brothers gave you a belting”
Jesuits in my case, Paul and multitudes of Australians of a certain age who went through public education will - and do - recount equally colourful corporal punishment war stories.
I have to laugh about this.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/newshome/4813952
“Jesuits in my case, Paul and multitudes of Australians of a certain age who went through public education will - and do - recount equally colourful corporal punishment war stories.”
I was, supposedly, given the “advantage” of a jesuit education and can give various accounts of priests and masters who showed every sign of “sadism”.
My feeling is also that sexual frustration was the source of a lot of the anger and violence that celibate catholic teachers directed at their students. And that it is pretty difficult to draw a line.
Geoff@32, are you suggesting, that the school discipline you refer to as, “corporal punishment”, was not even, sometimes, a form of child abuse?
“Geoff@32, are you suggesting, that the school discipline you refer to as, “corporal punishment”, was not even, sometimes, a form of child abuse?”
Obviously not Joe. There is nothing in my response that could reasonably lead to that conclusion.
My point is that corporal punishment was universally practised in the Australian education system. If you’ve evidence to the contrary, let’s hear it.
http://www.truthdig.com/cartoon/item/20080721_pope_rejects_consumer_culture/