My Thoughts on the Recently Concluded Vatican Summit on Sexual Abuse

There have been lots of news and opinions on the web and in the media lately about the recently concluded Vatican Summit on Sexual Abuse held in Rome, Feb 21-24, 2019.

I've found a number of helpful online commentaries on the event.

Here is The Washington Post's story about the just-concluded event. It highlights Pope Francis' call for an "all-out battle" against sex abuse in the Catholic Church

Theologian William Lindsey's different links and commentary are also very useful. From his blog Bilgrimage.


Other significant matters connected with the sexual abuse crisis are the following:

Cardinal Pell was convicted of sexual abuse in Australia.

I also wrote some biblical reflections on the sexual abuse crisis published in Catholica in November 2018. I think that this is a time for Catholics to basically follow Jeremiah's injunction to the people of his time to "bow down to Babylon."

Jason Berry, a frequent Catholic "whistle-blower," points out in his article at NCR that "structural mendacity" (in short, an endemic and systemic habit of lying in the Catholic Church) lies at the heart of this sexual abuse crisis.

Paul Collins, author of Papal Power and Absolute Power, writes in this blog piece that the last 12 months have simply been Catholicism's "year from hell."

Finally, Pope Francis presents 8 points on which the church will focus to combat sexual abuse.


Now here are some of my dominant thoughts on this occasion:

1. Abuse of Power.  Clerical sexual abuse is at its core an abuse of power. The “sexual abuse” crisis is the tip of what is a more gigantic iceberg - the abuse of power and authority. When all power is concentrated in a select caste (men, celibate, ordained), the temptation to abuse this "absolute" power is just too strong for normal humans. I would go so far to say that keeping such an absolute authority structure in place without the proper checks and balances just ensures that some unscrupulous or even warped people will succumb to it. Hence the continuous toleration of this system is itself unethical! 
2. Checks and Balances.  It is better not to tolerate such a system; better even, it seems to be imperative not to make such a system even possible. How? What we need are more proper "checks and balances." Any organization needs healthy checks and balances in place so that no single person (be he a pope), no single caste, no one cabal can claim some sort of absolute and unchecked power and authority for himself or itself. For the Catholic Church, to correct the grossly unbalanced authority structure centered around the exclusive male-celibate-ordained caste, it urgently needs to set up checks and balances that counter the exclusivity of its present authority structure. 
3. Invoking God to Support an Unjust Absolute Power.  Claiming or invoking God as the source of power and authority in an absolute manner is unethical because one "uses" God in an improper way. The truth of the matter is that the claim of divine authority (e.g., as it is done in many areas of the Catholic Church) is by and large just hyperbole and exaggerated. There is a sense in which the supposed divine bestowal of authority (as claimed in Catholicism) is, at a profound level, simply untrue. For people to realize this, a careful study of the historical origins and development of the Catholic tradition is necessary. Historians and theologians, therefore, play a crucial role in this.
4. Hubris.  Jason Berry has made reference to "structural mendacity" in his article. I would add: at the heart of this sex abuse crisis, aside from the abuse of power (point #1 above) and (2) (Jason Berry's) structural lying, we must also consider a third factor - (3) a deep institutional hubris. This hubris is tied intimately with point #3 above. The deep-seated hubris is expressed in an exaggerated claim of divine authority for itself. This institutional hubris is extremely difficult to eradicate because those having power, especially absolute power in their hands, will fight tooth and nail to preserve it to the bitter end. What is worse is that some of these people are convinced that God is actually on their side! Hence, we often need an external agent, some sort of "avenging angel," if you will, in order to coerce those inordinately clinging to power to finally relinquish it. This is what I meant when I said in the Catholica article that Catholics should take to heart Jeremiah's injunction to "bow down to Babylon." The external agents in this present Catholic sexual abuse crisis can be several things. It can be the state which is actively forcing the Catholic Church to become more accountable and transparent and to come clean of its crimes. It can be the people (laity) themselves who (at least in Western countries) are leaving the church, voting with their feet in droves. It can be the young who no longer care about the Christian heritage of their culture or "just don't give a damn anymore" about such a dysfunctional church. It can be a pope who is sincerely trying to reform the system like Francis.
5. Renewal Possible?  Brian Coyne at Catholica asked, "Can this institution renew itself?" Hmmm... There is a fake Albert Einstein quote (which, nevertheless, is very insightful!) in which Einstein is supposed to have said, "A problem cannot be solved by the same consciousness that created it."  If we apply that to the Catholic Church, then we can say, the clerical system and the mentality behind it which has created this problem is simply not capable of solving it.

Now, if you think that all these reflections come from an “outsider” looking in, then I'll have to disclose that I was an active Roman Catholic priest for 10 years before my resignation which was motivated not only by personal reasons of conscience but more so by my inability to continue being a member of an exclusive hierarchical echelon of an institution that, I concluded, is flawed in ways my conscience could no longer tolerate. For me, the hierarchical church's flawed state reached the "uncondonable" level (yes, I know that everything/everyone is flawed but there are just some "flawed" states that should no longer be tolerated). I trained for the priesthood for even longer than the time I spent as an active priest. I've been educated in the center of the Catholic Church (Rome) and have seen the institution and its most intimate workings at close quarters ... I hope that gives a bit more weight to my personal opinions on this matter.

I also want to say that I still consider myself in a deep way as Catholic and that I actually love the tradition deeply and dearly, but, for my salvation and those dear to me, I try to keep a distance from the toxic aspects of the institutional expression of Roman Catholicism.