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There are facts and truths that "sexual libertarians" don't want society or public opinion to know, that even they don't want to know. To sum up those facts - accumulated in different human cultures and societies - we don't need sex to live a full life and be content. To define one's identity on the basis of our sexuality alone is to reduce our human value and dignity. I am a lot more than just my genitalia, and so are you. G.S.
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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best human efforts to make sense of our lives - and of our human sexuality in particular - also including the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium. The Church has been accumulating much valuable wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7
Father Gilles Surprenant, priest & poustinik
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Where
is Jesus in the midst of the Church's sex abuse crisis?
By Courtney
Grogan Washington D.C., Aug 16, 2018
Crucifix. Credit: Lucia Ballester/CNA.
Fr.
Thomas Berg is a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, a former Legionary of
Christ, and professor of moral theology, vice rector, and director of
admissions at St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, NY. He is author
of Hurting in the Church: A Way Forward
for Wounded Catholics. He spoke recently with CNA’s
Courtney Grogan about the challenges Catholics face amid the Church’s sexual
abuse and misconduct scandals. The interview is below, edited for clarity and
length.
With
everything that has been coming out in the news recently about sexual abuse in
the Church, how do you think that your book, “Hurting in the Church: A Way
Forward for Wounded Catholics,” could be helpful?
In the wake of the
McCarrick scandal and ongoing revelations of priest sexual abuse, a very common
reaction is one of betrayal. That's what I have heard a lot of from persons who
have reached out to me, especially persons who for years have collaborated with
bishops, worked in chanceries, worked for bishops, collaborated in apostolates,
have headed-up bishop’s capital campaigns, have been donors and so on. Part of
the very common experience is this raw emotional wound of betrayal.
Much of my book speaks
directly to that experience. That's where I really hope that persons who are
going through that betrayal, profound discouragement, disappointment, the
bewilderment of the moral failures of bishops, who either failed to report what
they should have reported or did not act on what was reported to them. That is
scandalous and that opens up a wound of betrayal really in the whole mystical
body. I very much believe that the book can, hopefully, point to where is the
good news in this -- Where is the hope in this? Where is Jesus in the midst of
this crisis?
Where
is Jesus in the midst of this crisis?
Jesus is the healer of
wounds, and Jesus does not leave the members of his mystical body without
healing when we seek it. We are in the midst of a massive crisis,
notwithstanding some resistance to that idea by some of our prelates. And those
wounds are opened up. This is where not only can Jesus bring healing, but he
can also use that experience of woundedness, whether that is personally or
institutionally or spiritually as the body of Christ. He uses those wounds to
bring greater good, to bring grace and healing to His Church.
Part of what I do in the
book is just to reflect, often with these individuals [victims of abuse] and
sometimes in their own words, on this mystery that the Jesus who comes into
this experience is Jesus who appeared with his glorious wounds. The wounds were
still there. The wounds are mystically important and we can unite our wounds to
Jesus and allow him to unite those in a mystical way, in a redemptive way to
His redemptive work.
So, where is Jesus in
all of this? Jesus is continuing in the midst of our brokenness, in the midst
of the utter moral failures of our pastors, in the midst of our own sinfulness
and brokenness. The risen Good Shepherd comes with his glorious wounds by which
he intends to bring about healing in his Church and to bring about a much
greater good and a much more glorious future precisely in and through the
tragedies that we are experiencing.
We will also experience
this in a much more glorious and beautiful day for the Church in the future,
and certainly for the Church when all time has been consummated and we are all,
by God's grace, caught up in the glory of the heavenly kingdom.
You
discuss in the book how uprooting a betrayal of trust can be and how we really
need to be grounded in Christ's love. What are some concrete ways that
Catholics can really root themselves in Christ's love and find that grounding
in a time when they might feel destabilized in the Church?
First, very practical
immediate answer: Eucharistic adoration. No doubt about it. That was
essentially my homily when we were talking two weeks ago about the McCarrick
thing from the pulpit. It means, as always in crisis, we need to be earnestly
and deeply seeking the Lord by frequenting Eucharistic adoration and
intensifying one's life of prayer. In my own story, I had to go on retreat. I
had to just go take some time to just be by myself to get that down to the
solid foundation of what did I stand on. What was the foundation that
everything that I believed stood on?
What one can come to in
those experiences is that experience of Jesus -- the experience that our risen
and glorious Lord still stands present in the midst of our lives. He is there. When
we are hurting, we need to do whatever it takes: adoration, retreat, increased
prayer, asceticism, solid spiritual reading, all of the things that we can
avail ourselves of God's grace to re-experience ourselves as rooted and
grounded in His love. God has a very big safety net for us and it is that
reality of being truly rooted and grounded in Him and in His love that
encompasses us.
It is just that when we
are hurting, when we are scandalized, when we are angry, when we are
experiencing all of this emotional turbulence, it is just -- it takes time and
prayer and I think a lot of coming to silence and coming to quiet to get
through that and to realize that our Lord is still there. Our Lord is still
holding his hands out to us. Our Lord is still there to embrace us and pick us
up and guide us and help us to move forward.
What
would you say to the priest who just doesn't know how to address this from the
pulpit, who is dealing with his own feelings of hurt and confusion, and maybe
is on the fence about whether he should address it in a homily?
I think that the best
thing that priest can do is to talk about that in his homily. It is emotionally
exhausting for most of us. It is heartbreaking. When I preached a couple of
weekends ago, I got emotional. I think it is very healing and good if priests
allow themselves to feel and show that emotion. Feel and show how personally
upsetting it is. If a priest is angry, tell your people, 'Yeah, I'm angry too,
and you should be angry.' It should start there.
It is absolutely
essential that this is addressed. No priest should be waiting for some
directive from his bishop. I would hope that across the country most priests
have already addressed this from the pulpit. If not, it absolutely has to
happen.
People
are very angry right now, and I do not think that they are identifying that
anger as a hurt. Many people are channeling their anger into what needs to
change in the Church. Some channel it at specific people in the Church.
You
address healthy anger in the book, and I want to hear your thoughts on it in
this context. What would you say to people who are very angry?
There is certainly such
a thing as just anger. I would hope that most of the anger that what most
committed Catholics are experiencing right now is precisely that -- “just
anger.” I have experienced a good deal of bit of it in the past few weeks. Hopefully
that anger does get channelled into good positive, action steps that I think
Catholics are taking. But people should also be very honest with themselves:
This hurts. I think that our brothers and sisters who are going through this
right now, and they are many, need to own up to that.
That is a very healthy
starting point to getting to a better place. In this context, it is an
important part of rightly channeling our energies and our reactions prayerfully
and in docility to the Holy Spirit. We have to allow the Holy Spirit to come
fully into that experience of hurt in this ecclesial context.
The immediate victims of
McCarrick, those who have suffered sexual exploitation, they are hurt in a very
unique way, but in some sense this has inflicted a hurt on all of us. And those
who failed, those who enabled him, those who pulled him up the ecclesiastical
ladder, if they did so with knowledge of his sexual predation, that inflicts a
real emotional hurt on all of us, and we should just admit that.
Many
Catholics first faced these initial feelings of betrayal, shock, bewilderment
in 2002. After positive steps forward like the Dallas Charter, these Catholics
found some consolation in the fact that the Church had made positive changes.
Now there are layers of hurt there, particularly the hurt of thinking that
things were better and then discovering that they are not.
The
Church might not change in our lifetimes. Reform in the Church takes so long.
The Church is very good at reforming herself, but it can take centuries
sometimes. I'm worried for people who are looking for a quick fix.
I think that you are
hitting at the heart of the problem. One thing that we are being faced with in
this crisis is the reality that effective change within the Church takes a
very, very long time. Even within organizations, people talk about changing the
internal culture of a business, even that in itself can take a long time.
First of all, there is
no reason why we cannot continue to take genuine pride in the programs that
have been set in place with the sacrifice and dedication by the way of hundreds
of lay Catholic men and women who have jumped into this breach and who have
instituted requirements for background checks, safe environment training, safe
environment programs, who serve the Church as sexual abuse assistance
coordinators in dioceses (these are people who deal one on one especially with
victims of clergy sexual abuse.) So we have every reason frankly to be
confident that we are in a much better place then we were 15 years ago to
protect our children. There is no reason to doubt that.
What people are still
reeling from, and this has been the real revelation, is that there has been,
especially within the episcopacy, there has been an internal culture which
allowed -- and I am not faulting all bishops here, but McCarrick is the child
of an old boys school mentality, a culture where bishops too often understood
themselves as members of this kind of privileged caste who used power and
authority to manipulate and frankly to bring about all kind of harms and hurts
in people's lives. Bishops have sadly often been the perpetrators of much of
the hurt that has been experienced on many levels and in many forms in the
Church. And that is a sickly culture and it has to change.
The Church desperately
needs a healing in its episcopacy. This is very much a crisis of the episcopacy.
The current ethos is in so many ways it is failing us. It is failing the
Church. What we have is, in far too many cases, a kind of managerial approach.
Bishops simply seek to manage, to contain, to bureaucratize our apostolates,
and that is not a culture where the Church is going to thrive.
Is that going to change
anytime soon? No, but I think that we have an opportunity. This crisis is
putting a spotlight on that problematic culture within the episcopate. I think
that we can be hopeful for some kind of change, maybe even sea change. There
are good and holy bishops out there who are as incensed about this as you or I
or any of us are. It is my prayer and hope that they will begin to exercise
some very kind of unprecedented leadership within the body of bishops and
certainly within their own dioceses.
So what do Catholics do
meanwhile? Well, we are challenged to exercise the supernatural virtue of hope.
We are challenged to believe that that kind of change, if it is meant to be,
will take time, but we have to support every bishop who shows signs that they
are getting it. We have to support every bishop who shows signs that they
understand and that they are taking unprecedented steps towards transparency,
toward addressing even the faults of their own brother bishops.
We need to be supportive
and helpful, and I guess that is a long way of saying that we need to hang in
there and trust in the Holy Spirit. Change does take a long time in the Church.
We are called to continue to exercise hope and it is by sustaining hope and
sustaining a healthy pressure on the bishops that can bring about some really
positive change here, maybe faster than we think.
As
outrageous as it is, I can imagine the temptation a leader might feel to keep
something so scandalous secret, to think that they were protecting Catholics
from scandal by a sort of false charity, if you will. How does a leader find
the courage or strength to come forward with the truth after they have covered
up?
In the context of the
Church, bishops who get it have come to understand that the scandal has been
the supposed effort to “avoid scandal.” The scandal has been covering this
stuff up. The scandal has been keeping this stuff quiet.
This is what I always
tell our seminarians. Transparency is your friend. Light and truth are our
friends. Institutionally, I think that we are understanding that. In the
context of seminary formation, I really believe earnestly that the vast
majority of our men understand that. And I think understanding that also makes
it easier to come clean when there has been a failure of any sort. In a sense,
it all boils down to the old adage, 'Honesty is the best policy.'
Obviously, when you are
talking about something as complex as sexual abuse and exploitation, that is
obviously much more complex because sometimes you are dealing with victims who
desire to remain anonymous.
It takes an enormous
amount of courage for victims of abuse to come forward and go public. That's
been 1 sad part of this whole tragedy. It is so difficult. The courage there is
just amazing sometimes. I think the message of what we are learning in the
sexual abuse crisis is that transparency is the only way to go. Honestly trying
to protect the requirements of justice and people's reputations is a difficult
balance and it definitely requires that transparency.
What
do you recommend for those who are specifically dealing with disillusionment?
How do Catholics keep their eyes open to the truth without totally succumbing
to cynicism?
I think that the level
of cynicism and disillusionment right now is off the charts. You know people
often use that image of having a bandage ripped off a wound. I don't think that
we have yet healed from -- I know we haven't healed from 2002. This isn't
having a bandage ripped off. This is having that wound ripped open and stamped
on.
I'm fully expecting that
the level of disillusionment and just shear kind of numb confusion is going to
be a very common experience. I think that there will be different outcomes. I
hope that Catholics can believe that there is a way forward here, especially
committed Catholics. It leads you to question your faith. I have been there. I
have had that experience. The more you expose yourself to this, the more faith
is going to be severely challenged.
I would just hope though
that Catholics can understand that Jesus can lead them through that fire. He
can lead us through this fire and make it a purifying fire, so that we can
emerge from this really sad and really critical chapter of crisis in the
Church, that we can emerge from this as stronger disciples and more committed
Catholic Christians.
What transformation the
Holy Spirit brings about, I hope we could no matter how hard this is, I hope we
could kind of look forward to that with a sense of hope and expectation and
maybe even the sense that as bad as it is, I want to be a part of what happens
now. I want to be a part of the renewal that the Holy Spirit is going to
necessarily going to bring about. I want to be a part of the action here. I
want to be a part of what the Holy Spirit is going to do now in the Church. I
am absolutely convinced that the Holy Spirit is working in and through this
crisis in a very real way. I have experienced it myself. I have seen it and I
have heard it from others.
We have to allow the
Holy Spirit to bring us beyond this very profound disillusionment.
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My purpose in these posts is to bring together significant and, where possible, representative echoes of our best efforts as human beings to make sense of our lives in general - and of our human sexuality in particular - and to also include the voice of Jesus Christ, the one Saviour of the world, and testimonies from his Church, such as through her teaching voice, the Magisterium; given that the Church has been accumulating the wisdom granted her by Almighty God since her foundation at Pentecost. In this way, wherever there is darkness in our human understanding, it will serve to highlight the bright and radiant truth, which is Jesus Christ: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, you will know my Father also." John's Gospel 14:6-7 G.S.
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© 2006-2023 All rights reserved Fr. Gilles Surprenant, Associate Priest of Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montreal QC
© 2006-2023 Tous droits réservés Abbé Gilles Surprenant, Prêtre Associé de Madonna House Apostolate & Poustinik, Montréal QC
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