Backwash from the on-going Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal has finally swamped the papal slippers. According to very disturbing reports in the New York Times, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger stopped an official ecclesial investigation into the abuse of 200 children, some of whom were deaf, by a priest in Wisconsin. The Vatican’s response to this latest revelation by a secular newspaper is to cry foul and portray itself as the victim of a smear campaign. This is almost as disturbing as the allegation itself.
When will the Church (excuse me, the hierarchy) learn? Not anytime soon, apparently.
Sr. Jeannine Gramick is a good friend of mine. For many years she ministered to the lesbian, gay and bisexual subcommunity of the Catholic church. As you might expect, her work soon attracted the attention of the Vatican. When the investigators could find nothing in her writings or public talks that openly conflicted with or contradicted Church teaching, a bishop asked what she believed in her heart of hearts. In other words, this churchman wanted her to betray her conscience.
Long story short, she was silenced by the Vatican and prohibited from doing her important ministry. Sadly, before this happened, Sister Jeannine providentially found herself a passenger on the same plane with none other than Cardinal Ratzinger. She introduced herself and the two talked at length. She expressed her sincere belief that modern psychology and insights into human sexuality were compatible with the gospels. She voiced the pain of so many gays and lesbians at their sense of abandonment by the Church they had loved. Nothing seemed to matter to the Cardinal except “saving the Church from scandal.”
And so now, the proverbial chickens have indeed come home to roost. The scandal the Churchmen had so vigorously tried to avoid by silence has now engulfed the Vatican itself. How can the pope extricate himself from this mess of his own making?
The answer is in today’s solemn commemoration of the Lord’s Passion. It starts with Jesus’ “triumphal” entrance into Jerusalem, not on a white horse or in a Roman chariot, but on a lowly donkey. It was triumphant because the people rejoiced when the Messiah appeared as their servant.
Religious leaders of that day wanted to save their institution from scandal and discord, even if it meant turning Jesus over to the Romans for execution.
Unlike the religious leaders of his (and our) time, Jesus allowed himself to be sacrificed for the sake of the truth, he didn’t crucify the truth to save himself.
Before that he washed his disciples feet and asked that they wash one another’s feet. This was to be as much a Eucharistic sign of his presence as the Breaking of Bread. Last of all he gave his life.
Imagine if the Pope were to take upon himself the full responsibility for the decades of abuses and cover-ups. Imagine if he were to wash the feet, not of other clerics but of the victims. Imagine if he were then to resign the papacy and dedicate the rest of his life to prayer and penance.
Maybe then the world would truly see that this Church does, in fact, follow the example and teachings of Jesus. Alas, this will not happen. And the words and actions coming out of the Vatican inadvertently echo the claims of the religious leaders at the time of Christ” “We have no king but Caesar.”
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