It's too early to know just what will come out of the meeting of bishops, others and Pope Francis to come up with ways of dealing with the scandal of child sex abuse in the Catholic clergy and other employees but there are several things that are obvious:
- This problem, left up to the bishops to police themselves will just get worse. The Bishops and Cardinals and, yes, Popes had their chance to police themselves and they have proven to be as bad at that as any other defined group has been.
- Unless experienced, knowledgeable and capable lay people and Women religious are given authority - real authority - over ordained men, in order to investigate and force their exposure and punishment and removal, the meeting was a sham and worse than a waste of time.
The problem grows out of the consequences of a small group of ordained men having ultimate control over the Catholic Church, whatever other aspects of that result from mandatory celibacy for the clergy have contributed to this particular phenomenon, you can depend on a exclusively male power structure to result in similar problems. That was true of civil governments all through the past, it is true of all-male institutions, it is true of any male only power structure. That those men with ultimate power over the official church are unmarried men who allegedly don't have families or family relationships makes all of those tendencies worse. What Paul VI presented to the world as some great gift and jewel is has been proved by this scandal to be more of a blight. That blight is on fullest display in the Vatican and in bishop's palaces and residences and other places where that male power is most concentrated.
Unless the governing power of the Catholic Church, including decisions to discipline and expel the clergy, is expanded beyond the unmarried all-male clergy, to include married Women and Men and unmarried lay People and Religious, this is just a scandal which will be prolonged and repeated. The absolute control of ordained, unmarried men should be ended, immediately. The proposal of the American bishops that they self-police is disgustingly inadequate.
The longer that is delayed the more credibility and moral authority the Church loses. The bishops and Cardinals and maybe even this Pope may not like that but it is the key to ending this disgraceful scandal and crime. Complete openness in matters of finances is also long overdue. I would include all of the nominal Catholic institutions, including the disgusting medieval hold over of orders of "knights" and all other venues of corruption that have come into the Church. I can't think of anything that would do more to restore the Catholic church to credibility or, actually, for it to move closer to that credibility than it has known since the Apostolic period than finally getting rid of all of that medieval and modern junk. They should abolish all of the honors of that kind and turn their wealth over to credible charities and to funds to help the victims of past crimes of the clergy.
Pope Francis clearly has wanted to end the radical concentration of power in the Vatican that the last two Popes have enforced, that was the reason he wanted this meeting of all of the bishops instead of imposing himself on the problem. The time for that approach, though, has passed. His conception of collegiality, perhaps an improvement over the dictatorship of JPII, is inadequate, especially as the mediocrity of so many of those yes-men bishops appointed by JPII and Benedict XVI still dominates those levels of the hierarchy. There were a few good things said by some bishops and others at this conference, especially by the journalist Valentina Alazraki and Sr. Veronica Openibo, leader of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus. I haven't read everything that was said at the meeting but I doubt the bishops, for the most part are really getting it.
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