Sex Abuse

Below are comments I made in the parish 28th September 2018 (updated 18th Oct 2018)

In August 2018 Pope Francis issued a letter to all Catholics in the wake of various revelations. 

The months previous to this saw two different types of sexual abuse exposed:  

• The first concerned the abuse of adults, and brought a new evil to light   It manifested certain bishops sexually forcing themselves on clergy and seminarians under their care.  In the English-speaking world, this has led to ex-Cardinal McCarrick being defrocked.  The manifestation of the networks of deviancy involved in this is sickening. 
• The second saw a public commission in Pennsylvania document hundreds of allegations of clerical abuse of minors with many truly perverse and disturbing accounts.  The Pennsylvania report is monumental in the time span and number of cases it covers.  Since the Pope's letter he has removed two Chilean bishops for abuse of minors.
  
  

The above revelations raise many concerns, but among the most immediate might be the question of how much of this is also true locally.  I would make three observations:

(1) The Local Situation

The revelations reported above, and the analysis below in Eberstadt's article, describe sections of the Church in the USA and some other places.  However, these horrific descriptions of networks of deviancy do not hold in every diocese and do not hold in every country.  While it seems, tragically, that every diocese has had some individual cases, only a few seem to have signs of networks of perverts.  Similarly, while some bishops have failed grievously, other bishops have responded effectively to abuse and acted to prevent it.  The statistics are much better in some dioceses than in others.  I would note, personally, that I've not seen signs of such networks in our own Diocese.  This might seem small consolation, but I think it gives us hope that the situation can be remedied: Promote the effective bishops and retire the failing ones.  

(2) Frequency/Infrequency of Abusers

How likely is it that a local priest is an abuser?  Media reports create the impression that abuse by priests is common.  However, while abuse by a priest is a great evil, coming from someone in a position of great trust, we should note:

Catholic priests are not more likely to abuse than other people (see here) 

In fact, a thorough study indicates that:

Catholic priests are half as likely to abuse as the general population (see here)

That's very different from the impression created by the media.  That said, most of us would have hoped for priests to be more than twice as safe as the general public, which makes the next point relevant (namely, that recent decades are an anomaly, not the norm, and that we can reasonably hope the future will be different from the recent past).

(3) The Past, and hope for a better Future

There are two, rather different, reasons to think that the future will not be a continuation of the recent past, one is generational and the other is a change of policies.  

In terms of policies, we might note that almost all of the reports of abuse concern events from past decades.  A major reason for this is that the safeguarding procedures that have been in place since the turn of the century would make it difficult for events such as those described in the Pennsylvania report to happen in the same way on the same scale still today.

But there is also the effect of a significant generational shift occurring within the clergy.  It might be noted that Cardinal McCarrick is an old man and the Pennsylvania reports almost entirely concern events some decades ago.  These horrors were largely a phenomenon within an older morally-confused generation influenced by the after-effects of the sexual revolution of the 1960s.

This generation is dying out and the younger generation of priests coming forward manifest a very different dynamic: they are becoming priests because they want to be different from the society around us, because they are committing themselves to a chaste counter-cultural lifestyle -they don't want to belong to the secular sexually promiscuous culture.  There is, with this, a generation of young committed laity emerging too.

I have put together analyses from a few perceptive commentators below, along with the Pope’s recent letter.  A statement has also been made by our Bishops' Conference of England and Wales (which can be read here) and a letter from our Bishop (+Mark O'Toole, Plymouth, which can be read here).

You can read comments I have previously made on the topic of abuse here and here

I list below some noteworthy articles, most of them written in recent months:

The Elephant in the Sacristy, by Mary Eberstadt 

"this crisis involving minors --this ongoing institutionalized horror-- is almost entirely about man-boy sex"

Cardinal McCarrick's abuse of young men serves as a horrific example of the analysis that Eberstadt offered in 2002.  Her analysis remains definitive and is very different from the narrative fed to us by the secular media.

What makes the abuse crisis within the Catholic Church different from abuse in other organisations is the large number of homosexual predators involved, meaning homosexual-predator-priests living a deviant double life.  The key statistic in this regard is this: 80-90% of victims were teenage boys, rather than girls or young children.  This indicates that there is a specific issue within the Church that needs addressing: somehow a large number of actively homosexual men were ordained priests in the second half of the 20th century (Church law, since the time of Pope Benedict, now says that men with "deep-seated homosexual tendencies" should not be ordained, see here).

This crisis is unique to our moment in history, though sadly we are living through it.

Letter to troubled Catholics from Ralph Martin (2018)

A Priest Responds to the Catholic Church’s ‘Summer of Shame’

"three related issues: abuse of power, homosexual abuse and the failure to observe celibacy, and the failure of the bishops to police themselves… the crisis of 2018 is exactly the same crisis as the 'long Lent' of 2002. The elephant in the sacristy, then and now, is the conflation of those three issues."

With [now ex-cardinal] McCarrick, timing is everything 

"The Church has been uncomfortably silent on matters of sexuality, family, and marriage because some in her leadership do not live these teachings themselves. ...In my experience, the priests and bishops who are comfortable talking about, defending, and promoting the Church’s teachings on sex and marriage are confident in their vocations."

“Corruption of doctrine always brings with it the corruption of morals”(Cardinal Muller)

The Catholic Church's Teachings Are Not to Blame for Sex Abuse

Bishop Morlino breaks ranks

“It is time to admit that there is a homosexual subculture within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church that is wreaking great devastation in the vineyard of the Lord”.

Bishops who hid abuse should resign, says Pennsylvania prelate (Bishop Persico)

Sexual misconduct: Pruning and purification continues within the church

Pope calls entire Church to pray and fast after clerical sex abuse revelations

Full text of letter from Pope Francis 

Bill Donahue

Donahue offers some noteworthy clarifications questioning the accuracy of many parts of the recent media coverage

The question no one is asking

Anyone who blames abuse crisis on ‘clericalism’ is part of the abuse crisis cover-up: Psychiatrist

Childlike, 25th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Mk 9:30-37
Today I’d like us to reflect on what it is that the Lord Jesus meant by placing children before us as role models.
There are, in fact, multiple occasions when the Lord placed children before us:
The Lord “blessed” the little children that came to Him (Mk 10:16);
He said we must “change” and become like little children (Mt 18:3) saying we must “humble [ourselves] like little children”(ibid);
But it is probably here in this passage that the REASON to be like a child is clearest:
the question of greatness.

Greatness came a question in the Gospel text because the 12 apostles were arguing about which of them was the greatest.
Was it John -the Beloved, or Andrew -who brought the loaves and fishes to Jesus, or Philip who was trusted to calculate that it would take 100 denarii to feed the 5000, or James -who was related to Jesus, or Judas -who was in charge of the money?
We can imagine how the conversation might have gone.

It seems to me that there are two ways that we can think of ourselves as great, and children show us the opposite in each case.

The first is we can think of ourselves as great in terms of telling other people what to do.
Children, though they might frequently complain about it, children are used to being told what to do:
tidy your room, do your homework, eat your greens.
This, the Lord is saying, is an attitude WE need to have:
we need to expect others to tell us what to do, we need to be OK with being, as He put it, “last of all and SERVANT of all”(Mk 9:35)
-the servant is one who is told what to do.
In contrast, the “great’ man thinks he can tell everyone else what to do.

A second way we can think of ourselves as great:
having everything I need,
being self-sufficient and strong,
not needing anyone’s help.
Children, in contrast, know they are in need:
I want ice cream, I want that toy car, and want to be taken to the beach
-children know they are in need,
and they look to adults to fulfil their needs.
We, the Lord, the Lord is saying, we need something of this same attitude:
We need the humility to place ourselves before God and call on His help.

I need the Lord:
I need His strength, because often my weakness becomes apparent to me.
I need His guidance, because often my ignorance and stupidity are brutally put before me.
I need His forgiveness, for my sins, my many sins.

A child knows that he is in need;
A child knows he’s not in charge;
A child knows he is little.
We need to know the same.

Ephphatha, 23rd Sun Ord Time, Yr B

Mk 7:31-37; Isa 35:1-7
Today I want to explain why the passage we just heard “sums up Christ’s entire mission”, as Pope Benedict put in a 2012 Angelus address.

We just heard an obscure Aramaic word, “ephphatha” (Mk 7:34). Earlier this year you might recall I spoke about how there are less than a handful of words in the Gospels that the Early Church considered so precious that it kept not a Greek translation of the Lord’s words, but the actual words used by the Lord Jesus, in the original language He spoke in, namely, Aramaic
The Early Church treasured and kept this word, “ephphatha”, because she sensed that this word, “be opened”(Mk 7:34), applied not just to this individual deaf and dumb man, but actually applies to all of us.
In fact, we can see it as summing up the whole of Christ’s mission on earth.

One of the most basic human experiences concerns the difficulty of relating to God.
We all have an inner desire for something more, something transcendent and beyond, a desire for God -this desire gets smothered in many people, but it remains our most basic human experience:
We were created for God, and we yearn for Him.
The problem, however, is this:
We also experience the difficulty in communicating with Him.
Sometimes I feel unable to come to Him. Maybe I feel unworthy, or too feeble -something seems wrong at my end.
Sometimes, however, it can seem that something is CLOSED at God’s end. Scripturally, this is described in the book of Genesis in the account of the Fall: the Original Sin has left humanity sinful, stained, and shut out from heaven.
I am closed to God; and He is closed to me.
YET I need Him, and I yearn for Him.

But who can open earth to heaven and heaven to earth?
Only one who is both of heaven and of earth.
Only Jesus Christ who is both God and man.
Only the One of whom they said, as we heard at the end of that text, “He has done ALL things well”
Have YOU ever met someone who “did ALL things well”?

Thus the mission of Jesus Christ.
The Lord came among us to open us to God; and to open God to us.
My sins mean that the gates of heaven have been closed to me.
And so Jesus comes and dies for my sins, dies for me.
The symbolism in this regard concerns how, before healing the deaf and blind man, the Lord Jesus “looked up to heaven”(Mk 7: 34).
He looked up to heaven and said, “be opened”.
But, even though His death has satisfied justice,
even though the gates of heaven are opened to me,
even so, there is something IN ME that still closes me from God.
My laziness won’t look to Him,
My selfishness won’t give myself to Him,
My sensual desires close me on myself and my pleasures.
What I NEED is someone BEYOND me to OPEN me.

And the Lord Jesus said to the man who was deaf to hearing Him and blind to seeing Him,
“ ‘ephphatha’, that is, ‘be opened”.
And He says the same to you and to me.
Let us each, today, ask ourselves what is closing us to God.
Let us each, today, recognise that this can only be opened by a power, by someONE beyond me,
Let us each, today, bring that to the Lord, and hear Him say, “ ‘ephphatha’, ‘be opened”.

Confession before Holy Communion, 20th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B

Jn 6:51-58; Prov 9:1-6
Today I want to make an important point about why receiving Holy Communion so often fails to change us, and I want to start by making an analogy:
If you want to be fit, it’s not enough to go to the gym, there are two things you need to do as well:
(1) You need to EXERCISE while you’re at the gym (not just walk through the door!), and,
(2) BEFORE being at the gym, and after leaving, you need to EAT a healthy diet.

In fact, exercise on a full bloated stomach will just make you sick;
And similarly, exercise on a weak unfed body will weaken you further.
The point is this: to benefit from the gym, you need to not merely attend the gym, but prepare yourself with your general lifestyle.
It’s the same with Holy Communion:
it’s not enough to just attend Mass, we need to come properly prepared.
Otherwise, we spiritually damage ourselves. As St Paul warns us in the Bible, when we receive Holy Communion unworthily we eat and drink condemnation upon ourselves, and, he teaches, we damage ourselves.

What is available in Holy Communion? Everything. It is God Himself we are receiving.
We can be utterly transformed. But, it’s not automatic -we need to be prepared.

I want to also note an important point: being prepared isn’t a simple on/off switch. There are DEGREES of being prepared, and thus the more we are prepared the more we are going to benefit.
Most pivotally, we need to be going to regular confession.
Most basically, we need to go to confession before receiving Holy Communion if we have committed any mortal sins.  Pope Francis said recently, “We know that one who has committed a serious sin should not approach Holy Communion without having first obtained absolution in the sacrament of Reconciliation.”(14th March 2018). See also, "A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession" (CIC 916).
(See quotations below, taken from our newsletter.)

What are mortal sins? 3 examples.
(a) If we’ve missed Sunday Mass, then we’ve failed in our grave duty to worship the Lord on the Lord’s Day;
(b) If we’ve viewed pornography, and/or, committed related solitary sins;
(c) If our state of life is not in keeping with the Gospel, living with someone we’re not married to, or with someone we’re not free to be married to;
-In any of these or other grave sins, we need to (i) repent, (ii) resolve to change, and (iii) purify our souls by confession.
Then, at the most basic level, we can go to Holy Communion.

But, beyond the bare minimum, if we are to BENEFIT from what is on offer in Holy Communion we need to be regularly purifying ourselves from VENIAL sins, not just mortal ones.
I’ve sometimes been asked, “How often do I HAVE to go to confession?”
But I would reply that a better question is, “How often it is GOOD for you to get to confession?” -and the answer is very often:
The more often, and more deeply, you are purifying your soul, the better able you will be to benefit from Holy Communion.

For 4 weeks now our Scripture readings have been focusing us on Holy Communion.
Those reading have repeatedly challenged us, as we heard in our second reading, to “be very careful about the sort of lives you lead”(Eph 5:15), to “leave your folly”(Prov 9:6) as our first reading put it, because if our lives aren’t suitable for Holy Communion then we won’t be ready for the graces on offer.

To return to my opening analogy:
There is no point going to a gym unless your diet and lifestyle are prepared in the build up to the gym,
and there is no point going to Holy Communion unless we regularly get ourselves to confession.

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From this Sunday's newsletter:

Confession before Holy Communion

Pope Francis said recently, 

“We know that one who has committed a serious sin should not approach Holy Communion without having first obtained absolution in the sacrament of Reconciliation.” (14th March 2018).  

Canonically, 

"A person who is conscious of grave sin is not to receive the body of the Lord without previous sacramental confession" (CIC 916).

And Scripturally, 

“Whoever eats the Bread or drinks the Cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord.  Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the Bread and drink from the Cup.”(1 Cor 11:27-28)

3 Examples of sins preventing Holy Communion

What would be examples of mortal sins referred to in the above paragraph?  In each of the following examples we commit a sin serious enough that we need to repent, resolve not to commit the sin again, and be forgiven in the sacrament of confession -only then have we rendered our soul ready again to receive the Lord in Holy Communion.  Far from being something that would fill us with hesitation or awkwardness, we should rejoice that the Lord has given us such a clear way to come back to Him.

(1) Missing Sunday Mass

"The Sunday Eucharist is the foundation and confirmation of all Christian practice.  For this reason the faithful are obliged to participate in the Eucharist on days of obligation, unless excused for a serious reason (for example, illness, the care of infants) or dispensed by their own pastor (Canon Law 1245).  Those who deliberately fail in this obligation commit a grave sin."(CCC 2181)

"Pastors should remind the faithful that when they are away from home on Sundays they are to take care to attend Mass wherever they may be." (Pope St John Paul II, Dies Domini, 49)

(2) Pornography and Masturbation

“Pornography consists in removing sexual acts from the intimacy of the partners, in order to display them deliberately to third parties. It offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others. It immerses all who are involved in the illusion of a fantasy world. It is a grave offense.”(CCC 2354)

“Among the sins gravely contrary to chastity are masturbation, fornication, pornography.” (CCC 2396)

(3) Living in a state of life contrary to the Gospel

Sometimes we are living in an on-going situation, what is called a ‘state of life’, that contradicts what Christ asks of us.  

e.g. Living as husband and wife with someone we are not married to, or living with a same-sex partner, or marrying after divorce (Mk 10:11) 

-in each of these and similar cases we need to resolve to amend our state of life and then go to confession.

Leadership Team Reading List

Here's the reading list our new parish leadership team will be working through this autumn.  4 books we hope can inspire us to transform our parish.  You can read about the team here.

Book titles:  

• ·      The Amazing Parish (website, see here) which describes a leadership team here
  ·      Rebuilt by Michael White and Tom Corcoran, see here
  ·      The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher, see here
  ·      Divine Renovation by James Mallon, see here
  ·      Forming Intentional Disciples by Sherry Weddell, see here
  
  

Reading plan of excerpts:

(1) ‘Warfare in Heaven’: Calling consumers to become disciples 

Rebuilt, by White and Corcoran, pp.1-11, 49-65

Issues:   Are parishioners ‘consumers’ or ‘disciples’?  c.f. Needy/complaint/demanding consumers

Complaints: the reaction to proposed change

(2) The Mission of the Church and the need for Change 

Divine Renovation, by James Mallon, pp. 9-25, 43-45, 52-57; Rebuilt pp.58-64

Questions to consider:

(a) Why does the Church exist?  Why does our local parish exist?

(b) What does Pope Francis mean by a “self-referential Church”?  How does the example of changing Mass times illustrate this?

(c) Bigger question: What cultural changes, both outside and within the Church, mean that a parish can maintain structures that only served a previous era?

(d) How is change likely to be experienced by the parish?

(3) Defining Mission and Strategy 

Rebuilt pp.67-83

Issues to consider: 

The distinction between a mission and a specific set of strategies

The usefulness of old-style ‘mission statements’

What will the consumers say? 

(4) The Sunday Experience

Rebuilt pp.87-114; Divine Renovation pp.95-96 (plus pp.95-117 if time)

Question to consider: How would St Anthony’s “Sunday experience” feel if you approached it as a visiting Catholic?  As a new parishioner?  As a unchurched outsider?

Issues in chapter: music, welcome, cleanliness, scrapping all social events, the environment

Note that Rebuilt pp.96-97 contradicts Divine Renovation p.113

(5) The Benedict Option

pp.1-5; 16-18; 236 as summary of book’s thesis

pp.100-121; 124-129 on how liturgy forms culture

pp.124-129 on putting God first

Key questions: 

(a) How do we form a Christian culture in the midst of our secular society?  How do we do this as a parish?  As individual families?

(b) What choices must we make as individuals and families if we are to put God first?

(c) If liturgy forms culture, does a ‘welcoming’ liturgy subvert it to another agenda?  When does liturgy become about us and not about God?

(6) Community and Small Groups 

Rebuilt pp.151-170; Divine Renovation pp.138-141

Key questions: 

(a) To what extent is, and to what extent is not, our parish a community?

(b) Is Mallon’s analysis of the modern ‘belong-behave-believe’ model accurate? 

(7) Expectations and Tithing

Divine Renovation pp.153-164; Rebuilt pp. 171-188 (or at least p.188 summary)

Key questions:

(a) To what extent does this reverse the ‘consumer’ model of parishioner?

(b) Does this still leave a place for the half-committed in the pew?

(8) Changing expectations in Sacramental Preparation

Divine Renovation pp.197-220, and pp.221-230 if time

Key questions:

(a) How would the parish respond to this?

(b) How could we prepare people for such a change of culture?

(c) Is this workable/desirable?

The Beauty of Our Lady, Assumption

Rev 11:19-12:10
On today’s feast of Our Lady’s Assumption into heaven we think about Our Lady’s being taken up to heaven body and soul. Of course, ALL saints will have bodies in heaven at the resurrection of the dead, but what is different about Our Lady is that HER body was taken up to heaven directly upon her death. And, when her body was assumed it was obviously transfigured and glorified into the state of the glorified bodies that is their heavenly state. I want to say a few words to try to illustrate the glory of Our Lady's heavenly state, and to do so by referring to the BEAUTY of her heavenly body. I want to make that illustration by quoting some words that I heard a few years ago when I went to Lourdes, the words that St Bernadette used when she described how Our Lady looked when she appeared to her in her visions: St Bernadette referred to the BEAUTY of Our Lady:
She was “gracious and smiling”[1], she said
Years later she would recall: “her eyes were blue”[2],
“So beautiful that when you’ve seen her once, you can’t wait to die and see her again”[3]
“When you’ve seen her, you can’t love this world any more”[4]
Speaking of her beauty: “Ah! If men only knew! Ah! If sinners only knew!”[5]
After that, all her life, St Bernadette never found statue that looked beautify enough to be Our Lady.

I want to comment on this at both a simple and at a technical level.
At a simple level, this beauty of Our Lady’s heavenly body is exactly what we should expect:
The Lourdes vision identified Our Lady as “the Immaculate Conception”;
We should expect the form of her heavenly appearance to match this Immaculate-ness. Her soul was sinless; Her soul was beautiful; How could her body be otherwise? When her body was assumed into heaven it was glorified and beautified even more.

To think of this more techincally:
Theology tells us that the soul is the form of the body;
Philosophy tells us that matter is always proportioned to form.
For example, if you want a chair, the form of a chair cannot work in the matter of jelly
-the form of a chair needs matter like wood or metal

To consider a more human application, in the Resurrection of the Body:
The Resurrected Body will not be like our present body
–it will be glorified, transfigured, free of suffering etc.
But just as we will each have faces that are different and distinct,
So will our bodies be different,
And our bodies will each be appropriate to our souls.
In heaven, our degree of glory will depend on the degree of merit we gained on earth,
and that degree of merit is measured very simply, says St Thomas Aquinas,
is measured by the degree of love, of divine charity, within us.
Our beauty of our bodies will be proportioned to the love in our souls.

And Our Lady, she who was conceived “full of grace”,
She who cooperated with that grace all through her life such that she GREW in grace,
She who cooperated with grace and the plan of God such that,
as the prayers of the Church express it:
“the birth of Christ your Son DEEPENED the virgin mother’s love for you,
and INCREASED her holiness” (Common of the BVM n.1, prayer over gifts)
How beautiful must she be?
She was born beautiful as “full of grace” and her body was planned to be appropriate to that fullness of grace,
by God’s foreknowledge and predestined plan.
Then she was transfigured in Heaven at her assumption to be EVEN MORE beautiful still,
to correspond to the even greater grace that had grown in her.

If WE would be beautiful in heaven, we need to strive to reject sin, strive have grace fill our weakness.
Even in this world, we see how a beautiful soul carries it body with a type of gracefulness & charm;
in heaven, this will be even more so,
and this is what we see in the Lourdes apparition of Our Lady and in so many other apparitions of Our Lady, in the portrayal of her Assumed glory: “Her eyes were blue”, she was “so beautiful”, because she was and is “the Immaculate Conception” and is thus now in glory in heaven.


[1]Rene Laurentin, Bernadette Speaks (Boston: Pauline Books and Media, 2000), p.572.
[2] P.448.
[3] P.557
[4] P.567, also on p.437: “I made the sacrifice of not seeing Lourdes again... In heaven it will be more beautiful”.
[5] P.321