Weakness of Faith and the Irish Church Scandal

The Pope's meeting with the Irish bishops over the pedophilia scandal did not bring closure to the crisis.  Nor could it.  This is the long task for the Irish church as it is for the U.S.  From reports, the Pope pointed to a "weakening of faith" as the cause of this crisis.  This seemed abstract to many, even "shocking" to one victim advocate, as most are looking for more resignations and rules.  On the contrary, it is the incisive key not only to the past but to the future where the temptation to power lurks in so many forms.

Faith in Christ engenders the community where trust flowers as in the best of families.  Conversion as a life process is fostered in fellowship and with the sacraments.  Formalistic roles and rituals without the heart of faith resist the change that every human heart requires for healthy relationships.  John Waters, who has been following this crisis at ilsussidiario.net, describes this loss of the practice of faith in recent decades:

Irish Catholicism had long since ceased to offer a coherent version of Christianity to the generations it had itself educated out of poverty and ignorance. Despite the fervent shows of devotion at the time of Pope John Paul II’s visit in 1979, the writing was already on the wall. Although now speaking to one of the best-educated populations in the world, the Irish Catholic Church was still pushing the same limited and simplistic moralism it had promoted in the dark days of post-Famine Ireland, an essentially fear- and rule- based religiosity that achieved no productive engagement with the freedoms that had become available to the generations born after the middle of the 20th century. The scandals of the 1990s and after, therefore, provided the perfect alibi for those generations to reject the Church and all it stood for, exposing Irish Catholicism to charges of rank hypocrisy and enabling many of the formerly faithful to dismiss certain inconvenient elements of the Church’s teaching.

The victim's work is a challenging one.  There is the human need for acknowledgment and for some form of justice, something admittedly in short supply in the real world and even where it should first be found, among believers.  This is owed to those the Church is responsible for in her ministries.  Then there is the need to practice forgiveness, for the good of oneself as well as another, which particularly given the seriousness of the offense can hardly be done without the help of the innocent One who offered himself for every last one of our sins.  This can be a very long process which demands our patience and prayers.

But as Waters points out further on, a scandal is always most convenient for all those who would project all evil outside themselves.

 There are, of course, elements of disingenuousness about these responses. Reports of sexual abuse by priests have been deeply shocking for many people, but few can say that they were unaware of the picture outlined in last year’s Ryan Report, concerning physical abuse and maltreatment of children in church-run institutions over many decades. But, far from relieving the Church’s situation, this has made things worse, because the society now seeks to find ready scapegoats for a cultural phenomenon in which many more people – judges, policemen, social workers, child protection officers – are implicated than are now willing to admit to their roles. For as long as the church remains the centre of attention, the other guilty parties will be able to avoid the wrath of a culture seeking to purge its guilt and shame by expressing as much outrage as is humanly feasible.

The forms of violence that we practice today are not so easily recognized and reviled, but we will be called to account for them later and may not be found innocent.  Speaking of children alone, with abortion as the obvious and catastrophic pinnacle:  we also accept the severing of families as normal; we hand our young people over to "safe sex" practices, short-cutting the maturing process they need for lifelong bonds; we push and stress out and over-medicate kids to produce an image of ourselves that we could never be.  Without faith, which admits that not we but Christ is the answer to our wobbling hearts, we will do all this and more.

Photo: Crucifix, La Mercè Basilica, Barcelona

The Catholic Hospital

Msgr. Albacete's column this week at ilsussidiario.net is on the difference of the Catholic hospital:  "What Defines a Catholic Hospital?"  It comes down to presence and hospitality. This difference risks to be lost as Catholic hospitals are bought up by mega-health systems.

I visited my doctor at one such hospital in the Bronx. It used to be called “Our Lady of Victory” Hospital. It was a small, community-oriented hospital, open to the amazing diversity of people in its neighborhood. I remember the statue of Our Lady outside the main entrance as if welcoming the varied sons and daughters into their common home to share, even in the midst of their sickness and pain, the victory of Her Son. The statue is, of course, gone, and the chapel with the Blessed Sacrament is now a meditation room. I asked my doctor’s secretary, a “New York Puerto Rican” whether she has worked there before “Our Lady of Victory” Hospital became part of the Montefiori health care empire, and she said she had. Then I asked whether she noticed any difference now from the way it was then, and she said: “Things are more efficient now, but something is missing, a warmth, a human warmth associated with Our Lady” (I don’t think she had read Dante’s reference to the “caldo…” in his Hymn to the Virgin!).

The threat to identity is not only due to financial strains.  Speaking of another Catholic hospital, Albacete points out that we ignore history and miracles and in particular the Eucharist, which is neglected just where He should be most prominent.

First of all this hospital is the place of the miracle, accepted by the Holy See, that led to the canonization of the first American born saint: St. Elizabeth Seton. On the hallway that leads from the lobby to the elevators there is a big portrait of Mother Seton, at the entrance of the chapel where the Blessed Sacrament is kept. Still I have not been able to find a single person in the hospital who knows this particular and important event in the history of the U.S. The Eucharist is not celebrated in the chapel of the hospital. Instead is celebrated in a nursing home connected to the hospital and at a regular parish down the street, in the same block of the hospital complex.

When I asked one of the sisters who used to run the hospital why no Mass was celebrated at the hospital, she answered: “Because not too many people would be able to attend the Mass, and those who wanted to go could go to the nursing home or to the parish.” I tried to explain to her that the celebration of the Eucharist has nothing to do with number of people that attend. If only one person, one patient could go it’s worthwhile; in fact, if no one goes, Mass is still a miracle at the source of all miracles, including the one that led to Mother Seton’s canonization. Our relation with the Eucharist is the first stage of what makes us human and therefore of the warmth that defines a true Catholic hospital.

What is true for the Catholic hospital is true for the Catholic school is true for the Catholic social agency.  In the large network of state-funded Irish orphanages of decades ago, evidently the Catholic presence was lost, and institutions became horrors. 

I was struck by what Fr. Carron said some time ago about missionary efforts by AVSI, that even when more funds are available, they would never set up a mission without the presence of those believers who carry this awareness with them.

Charity in La Veuve de Saint-Pierre

La Veuve de Saint-Pierre ("The Widow of Saint-Pierre"), a 2000 French film directed by Patrice Leconte, is a fine exploration of the problem of charity and a beautiful period piece. The setting is 1849 in a French colony of islands off Newfoundland. Two assailants brutally murder a man and one, Nell, is condemned to die by guillotine ("veuve" is also the slang term for guillotine and offers a double-entendre for the title). His accomplice is killed by a mob on the way to prison. The colony must wait for the apparatus and find an executioner, a matter of months.

Captain Jean has custody of the prisoner. Meanwhile, his wife, called Madame La, takes on the prisoner as her protégé. She is determined in her plans to rehabilitate him, which includes gardening, helping with community projects, and learning to read. Her husband is wholly devoted to her to the neglect of his duties. The townspeople befriend the condemned, and all but the island's intransigent governors are content. By the time the ship arrives with the guillotine after a long winter and a hapless refugee recruited as executioner, the city is up in arms.

Two men in the story will see a larger picture in the conflict, which is a charity that is connected to destiny and not simply a willful project. Such charity is ultimately impossible without sacrifice.

Homo Viator

It was strange, just days before the Christmas bombing attempt, to watch George Clooney's smooth concourse through airports as Ryan Bingham, the traveling man with exceptional flying credentials and scant human connections.

The metaphor may be too cute, but the script and acting painted a vivid picture of the times.  The upper Midwestern wedding scene is a classic.  The Canadian director and scriptwriter Jason Reitman also produced Juno in 2007 and the film had that feel to it.

The social cues are confused, and the cultural props for relationships have been removed.  Even  for the well-intentioned, platitudes don't hold up.  The generational clash between Bingham and a tech-savvy young colleague implies an accusation of selfishness, for having left young people without the signposts for communal life.

Even Ryan's cynical answer to the question "How much does your life weigh?"can't protect him from the journey.