For Catholics, Gradual Reform Is No Longer an Option
Yes,
there is still holiness in the church. But the sin is so pervasive and
corrosive that it is irresponsible to talk about anything else.
By Kathleen Sprows Cummings
Dr. Cummings is a historian of Catholicism.
I
often use a handy metaphor to explain to my students how feminists have
historically differed among themselves in their approaches to bringing
about change in patriarchal institutions. Some feminists seek a place at
the table; others want to reset the table. The former hope to promote
gradual progress from within an existing framework of norms and
organizational structures; the latter demand nothing less than radical,
wholesale reform.
When it comes to
the Roman Catholic Church, I have always been a “place at the table”
kind of feminist. When asked how to integrate women more fully into the
life of the church, I offer reasonable strategies. Bishops could, for
example, recognize that the call for leadership might flow as much from
the sacrament of baptism as from that of ordination, and appoint more
women to leadership positions at all levels of church governance.
Tuesday’s grand jury report about clerical sexual abuse in Pennsylvania
has changed my mind. The sickening revelations — over 1,000 victims,
more than 300 priests, 70 years of cover-ups — have propelled me
directly to the center of the “reset the table” camp. We need to rip off
the tablecloth, hurl the china against a wall and replace the crystal
with something less ostentatious, more resilient and, for the love of
God, safer for children.
Long before
I was a historian and a professor, I was a child in the Archdiocese of
Philadelphia. The parish and the schools and the priests and the sisters
formed me as a person of faith. I am still blessed by the grace of all
the many sacraments I received there: baptism, first communion and then
twice-weekly Eucharist, regular confession, a memorable confirmation
(during the blizzard of 1983) and many years later, matrimony. I
treasure memories of equally sacramental moments experienced during
annual service trips, weekly volleyball games of the Catholic Youth
Organization and daily laughter-filled conversations with the boys and
girls who became lifelong friends.
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In
2005 a grand jury report from Philadelphia tainted those memories,
naming as it did two sexually abusive priests who had served at my
parish and several more who taught at my high school. Even in the midst
of so much grace, it turned out, sin had abounded, and I wept for the
victims, who had been my classmates and neighbors.
Tuesday’s
grand jury report, which involves six other Pennsylvania dioceses, has
also devastated me personally. Many names are familiar: I attended
college in one diocese, and have researched and written about two
others. Above all, I know Pennsylvania Catholics, who are generally more
inclined than Catholics from elsewhere to place Father or Monsignor or
Bishop on a pedestal and deem him above criticism or even suspicion. The
consequences of gullibility, to our shame, are made manifest in the
report.
I
mourned privately 13 years ago, but today I state publicly that the
church must come to terms with the sins of its past and reform itself so
thoroughly that they will never be repeated in the future. People can
point out, and they surely will, that the Catholic Church has not
cornered the market on sexual abuse of children and young people. Yes, I
realize that. Nonetheless, it is clear that the scale of the abuse is
magnified in an institution whose leaders time and again chose
self-preservation over the protection of the most vulnerable people
entrusted to their care.
People will
say that there is still holiness in the church, that there are many
priests and bishops with good and pure hearts, and they are right. But
there are times when the sin is so pervasive and corrosive that it is
irresponsible to talk about anything else, and this is one of those
times. My once-polite requests for incremental reform have morphed
overnight into demands that church leaders voluntarily relinquish their
place at the head table.
Imagine
hearing abdications of power along the following lines in Sunday
homilies, in diocesan news conferences, or in statements from the United
States Conference of Catholic Bishops:
“We
were granted privileges because we were meant to represent Jesus Christ
on earth. But Jesus said that we should humble ourselves like little
children if we want to enter the Kingdom of Heaven, and also that anyone
who harms a little one ‘would be better drowned in the depths of the
sea with a great millstone around his neck.’ We are no longer worthy of
your sacred trust.
“We
are ready to listen humbly, first of all to victims and their
advocates, who might tell us how to begin to ease suffering and to make
recompense. We welcome prosecutors and lawyers and historians into our
archives, so that the full truth, however damning, might be known. We
acknowledge that our system of seminary education is deeply flawed, and
ask how it might be reformed so as to produce leaders who thrive as
human beings. We submit to new layers of oversight, because the ones we
ourselves imposed failed so miserably. We are listening. We are
learning. We ask for God’s mercy, and yours.”
Will
we hear statements like these? Unlikely. But we are owed nothing less
from our ordained leaders as collective atonement for the sins of their
brothers.
Kathleen Sprows Cummings (@ksprowscummings)
is an associate professor of American studies and history at the
University of Notre Dame and the author of “New Women of the Old Faith:
Gender and American Catholicism in the Progressive Era.”
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