Insult to injury

I've already commented on how the apologists for both Pope Benedict XVI and the general conduct of the Catholic Church strike me as being a part of the problem by continuing to perpetuate the idea that the pattern of abuse that was so widespread was somehow not a big deal. But the words of Cardinal Soldano prefacing the Pope's Easter Mass strike me as representative of the worst part of the response: the insult to the victims who have spoken out, and to the critics, many of them who are still associated with the church, who want to see a grave problem addressed.

Via the LA Times:

Dressed in gold robes and shielded from a cool drizzle by a canopy, Benedict looked weary as he listened to Sodano's speech at the start of Mass in the cobblestone square bedecked with daffodils, tulips and azaleas.

In early evening, the pope, who turns 83 later this month, was to fly by helicopter to the papal residence in Castel Gandolfo, a lakeside retreat in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome, where he will greet pilgrims from the palace courtyard balcony on Monday.

Easter Sunday Mass was the highlight of a heavy schedule of public appearances by the pope before the thousands of faithful who have poured into Rome for Holy Week services.

"With this spirit today we rally close around you, successor to (St.) Peter, bishop of Rome, the unfailing rock of the holy church," Sodano said. "Holy Father, on your side are the people of God, who do not allow themselves to be influenced by the petty gossip of the moment, by the trials which sometimes buffet the community of believers."

Now, I'm a writer, myself, so I recognize that this AP story has a little "coloring". "Dressed in gold robes", "lakeside retreat", is this Robin Leach reporting on the "Lifestyles of the Rich and Infallible"? But the words of Cardinal Soldano are the damning part:

Petty gossip?

There is nothing "petty" about this discussion. I might be the wrong messenger, as a person who obviously has "issues" with organized religion, but I don't think allegations of child rape are something anyone should take lightly. The critics of the cover-up, which enabled further abuse in too many of these cases, isn't an issue where non-Catholics are simply cavilling at "those Catholic priests, who aren't so holy after all!" No, the issue is the abuse. The issue furthermore is that the victims have been made to suffer twice-over: first, in being emotionally exploited and physically violated at the hands of their abusers, and then again in being thought of as complainers, or, as the despicable Bill Donohue would have it--"gold-diggers" who are possibly lying for financial gain, or being told that their stories about abuse are nothing more than--gossip? And those newspapers and periodicals of record that publish such stories are promoters of --gossip?

Or is it more plausible that the rape of children is such an especially horrific crime in our culture, and that the church is so generally held to be a moral institution, that the possibility of such an evil being not merely harbored but given asylum by such an institution is so genuinely mind-bogglingly wrong that it has to be publically addressed>?

And as an afterthought, I'll add, that the 4000 people who melted down the phone-lines of an abuse hot-line set up by the Catholic Church in Germany weren't people who wanted to idly gossip about whether or not their parish priest might have been a bit queer or something. Is it at all possible that so many people would call for no more reason than to speculate, or just chat? In Austria, the abuse phone-lines were not so overheated, but the number of callers were still significant.

How many people have lived with a secret shame in their hearts, thinking themselves somehow damaged or ruined because of being raped while still so young that it was a major part of their formative years? How absolutely, infuriatingly insulting to call speaking out about that--"gossip". This unthinking and unempathetic response to a moral crisis undermines not just the reputation for morality, but humanity of the institution.

And if a church lacks morality or a concern for the suffering human beings who turn to it--what does it have left? Faith?

The answer that the Church has always had was that it was fruitful in positive "works". In the hospitals and schools and missions where the faithful saw to their brothers and sisters and did good things for the sake of goodness--not for faith alone, but because faith without works was dead. But this abuse, persistent in so many places, was its own kind of "works"--and those who called the pedophilia scandal the work of Satan had a point in classifying it as the personification of evil.

But that evil has a human face and not a supernatural cause, and in the end, we human beings are accountable for ourselves--and so should our institutions be held accountable. The apologies and the insults against the media and the victims are what is petty and wrong.

Those supposed vicars of Christ on Earth need to empathize with the suffering, and look on these youthful people as their supposed Saviour would have done: It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

They don't seem to get it. They just don't get it. And yet the idea of not harming children, and despising those who do should be so basic.