Responses to Current Issues: The Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal
Healing and Hope: Analysis of a Crisis
The fuel that lit the fires now burning in the Catholic Church is the desire to preserve the childhood of our children. No one should have to choose the safety of a child over allegiance to a church. A reformed and renewed church will not oblige us to decide between the church we love and the children we cherish.
In the voiceless victimization of our children, we have found our voice. In their suffering, we have found the wounded places in our own lives and in our church. We have been led to a land more promising than the bondage in which we lived too long a time. We shall never return to where we once were.
We believe that the root cause of all the evils of these latter days is the abuse of power. We know that Jesus condemned severely such abuse in the religious leaders of his time.
We are all too flawed to flourish in an environment where no accountability is required, where people are made passive before authority, where pretension to infallibility and wisdom is not justified or tested. In such a system, children are the early victims, but sooner or later, all of us, even those in power, are damaged and destroyed.
When abuse of power is uprooted, a tree of life will grow in the church again and we shall find safety in its branches. We believe that abuse of power bears evil fruit, poisoning all of us. We demand that this fruit never again be offered to God's people.
1. We demand justice for the victims of sexual abuse by
clergy.
Women and children have been sexually abused in numbers we can
no longer calculate. Since church leaders have not effectively
restrained the perpetrators of such violence, we demand that they
be brought to justice in full compliance with civil law. Victims
do not need reconciliation with the church; it is the church which
must be reconciled to them. The church must be ready with the
spiritual, emotional, and financial resources to help the healing
process whenever victims are ready. There are no statutes of limitation
on healing. Moreover good priests do not abuse others. Too often
they also are abused by a church system which oppresses and silences
them. We celebrate good priests and we invite them to join us
in our demands.
2. We demand structural reform and renewal.
A collegial church is the only cure for the pathology and secrecy,
patriarchy and privilege that have made us ill. Monarchy and aristocracy
are not evangelical values. The church of Christ has been starved
in all of its ministries for too long a time, malnourished by
the exclusion of all women and married men from the priesthood
and decision-making. It is clear that were the baptized given
voice in the church, an inclusive priesthood would be overwhelmingly
endorsed. Structural reform will deny a haven to abusers of sex
or power, to those who require secrecy for their actions and immunity
for their crimes.
3. We demand a community of God's people.
The fires of Pentecost do not burn for a few but for all of us.
We were not summoned to a church where some have titles and deference
and privilege at the expense of the community's very life and
spirit. The church is God's people, not a corporation of executive
officers or a medieval fiefdom. Only a church out of touch with
the Gospel could boast that there is no democracy in its structures.
A church that puts power and privilege before social justice betrays
the Gospel.
4. We demand that sexuality be celebrated by the church as a source
of life.
The demonization of sexuality, its repression and renunciation,
is an abuse of life. The focus of church teaching on sexual conduct
and its relative neglect of abuse of power distort the Gospel.
A church in which male celibacy is a precondition for authority
and all other sexual choices are marginalized is a church that
has lost not only the Gospel but also common sense. Abuse of women,
abuse of children, and mandatory celibacy are different forms
of sexual abuse, each reinforcing the other in a dance of death.
5. We demand financial accountability.
Just wages and financial fairness must prevail in the house of
the church. We must overturn the tables that block the way to
full financial disclosure. The coins of the poor must not be bartered
for the comfort of church leaders. We must know why there was
money for cathedrals but not for those working in church institutions,
for hierarchical excess but not for pensions, for papal visits
and even cover-up compensation but not for teachers and ministers.
6. We demand the end of discrimination in the church.
The present attempt to scapegoat homosexuals is symptomatic of
a system that blames everyone except those in power. The list
of those denounced as a source of evil in the church is a sign
of the dysfunctionality of the system: married priests; all the
divorced and remarried; homosexuals; those who call for a collegial
church; indeed, the contemporary world in which we live. The suffering
of those most in pain is intensified by excommunication for abortion,
denial of Eucharist for remarriage, prohibition of lay ministries
to married priests, and legal harassment of sexual abuse victims.
Discrimination exists in the church; it is racial and sexual at
different times. At the moment, it is focused on sexual orientation.
It also is class and caste-driven, preserving from blame and granting
immunity from resignation those with clerical privilege.
Let this analysis stand as our sense of why we are now in crisis. Let it be known that we Catholic reform organizations from North America join in the calls for a Continental Congress of Catholics. Let this document be received as our contribution to the agenda of such an assembly. Let it come quickly.
It is time, long past due, to make the church a community of healing and hope for all of us. Only such a church dares to call itself the church of Christ.
It was not power over one another Jesus encouraged. The church is meant for love. Jesus abused no one, least of all those whose trust he sought.
Members of COR
Association for the Rights of Catholics in the Church (ARCC), Southampton, MA
John F. Sheehan - 413.527.9929
Mary Lou Hartman - 609.921.9134
Call to Action USA, Chicago, IL
Contact: Don Wedd - 773-404-0004 X 270
Call to Action/Baltimore
Contact: Fred Ruof - 410.889.5996
Call to Action of Northern Virginia
Jim Webster - 703.525.4013
Catholics for a Free Choice
Jon O'Brien - 202.986.6093
Catholics for a Free Choice/Canada
Joanna Manning - 416.599.1244
Catholics for the Spirit of Vatican II, Denver
Thomas J. Kerwin - 303-221-7622
Catholics Speak Out/Quixote Center Brentwood, MD
Rea Howarth - 301.699.0042 or 703.527.3501
CORPUS, Morris Plains, NJ
Anthony Padovano - 973-539-8732
Russ Ditzel - 908.638.6877
Dignity/USA - Washington, DC
Mary Louise Cervone - 202-861-0017
215-925-5811 (h)
Marianne Duddy, 617-361-9512. .
Federation of Christian Ministries
Sr. Bridget Mary Meehan, SFCC - 703.379.2487
or 703.967.6736
Fellowship of Southern Illinois Laity
Lena Woltering - 618.234.4073
Good Tidings, Canadensis, PA
Cait Finnegan - 570.595.2705
National Coalition of American Nuns
Jeannine Gramick, SL - 301.864.3604
Mary Ann Cunningham, SL - 303.936.5904
New Ways Ministry, Mt. Rainier, MD
Frank DeBernardo - 301.277.5674
Pax Christi Maine
Bill Slavick - 207.773.6562
Save Our Sacrament: Reform of Annulment & Respondent Support, Cochituate, MA
Janice P. Leary - saveoursacrament@aol.com
Women's Ordination Conference
Fairfax, VA
Erin Hanley - 703.352.1006
Liaison Groups
A Critical Mass
BVM Network for Women's Issues
Grail Women Taskforce
Greater Cincinnati Women-Church
Loretto Women's Network
Priests for Equality/Quixote Center
Mark Buckley - 310.699.0042
San Francisco Bay Area Women-Church
Sisters Against Sexism
Southeastern Pennsylvania Women's Ordination Conference
Regina Bannan - 215.545.9649 or 215.204.7351
Women Church of Northern Virginia
Sr. Bridget Mary Meehan, SFCC - 703.379.2487 or 703.967.6736
Women's Alliance for Theology, Ethics and Ritual (WATER
Mary Hunt or Diann Neu - 301.589.2509
Women Church Convergence
Ruth Fitzpatrick - 703.938.0746
Young Feminists Network
Joy Barnes - 703.352.1006
