Monday, March 18, AD 2024 9:37pm

PopeWatch: Letter

In response to the Grand Jury report on sex abuse in six dioceses in Pennsylvania, the Pope has issued the following letter:

 

Letter of His Holiness Pope Francis to the People of God

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it” (1 Corinthians 12:26). These words of St. Paul forcefully echo in my heart as I acknowledge once more the suffering endured by many minors due to sexual abuse, the abuse of power and the abuse of conscience perpetrated by a significant number of clerics and consecrated persons: crimes that inflict deep wounds of pain and powerlessness, primarily among the victims, but also in their family members and in the larger community of believers and nonbelievers alike. Looking back to the past, no effort to beg pardon and to seek to repair the harm done will ever be sufficient. Looking ahead to the future, no effort must be spared to create a culture able to prevent such situations from happening, but also to prevent the possibility of their being covered up and perpetuated. The pain of the victims and their families is also our pain, and so it is urgent that we once more reaffirm our commitment to ensure the protection of minors and of vulnerable adults.

1. If one member suffers …

In recent days, a report was made public that detailed the experiences of at least 1,000 survivors, victims of sexual abuse, the abuse of power and of conscience at the hands of priests over a period of approximately 70 years. Even though it can be said that most of these cases belong to the past, nonetheless, as time goes on, we have come to know the pain of many of the victims. We have realized that these wounds never disappear and that they require us forcefully to condemn these atrocities and join forces in uprooting this culture of death; these wounds never go away. The heart-wrenching pain of these victims, which cries out to heaven, was long ignored, kept quiet or silenced. But their outcry was more powerful than all the measures meant to silence it, or sought even to resolve it, by decisions that increased its gravity by falling into complicity. The Lord heard that cry and once again showed us on which side he stands. Mary’s song is not mistaken and continues quietly to echo throughout history. For the Lord remembers the promise he made to our fathers: “He has scattered the proud in their conceit; he has cast down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1:51-53). We feel shame when we realize that our style of life has denied, and continues to deny, the words we recite.

With shame and repentance, we acknowledge as an ecclesial community that we were not where we should have been, that we did not act in a timely manner, realizing the magnitude and the gravity of the damage done to so many lives. We showed no care for the little ones; we abandoned them. I make my own the words of then-Cardinal Ratzinger, when, during the Way of the Cross composed for Good Friday 2005, he identified with the cry of pain of so many victims and exclaimed: “How much filth there is in the Church, and even among those who, in the priesthood, ought to belong entirely to [Christ]! How much pride, how much self-complacency! Christ’s betrayal by his disciples, their unworthy reception of his Body and Blood, is certainly the greatest suffering endured by the Redeemer; it pierces his heart. We can only call to him from the depths of our hearts: Kyrie eleison — Lord, save us! (Matthew 8:25)” (Ninth Station).

2. … all suffer together with it

The extent and the gravity of all that has happened requires coming to grips with this reality in a comprehensive and communal way. While it is important and necessary on every journey of conversion to acknowledge the truth of what has happened, in itself this is not enough. Today we are challenged as the People of God to take on the pain of our brothers and sisters wounded in their flesh and in their spirit. If, in the past, the response was one of omission, today we want solidarity, in the deepest and most challenging sense, to become our way of forging present and future history. And this in an environment where conflicts, tensions and above all the victims of every type of abuse can encounter an outstretched hand to protect them and rescue them from their pain (Evangelii Gaudium, 228). Such solidarity demands that we in turn condemn whatever endangers the integrity of any person: a solidarity that summons us to fight all forms of corruption, especially spiritual corruption. The latter is “a comfortable and self-satisfied form of blindness. Everything then appears acceptable: deception, slander, egotism and other subtle forms of self-centeredness, for ‘even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light’ (2 Corinthians 11:14)” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 165). St. Paul’s exhortation to suffer with those who suffer is the best antidote against all our attempts to repeat the words of Cain: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).

I am conscious of the effort and work being carried out in various parts of the world to come up with the necessary means to ensure the safety and protection of the integrity of children and of vulnerable adults, as well as implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable. We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and future.

Together with those efforts, every one of the baptized should feel involved in the ecclesial and social change that we so greatly need. This change calls for a personal and communal conversion that makes us see things as the Lord does. For as St. John Paul II liked to say: “If we have truly started out anew from the contemplation of Christ, we must learn to see him especially in the faces of those with whom he wished to be identified” (Novo Millennio Ineunte, 49): to see things as the Lord does, to be where the Lord wants us to be, to experience a conversion of heart in his presence. To do so, prayer and penance will help. I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord’s command.1 This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says “never again” to every form of abuse.

It is impossible to think of a conversion of our activity as a Church that does not include the active participation of all the members of God’s People. Indeed, whenever we have tried to replace, or silence, or ignore, or reduce the People of God to small elites, we end up creating communities, projects, theological approaches, spiritualities and structures without roots, without memory, without faces, without bodies and ultimately, without lives. 2 This is clearly seen in a peculiar way of understanding the Church’s authority, one common in many communities where sexual abuse and the abuse of power and conscience have occurred. Such is the case with clericalism, an approach that “not only nullifies the character of Christians, but also tends to diminish and undervalue the baptismal grace that the Holy Spirit has placed in the heart of our people”.Clericalism, whether fostered by priests themselves or by laypersons, leads to an excision in the ecclesial body that supports and helps to perpetuate many of the evils that we are condemning today. To say “No” to abuse is to say an emphatic “No” to all forms of clericalism.

It is always helpful to remember that “in salvation history, the Lord saved one people. We are never completely ourselves unless we belong to a people. That is why no one is saved alone, as an isolated individual. Rather, God draws us to himself, taking into account the complex fabric of interpersonal relationships present in the human community. God wanted to enter into the life and history of a people” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 6). Consequently, the only way that we have to respond to this evil that has darkened so many lives is to experience it as a task regarding all of us as the People of God. This awareness of being part of a people and a shared history will enable us to acknowledge our past sins and mistakes with a penitential openness that can allow us to be renewed from within. Without the active participation of all the Church’s members, everything being done to uproot the culture of abuse in our communities will not be successful in generating the necessary dynamics for sound and realistic change. The penitential dimension of fasting and prayer will help us as God’s People to come before the Lord and our wounded brothers and sisters as sinners imploring forgiveness and the grace of shame and conversion. In this way, we will come up with actions that can generate resources attuned to the Gospel. For “whenever we make the effort to return to the source and to recover the original freshness of the Gospel, new avenues arise, new paths of creativity open up, with different forms of expression, more eloquent signs and words with new meaning for today’s world” (Evangelii Gaudium, 11).

It is essential that we, as a Church, be able to acknowledge and condemn, with sorrow and shame, the atrocities perpetrated by consecrated persons, clerics, and all those entrusted with the mission of watching over and caring for those most vulnerable. Let us beg forgiveness for our own sins and the sins of others. An awareness of sin helps us to acknowledge the errors, the crimes and the wounds caused in the past and allows us, in the present, to be more open and committed along a journey of renewed conversion.

Likewise, penance and prayer will help us to open our eyes and our hearts to other people’s sufferings and to overcome the thirst for power and possessions that are so often the root of those evils. May fasting and prayer open our ears to the hushed pain felt by children, young people and the disabled: a fasting that can make us hunger and thirst for justice and impel us to walk in the truth, supporting all the judicial measures that may be necessary; a fasting that shakes us up and leads us to be committed in truth and charity with all men and women of goodwill, and with society in general, to combating all forms of the abuse of power, sexual abuse and the abuse of conscience.

In this way, we can show clearly our calling to be “a sign and instrument of communion with God and of the unity of the entire human race” (Lumen Gentium, 1).

“If one member suffers, all suffer together with it,” said St. Paul. By an attitude of prayer and penance, we will become attuned as individuals and as a community to this exhortation, so that we may grow in the gift of compassion, in justice, prevention and reparation. Mary chose to stand at the foot of her Son’s cross. She did so unhesitatingly, standing firmly by Jesus’ side. In this way, she reveals the way she lived her entire life. When we experience the desolation caused by these ecclesial wounds, we will do well, with Mary, “to insist more upon prayer,” seeking to grow all the more in love and fidelity to the Church (St. Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, 319). She, the first of the disciples, teaches all of us as disciples how we are to halt before the sufferings of the innocent, without excuses or cowardice. To look to Mary is to discover the model of a true follower of Christ.

May the Holy Spirit grant us the grace of conversion and the interior anointing needed to express before these crimes of abuse our compunction and our resolve courageously to combat them.

Vatican City, Aug. 20, 2018

FRANCIS

What was not mentioned in the letter:

  1. The word Homosexual fails to appear.
  2. The word Bishop fails to appear.
  3. The word cover-up fails to appear.
  4. There is no acknowledgment that he has been Pope for five years and has done next to bupkis on the issue.
  5. No explanation is given of the Father Mauro Inzoli affair.  Go here to read about it.
  6. No explanation of what is going to be done as to the homosexual ring in the seminary in Honduras.  Go here to read about it.
  7. The letter is long on emoting and short on any concrete plans to end the abuse and the bishops who sheltered, and, in some cases, promoted it.
  8. Of course no mention was made of the Lavender Mafia.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Pope’s letter is sincere.  How can the Pope cure a problem he clearly does not understand?

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David Spaulding
David Spaulding
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 4:42am

It is your point #7 that bothers me most. In my opinion, His Holiness has both the authority and the information to act and a failure to act is apparently the choice he has made. At least, that is what I get from a letter that provides no specific, actionable promise.

Mary De Voe
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 4:48am

“Words, words, words” and more words.

father of seven
father of seven
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 4:51am

This most recent iteration of the consequences of the homosexualist plague in the Holy Catholic Church did not catch him off guard. He’s known this report was coming, and would be terrible, for quite a long time. This response is to be expected. He feels everyone’s pain. No plan to do anything about it. So, the beatings will continue until morale improves.

Morenowthanever
Morenowthanever
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 7:51am

Mr. McClarey, I think its safe to assume you are a good man, constantly striving to do God’s will to the best of your ability. I don’t know if you realize the prophetic meaning of the second to the last sentence of your article. “Let us assume for the sake of argument that the Pope’s letter is sincere.” There in lies the damage Satan has inflicted upon the Church not only with this scandal, but the whole pabulum theology we’ve had shoved down our throats for the past several decades. Their words have lost all respect and “belief” in their meaning. How can “leaders” such as this “lead” the Holy people of God? Simply put, they cannot. Certainly no homosexual clergy have any fear or motivation to amend their lives. This scandal will be in the headlines 20 years from now with this type of “leadership”?

Bob Kurland, Ph.D.
Admin
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 8:46am

Here’s an interesting comment on PF’s letter, an article in The American Thinker that says the letter falls short because of the Pope’s collectivist orientiation:
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/08/pope_francis_collectivizes_the_guilt.html

David
David
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 9:57am

“The letter is long on emoting and short on any concrete plans ..”
What I’ve come to expect.

Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 11:14am

I read the letter yesterday. And I posted this on my FB page; it is better for me to read Sacred Scripture & the Church Fathers, and pray the Rosary.

Amici, Americani, Compatriotae,

I was in a bit of a rush this morning and read only the selected Old Testament reading from Ezekiel 24:15-23. I should have read the whole chapter. The ending of the first part of the chapter in verses 13 and 14 is even more noteworthy given the crisis of scandal, sexual perversion and prideful ambition to power afflicting the Church. I like how the Latin is worded in the Nova Vulgata, but I will try to do my own translation:

13 Immunditia tua execrabilis, quia mundare te volui, et non es mundata a sordibus tuis; sed nec mundaberis prius, donec quiescere faciam indignationem meam in te.
14 Ego Dominus locutus sum; veniet et faciam: non indulgebo nec parcam nec placabor. Iuxta vias tuas et iuxta opera tua iudicabo te ”, dicit Dominus.

“Your filthiness is detestable, for I have wanted to cleanse you, and you have not been cleansed from your dirtiness; but you will not first be cleansed, until I make my wrath to rest on you. I the Lord have spoken; it will come and I shall do: I shall not indulge nor shall I spare nor shall I be placated. I shall judge you on par with your ways and on par with your works.”

Right after these two verses comes God’s warning that the delight of Israel’s eyes, her national pride, would be taken from her – the Sanctuary of the Temple would be destroyed. Let us NOT think that God won’t do the same to the new Israel (which is the Church) that He has done to the old Israel back in Ezekiel’s day a little more than 2500 years ago.

PM
PM
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 9:09pm

” ,,, I invite the entire holy faithful People of God to a penitential exercise of prayer and fasting, following the Lord’s command.1 This can awaken our conscience and arouse our solidarity and commitment to a culture of care that says “never again” to every form of abuse.” Wait. What else as the authority will be done, ‘following the Lord’s command’ ?? Circle the wagons of the unchaste around the authority for prayer and fasting? Does the authority know ‘the’ Lord through Scripture such as what LQC posted? The authority isn’t being clear again.

Fr. M.--Los Angeles
Fr. M.--Los Angeles
Tuesday, August 21, AD 2018 11:49pm

Oh, Mr. McClarey, he understands. Let me tell you from my experience at deanery meetings with other priests, and at Archdiocesan meetings; they all understand, but nobody and I mean nobody wants to use the “H”. That is the real cover-up; that is the real fear. Nobody wants to go there.

Mary De Voe
Wednesday, August 22, AD 2018 5:05am

“Let us NOT think that God won’t do the same to the new Israel (which is the Church) that He has done to the old Israel back in Ezekiel’s day a little more than 2500 years ago.”

Amen

Don L
Wednesday, August 22, AD 2018 8:24am

I fear for those that chose to leave the church over this horrible mess. They have no concept of just what their Church (faith) is anyway. No sane person would ever toss away a new Rolls Royce because of a drunk chauffer from the motor pool. The faith itself, the Sacraments, the Doctrines etc. are holy and essential to get to heaven. Eternity (the most frightening word in the English language) requires that we not treat adversity and evil within God’s Church as if it were a mere wayward political party. leaving is exactly what the diabolical wants –more souls for themselves.
All of mankind can literally thank God(Jesus) that He didn’t quit because one of His hand-picked bishops named Judas Iscariot committed the most grievous sin possible.
The problem is and has been exactly that; decades of a weakened watered-down faith whose focus on eternity was sacrificed for the secular here and now. Time to double down and focus on sin and repentance and ignore the climate change nonsense and keep the social justice game out of political realm and return to charity.

Anzlyne
Anzlyne
Wednesday, August 22, AD 2018 10:00am

Part of the great sadness for me is that John Paul II also knew but didn’t know what to do about it. Benedict XVI made a try but was perhaps not the warrior shepherd. Paul VI? “Good Pope John” ?
Now as sheep judging our shepherds…
…who are we to judge. Now we are timid, don’t know who to trust in our own little circle of parishes and dioceses. We ran into palpable silence when we sought counsel- just a pat on the head and referrals to Saint Monica.
Yet we get slight breezes of hope…concerning our own son and other seminarians who were with him. We know that the 100 years are over and though the tears flow and flow and flow, we somehow lean forward reaching for Our Mother’s hand and crying for the lost and hurt. Why oh why didn’t we all take her admonitions at Fatima more seriously! Why did we accept it when they stopped the Saint Michael prayer. Oh God forgive us and help us.

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