Yesterday, I wrote about my disgust with the Catholic Church's scandals and why I'm not attending Easter Mass this year. Predictably, some folks didn't take it too well, and here's David Freddoso's response. Unfortunately, there's not much substance there once you get past the cheap cracks about my supposed unfamiliarity with the Gospel and the inexplicable weed-smoking jokes. Ha, those hippies!
Anyway, Freddoso is right that Mass is not a referendum on the church's holiness; it is a blessed sacrament. Believe me, I had my share of CCD classes, too. I've even got a degree in theology! But I'm not making a theological argument about whether or not Easter Mass is valid while the church is complicit in an international sexual-abuse scandal. All I'm saying is that I don't believe the church will hold itself truly accountable and perform the necessary profound penance unless laypeople do something to show their anger with the hierarchy. For me, that means skipping an Easter Mass I would be hard-pressed to feel joyful celebrating within the church. If that affects my salvation, well, that's between me and the Lord.
Freddoso also tries to play gotcha, saying that a 2001 letter from then-Cardinal Ratizinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is "rubbish" because it didn't appear in The New York Times. (Hope that standard stays in effect.) I actually first read about it in this Associated Press article. Even the link that Freddoso supplies to debunk me says:
That letter indicates that certain grave crimes, including the sexual abuse of a minor, are to be referred to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that they are "subject to the pontifical secret." The Vatican insists, however, that this secrecy applied only to the church's internal disciplinary procedures, and was not intended to prevent anyone from also reporting these cases to the police or other civil authorities. Technically they're correct, since nowhere in the 2001 letter is there any prohibition on reporting sex abuse to police or civil prosecutors.
OK, so Benedict told them to keep sexual abuse secret, but he really didn't mean it, you know? I don't think this lets him off the hook. If he was taking these abuses seriously at all, that letter would have instructed bishops to drag offending priests to the police station themselves.
Ultimately, the post reveals how Freddoso and other defenders of the church are willing to blithely ignore the serious problems that are undermining the legitimacy of the institution. He does not say what we should do in response to the abuses and their cover-up, except keep trucking and trust the church. That's no answer worthy of our faith. In fact, he notes that for centuries church leaders have been identified as sinners who undermined Catholicism. Maybe it's time we did something about it.
-- Tim Fernholz
