The Catholic Church Has Failed Miserably

As news coverage continues over the Pennsylvania report about years of sexual abuse of thousands of children by 300+ priests and the coverup by leaders of the Catholic Church, I'm reminded of this quote by Dorothy Day:

“As a convert, I never expected much of the bishops. In all history popes and bishops and father abbots seem to have been blind and power-loving and greedy. I never expected leadership from them. It is the saints that keep appearing all through history who keep things going. What I do expect is the bread of life [the eucharist] and down thru the ages there is that continuity.” (Dorothy David,Letter to Gordon Zahn, October 29, 1968)

Blind and power-loving and greedy. Yes, she says it well. I grew up as a Roman Catholic, went to Roman Catholic schools and spent two years at Maryknoll Seminary studying to become a priest. I have had all of the Catholic experiences including devotion, guilt and questioning. I viewed priests as leaders and teachers and for many years, I respected those who chose the religious life, nuns, priests and brothers. But all of that changed at a certain point in my life as I questioned and saw things related to social justice, peace and poverty. At some point I left the Church or the Church left me.

My experience in the seminary was interesting. I had close friends. We broke rules, raised questions had some fun along the way. I did realize eventually that the priesthood wasn't for me. There were lots of reasons but one of the biggest ones had to do with the immediacy of problems in the world and the Church's foot dragging on many of those problems. There was also my struggle with what I began to see as a structure of unquestioned authority within the institution of the clergy. Parishioners and seminarians were pretty low in that structure.

The report from Pennsylvania is disgusting and shameful. It is an indictment of the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church. The damage that was done and has been done to children and families is astounding and unforgivable. All of this coming from an institution that has hurt people in so many other ways relative to sexuality, from the treatment of the LBGTQ community to the pressures put on women and men relative to birth control and abortion.  Judgmental men, purportedly speaking for God, about the role of women in their sacred institution.

I have listened to commentators and individuals asking over and over, why? Why and how did this happen? What causes the secrecy and the mob like protection of the inside scandals? Why didn't more insiders speak up over so many years, so many children, so many sins? There are a number of answers to these questions, I'm sure, but as we have learned from so many other scandals and crimes, it is always an important practice to follow the money.

Yes, follow the money of an institution that is built on the dependence of individual donors every Sunday to house and feed their priests, build their churches, maintain their properties, etc. Over time that same money has created power and fascination with power and all of its trappings. The vestments, the chalices, the rings and crosses. The pomp and circumstance, the power, the life, the dinners in private homes, all of it depends on willing supporters and believers. The fact is that in most of these powerful men's minds, reporting these scandals would have threatened it all. Interesting how the leadership of the Church became so blind, and power-loving and greedy. We should have never expected leadership from them.