I respect the older CAtholics and those who go in for these sort of devotions, but I see them today as immature. They seem to be most popular with first generation migrant communities. It reminds me of the book "Rock Choppers" which discusses quite a bit about the Catholic ghetto mentality and how this sort of display asserted the presence of Catholics in a society which was designed by the founding fathers to be mostly Anglican, with the Irish Catholics kept "in their place" at the bottom of the social heap.

These practices of public devotion made sure that everyone knew there were Catholics around the place and gave the Catholics a sense of identity. Neither is needed today, but we need a new form of expressing our identity in the world where religion is not greatly of interest and considered a personal matter. In what forms this can take remains to be seen as the deeper search for a new spirituality doesn't lend itself to public displays. Perhaps pilgrimages to some special places, without the sale of trinkets etc common at so many "
shrines" , followed by a day of reflection there might be one alternative.

Hi Helen

Try http://www.cg.catholic.org.au/news/view_article.cfm?id=579&loadref=16 .

Read it this morning in a backlog of CathNews email. It stuck in my mind as being a relic from past times.

Mind you, I have respect for older people who were brought up on this sort of pilgrimage and procession mentality. It was a way of demonstrating their being Catholic as they were taught. In its own context it is quite acceptable and not to be scoffed. It is people following their individual consciences.

If we want to relegate such practices to the category of "superstitious mumbo-jumbo" we need to provide well-informed and suitable replacements. If a form of devotion no longer suits modern thinking then a suitable and improved replacement must be offered to fill the vacuum.

I doubt if current RCC admin people have the inclination, patience or enthusiasm to embark on the required education pathway - especially as it does lead directly to Jesus.

cheers
BobL

> Were we so conditioned, largely through fear of going to hell, that we accepted so much that we know now as tripe, or, at best, inadequate? Superstition is ver mixed in with Catholic practice, especially in some of the older ways and thoughts, but it has to be recognized for what it is - a way that people thought they had to behave in order to manipulate the deity to their benefit.

I wished I could find the link again, but I came across a recent article about an Australian Diocese and a procession which includes the Papal Nuncio, who will be crowning a statue of Our Lady with a wreath of flowers.

Superstition or just infantile?

Helen

Sorry to say it but, through this distracting trivia, we manage to avoid the real challenges that are there in front of us.

Forget the cartoons. They are amusing, but as long as they preoccupy us they they continue to control us.

Let's move on with some alternatives. What are they?

Ah yes, the Nine First Fridays!

I have to admit (mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa) that I tried to do them a number of times but there always seemed to be something that came up to prevent me completing them (usually about week seven or eight!).

HOWEVER, I am in no doubt that on more than one occasion I did complete the mandatory requirements for a Plenary Indulgence.

Are you now telling me that it was all for nought?

I have been holding (mentally) my "Go directly to heaven' card(s) for all these years in the sure knowledge that I would bypass Purgatory.

I'm confused!

Benny the Ratzingeris still issuing them so do the old ones still apply?

James, perhaps we could indulge in a life of debauchery now that we have left the old ideas behind BUT, once you get past the 30score and 10, the 7 Deadly Sins become somewhat academic. It is hard to rob a bank successfully when you have to use a walking frame; lust has to take a back seat as the opportunities for temptation lessen, but pride, greed and anger still flourish and for some older people, selfishness becomes an art form. Which sin have I left out? Covetousness. Why bother with wanting possessions you can't use and have to insure? Not worth it.

What about the Nine First Fridays, five First Saturdays etc.? If these are not superstitious practices, then they are pretty close to magical rituals meant to give those who followed them some advantage over others who did not.

Judith, I'm a bit upset about that statement. Having made the Nine First Fridays and Five First Saturdays, many times, I thought I had paid more than the minimum premiums required for my Salvation Insurance.

I could then do a reverse St. Augustine, and live a life given over to the sins of the flesh, eating, drinking and being merry because tomorrow there is an Act of Perfect Contrition before I die, or even better, the arrival of the now threatened species of Catholic priest to give me Extreme Unction before I shuffle off this mortal coil.

Now you tell me that the Salvation Insurance Company founded by St. Margaret Mary Alacooque is being wound up...bankrupt! And the assistance of Our Lady at the hour of my death (why does it have to always be an "hour". Isn't a couple of minutes enough?)to lead me into Paradise after going to Mass, and saying five decades of the Rosary on the First Saturday of every month is now just a bit of misleadig and deceptive conduct that is prohibited under the Celestial Trade Practices Act?

Do I get anything back for my premiums, for my nobbled knees and freezing fingers as I rode my bike down to the local Church to make sure that I had the whole nine First Fridays and five first Saturdays in sequence, and not to mention the shere boredom of sitting through not just another Mass, but saying a Rosary as well? This is terribly unfair. There ought to be a Canon Law against it.

Is this the same fascination that draws us to Museums? While walking through one in Oxford, I saw things that I had used in my youth but would hate to have to use today. In a Roman villa museum in Kent I saw everyday items little changed from the time just after Caesar until my childhood in the 1940s.

I am interested in seeing these things but I remember how hard they wwere to use, especially the butter churn and the old combs and pins.

Because we knew these things seemed to work, though with difficulty, and we are not sure about the new ones, are we reluctant to put them completely behind us and go forward with optimism?

Were we so conditioned, largely through fear of going to hell, that we accepted so much that we know now as tripe, or, at best, inadequate? Superstition is ver mixed in with Catholic practice, especially in some of the older ways and thoughts, but it has to be recognized for what it is - a way that people thought they had to behave in order to manipulate the deity to their benefit. What about the Nine First Fridays, five First Saturdays etc.? If these are not superstitious practices, then they are pretty close to magical rituals meant to give those who followed them some advantage over others who did not. Is God really to be moved in our favour if we sin merrily for the rest of the time, but run faithfully to Mass or whatever on a few particular days? If God is not part of our everyday life, then what use is it to sit in front of a tabernacle instead of doing something practical for others?

We have begun the journey out of the past but the future is still cloudy. It is like a river which seems to be flowing well enough to satisfy the needs of those on both banks, but someone suggests that dredging part of it might make a better flow for all. There will be those who say "No. It is alright as it is." But, once the dredging starts, lots of muck comes out and makes the water murky for a while. Eventually it settles and the flow is stronger and cleaner, to the benefit of all,even the naysayers. This is where I see the Church today. We acknowledge the need for the muck of the past to be removed, even at the cost of dirty water for a time in order to make a better flow for more in future.
It is getting people to accept the need and practical work of dredging that is tough. Let's get on with it.

What I'm essentially querying here from your post is this idea that a hankering or nostalgia for a place of primacy and symbol of universality, catholicity and unity is necessarily all bad?

Brian, I think you are right re what we still wish for. However, my hope is that we can now recognise that that was a stage in our religious development, and that we have outgrown the need to identify with a prestigious and powerful institution.

I identify with this:

Do we have some deep sense of loss that the universality, catholicity and the shear appeal of Catholicism to so many seems to be passing and we wish it weren't so?

I feel that too, I think we all do. But to have that, you need uniformity and centralisation, to say nothing of the need to control -- and isn't that what has given us so many problems, and not just in recent years. Recently, it has resulted in the abuse cover-ups.

'Prestige': If we want prestige, expect that prestige to be inappropiately protected -- by secrecy and lying. Prestige is spin, it's a dishonest veneer.

We need to trust ourselves to look for and experience other expressions and possibilities of church.

The nostalgic sliding back is a problem -- I experience it myself all the time. We miss what we knew, but we have to grow up and leave the security that we thought it gave.

Who will be the next pope?
See: "The next pope - a load of rubbish"
at http://www.v2catholic.com/johnw/2011/2010-11-30nextpope.htm

Kay,

That is still seems like stacking the deck, limiting it only to the "ordained" magician class, who listens, bows to and serves only the wishes of ultra-orthodox minority with very deep pockets to bank roll the life style they live.

I still believe that the Holy Spirt moves more freely through the People of God, the laity, then it does through the "ordained celibate male hierarchy."

A leader for the church today needs to come from the real world, not the fantasy world that the hierarchy lives in.

The hierarchy does everything possible to thwart the voice of the Spirit speaking through those more educated than themselves. For the bishops believe that only they are the most educated species on this planet. And, everyone is to believe as they believe without question.

When the hierarchy attempts to put their two cents together in a coherent idea (if that were actually possible without the approval of Benedict), they shoot another toe off their foot. They are nearly out of toes and ready to topple over. They just don't get it.

Richard Rohr recently stated very clearly what the hierarchy, all the way to the top, falls to grasp:

the real bottom lines in the Roman Church are becoming more and more apparent to thinking and spiritual people in the last decade or so. Despite the very clear reforms of the II Vatican Council in the 1960′s, the Roman patriarchy, a closed system that allows no prophetic critique, and their branch appointed officers (bishops), are step by step rolling back both the spirit and the letter of the Vatican II reforms–while pretending and saying they are not. (Remember, if you can reject this Council, then you have the basis for rejecting the other 20 Councils of the Church too! The Pope and bishops had better be very careful!)

The citation above is from:

http://richardrohr.wordpress.com/2012/05/10/vatican-versus-american-nuns/#comments

I'm wondering if that Orthodox church that chooses its top leader by having a blindfolded child make a random pick from the top 3 picks of their episcopy might be onto a good thing?
Instead of the College of Cardinals alone doing the choosing, why not have the heads of the National Episcopates work together with the Cardinals to find the top 5 picks & then let a child pick the one?

I agree with you, Nicholas. It was this sort of thing that went a long way to making me realise that the Church was really no different to any human organization with its squabbles, ladder climbing, political gossip, and Macchiavellism. And maybe worse because they took themselves and their "divine" roles so seriously.

Nicholas, I have often wondered if one of the deep attractions that we perhaps all share about Catholicism is this sense of belonging to something international and universal? That was one of the almost subconscious things that set us apart from the protestant churches and even the Eastern rite Catholic and Orthodox churches? We belonged to something "big" in the sense that it was embraced by more people than any other religion and that gave us some sort of confidence in our faith and beliefs?

I frame the foregoing as questions because I'm not sure how idiosyncratic that is to me and how much it might be a widely held perception. I can't remember now if it was just my father, or a more widely voiced idea, but he used to always say how good it was to visit any country in the world and know that you could find Mass celebrated somewhere — or even just the thought that the Mass we were attending somewhere in the outback of Australia was also been celebrated virtually around the clock in many other locations around the world.

What I'm asking, or pondering here, is if our fascination with questions of who will be next pope is not necessarily only tied up with eccelesial politics and personalities but a sense that "we're losing something" — Catholicism is losing some of its universality or even "catholicity"? It's looking just as fallible as all the other Christian churches and we have some kind of shared sadness, nostalgia or perhaps even a sense of regret that we feel a sense of disillusion or a sense of anger that we were "sold a pup". Do we have some deep sense of loss that the universality, catholicity and the shear appeal of Catholicism to so many seems to be passing and we wish it weren't so?

I think humanity still needs some point of primacy and some symbol of religious unity, universality and catholicity. What the educated, reflective parts of Catholicism appear to be moving away from is a particular view of "primacy" where God speaks down through one single channel to humanity — i.e. through the Pope and the so-called Magisterium. The Spirit speaks to ALL of humanity but mixed up with all the communication is a heck of a lot of noise created by our human egos and insecurities. We need some mechanism or "place of authority" where the entire human family is listened to and we reach consensus on what is of real spiritual value and what is merely superstition, old wives tales, the visions of mad men and women, etc., etc.. I'm not sure if it needs to be embodied in a particular person or physical structure. In politics we are heading in that direction with the United Nations and its general secretary and the assembly which is looked to as a place where the political problems of the world are sorted out. In the sciences the authority mechanism seems more decentralised and diverse but I sense there is still this sense of some place where scientific truth is ultimately discerned and accepted even if we cannot point to a particular physical place like, say, the United Nations General Assembly or the Security Council.

What I'm essentially querying here from your post is this idea that a hankering or nostalgia for a place of primacy and symbol of universality, catholicity and unity is necessarily all bad?

And I predict that in this future estimates, there will be about the same numbers of dioceses in the Western church, despite the loss of almost 25% of the parishes!
In addition, there will be the same number of Bishops & Cardinals to service this "leaner, meaner & smaller Church"!

It's interesting how focussed we remain on this sort of stuff, and how much energy we spend upon it, despite our frequent protestations about the real centre of the church, and its leadership, being located elswhere -- within the People of God at large -- in a 'kingdom that is not of this world'.

I read John Allen's NCR article and it made me nauseous. The articles on this site giving a run-down on which bishop is most likely headed for what Australian diocese has the same effect on me. There is a fascination with all that stuff that continues to lure us back in.

I know that we are a varied group, but what do we stand for? Do we still think that our spiritual fortunes are tied up with those appointments?

Occasionally we set off on refreshingly new paths, but it isn't long before we are back into conversations that
seem to reveal that our church is still that super clerical one defined by mitres and triple tiarras.

There is, I have to admit myself, an ambivalence, as there is a prevailing paradigm that tends to control what we mean in our own minds by 'church'. An alternative is hard to conceptualise.

We have to work on it, or we will effectively continue to reinforce the very thing we are trying to challenge.

http://www.osv.com/tabid/7621/itemid/6532/In-Focus-Facing-a-future-with-fewer-Catholic-...

Facing a future with fewer Catholic priests

How will the sacramental life of the Church be different if the number of priests declines as predicted?

By Mark Gray

In two national polls of adult Catholics in the last decade, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate (CARA) at Georgetown University has asked the question: "As you may know, the number of Catholic priests has declined in recent decades. Have you noticed this change?" In 2001, 70 percent of adult Catholics said they had noticed a decline. In 2008, the percentage who said they had noticed dipped slightly to 66 percent.

These responses occurred as the combined number of diocesan and religious priests in the United States actually declined by 8 percent, from nearly 45,000 to just more than 41,000 between 2001 and 2008.

Perhaps even more surprising, less than one in five Catholics in both surveys said that they had been personally af-fected by the declining number of priests (20 percent in 2001 and 15 percent in 2008).

What will they say 25 years from now? The Catholic faith is centered on the sacraments, and specifically receiving the Eucharist at Mass. If there are fewer priests and more Catholics in the future, how will the sacramental life of the Catholic Church be different?

Predicting the future is always difficult. There are so many unknowns, and historical trends are by no means guaranteed to continue.

This package utilizes the best and most recent data available to predict how the Catholic Church in the United States might look 25 years from now. Given recent trends, this is a future that can be expected to have fewer priests.

Mark M. Gray, Ph.D. is a CARA research associate and director of CARA Catholic Polls (CCP). His research focuses on trend analyses of Catholic Church data and surveys of the adult Catholic population of the United States.

How a decline in priests will impact ministry needs

In 2009, there was slightly more than one active diocesan priest per parish (1.05) in the United States. If the number of parish closings and mergers continue in future decades at the same rate that these occurred from 2000 to 2009 (a loss of 6.2 percent of parishes for the decade), the number of active diocesan priests per parish will still likely fall well below 1.0 and is estimated to reach 0.84 in 2035. In that year, the assumptions and projections lead to the estimate that there will be 12,520 active diocesan priests and 14,825 parishes (similar to the total number of parishes in the United States in 1948).

If no additional parish closings or mergers occurred and the Church maintained the same number of parishes in 2035 that it had in 2009, the number of active diocesan priests per parish would fall to 0.7.

Staffing parishes with priests in the future will likely require continued parish closings and mergers as well as some combination of more parish assignments per priest, increasing the use of international priests and maintaining as many assignments to religious priests as possible.

Growing population

This will occur as the Catholic population likely continues to experience growth in the United States. Assume that in the next 25 years the Catholic population grows 25 percent as it has since 1985. Note this simply implies relative stability with Catholics continuing to be about 23 percent of the total U.S. population as it has for almost the entire post-World War II period.

This is a very conservative scenario, as many predict even higher rates of growth through recent immigration from predominantly Catholic countries and higher fertility rates among these populations. Some of that growth, though, will be offset by those who choose to leave the Faith. Yet, according to surveys conducted by CARA and Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Catholics, in comparison to those of other religions, are among the most likely to retain the faith they were raised in as adults (estimates range from 68 percent to 72 percent).

There is no period of time in recent decades where one can identify a mass exodus from the Catholic faith; instead, these changes appear to have occurred gradually year to year — most often among those in their teens and early 20s. The number of Catholic baptisms per 1,000 Catholics in recent years also closely mirrors the crude birthrate for the United States (number of births per 1,000 residents) indicating that most Catholics are baptizing their children.

If the 25 percent growth projection turns out to be accurate, the number of self-identified Catholics in the United States (as currently estimated by national surveys) will have increased from 70.5 million in 2009 to 88.1 million in 2035. This will result in the number of Catholics per active diocesan priest increasing from 3,687 in 2009 to 7,039 in 2035.

Also assume that the weekly Mass attendance rate remains at the plateau of 31 percent, as it has for nearly a decade in CARA surveys. Note that this is the percentage of Catholics attending in any given typical week — for example, other than Christmas, Easter or Ash Wednesday. It is not the percentage of Catholics who say they attend Mass every week — that is, 23 percent. The number of Mass-attending Catholics per parish in 2035 would be 1,866 and the number of these individuals per active diocesan priest would be 2,210.

What is a Priest Shortage?

Arguments about priest "shortages" must always be made in relative terms. Much attention is given to the number of priests per Catholic in a country when this topic is discussed. For example, according to the most recent Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae (ASE 2007) from the Vatican, there are about 1,500 Catholics per priest in the United States today. By comparison there are more than 6,200 Catholics per priest across the border in Mexico.

However, each country has its own Catholic culture and history. Many Catholics in the United States are accustomed to a neighborhood parish with a priest in residence. This is not the case in many other Catholic countries around the world. In the future, if more neighborhood parishes do not have a priest in residence or, worse, close their doors, Catholics will likely "feel" the sense of a priest shortage in greater numbers regardless of any comparisons to what is occurring in other countries.

From 2000 to 2009, the number of parishes in the United States declined by 6.2 percent (-1,278 parishes) with many of these losses occurring with mergers and closings in the last two years. CARA surveys indicate that closing parishes is the least-favored option among Catholics for dealing with a shortage of priests. In the same 2008 poll noted in the introduction, CARA asked a national sample of adult Catholics about what could be done to "meet Catholics' need in a time of fewer priests."

Respondents were provided a list of options, including sharing a nonresident priest with another parish, bringing in priests from outside the United States, increasing the use of permanent deacons or lay ministers, asking a retired priest to come in to help the parish, or merging the parish with another nearby parish.

A majority of Catholics support "somewhat" or "strongly" the use of nonresident priests (66 percent), international priests (56 percent), permanent deacons (55 percent), or retired priests (55 percent). Less than half support wider use of lay ministers (47 percent), or merging of parishes (44 percent).

Crowded pews

Given recent changes in numbers of parishes and normal variations in the number of Masses offered, the current weekend seating capacity of the Catholic Church in the United States (the aggregated number of seats multiplied by the number of Masses per parish) is difficult to know. However, this can be estimated using data from CARA's National Parish Inventory (NPI), a database of parish life in the United States. The NPI includes information about the seating capacity and number of Masses in more than seven in 10 parishes in the United States (seating capacity for 71 percent of parishes and number of Masses for 78 percent of parishes). The estimates made below use imputed regional averages for seats and number of Masses for any missing observations at the parish level. Further, the overall total capacity is adjusted down to account for the number of parish closings and mergers that have occurred in recent years since much of the NPI data was collected (a reduction of 5.9 percent).

Using these methods, the current estimate for the building seating capacity of Catholic parishes in the United States includes spots for more than 8.8 million people and that there are about 63,800 Saturday Vigil and Sunday Masses in an average week — that is, in October, a period outside of the summer vacation season and within Ordinary Time for the Church.

Using the NPI data, we can thus estimate that the total weekend seating capacity for the Catholic Church is currently about 33.4 million. In other words, on an average weekend, 66.3 per-cent of seats are filled by an estimated 22.1 million attendees. On a typical weekend, the average total number of Saturday Vigil and Sunday Masses per parish is 3.6 with an average church seating capacity of 492.

Assume that in 2035 that the typical number of Masses and number of seats per parish remains unchanged and that the number of parishes has declined at the 6.2 percent per decade rate consistent with the 2000 to 2009 period. If this were to occur, the number of Mass-attending Catholics per parish would increase from 1,233 now to 1,866 while the total weekend seating capacity would drop to 27.6 million. The number of seats filled at Masses on a typical weekend would essentially rise to capacity in 2035 if there were no increases in the average number of Masses offered per parish.

On Christmas, Easter and Ash Wednesday, when CARA surveys indicate 68 percent of Catholics may attend Mass, parishes would exceed the capacity to serve all those who wish to attend even with the addition of more Masses. The pews would be full with only 31 percent of Catholics attending.

Emerging models

Currently, the Catholic Church, on most weekends, is more than able to meet Mass attendance demands. However, this excess capacity in Ordinary Time could be momentary if current trends continue. As the Catholic population grows — even with stable levels of Mass attendance — the physical capacity of the Catholic Church — for example, number of parishes, seats and/or Masses — will require growth. Yet it would be challenging to increase the number of Masses offered if active diocesan priests decline in number as projected.

Even as numbers of many of the sacraments celebrated per 1,000 Catholics have declined slightly in recent decades, nearly all Catholic parents baptize their children and nearly seven in 10 Catholics attend Mass at least a few times a year. CARA surveys also reveal that most Catholic parents say it is "somewhat" or "very" important to them that their children receive their first Communion (81 percent) and confirmation (77 percent). Marriage in the Church has declined more steeply in recent decades. Yet, CARA surveys also indicate that 75 percent of adult Catholics who have never been married anticipate marrying in the future, and 72 percent of these respondents say marriage in the Church is of some importance to them (46 percent say this is "somewhat" or "very" important to them and 26 percent indicate this is a "little" important). Even with smaller percentages of Catholics celebrating some of the sacraments there will still likely be increasing demands for Church ministries in the future as the Catholic population grows.

Catholics may also have to travel farther to parishes in the coming years if Mass offerings decrease in number. Trends in the development and use of emerging models of parish life may also expand with more merging of parishes, the sharing of clergy and lay ministers among parishes, and deacons and laypersons being entrusted with the care of a parish under the supervision of a nonresident priest.

None of the projections presented here are guaranteed. Far from it. These are simply a glimpse of a likely future given a review of recent trends and the demographic composition of various populations within the Catholic Church in the United States. Other outcomes are possible. Ordinations could increase, Catholic population growth could slow, or more international priests may be utilized.

The only sure bet is that there is significant change ahead.

A question of numbers

Discussions of the changing numbers of priests in the United States in the media and elsewhere often use data that can be somewhat misleading. A count of "total priests" includes too many priests who are retired or not involved in parish ministry. Today, about 30 percent of all diocesan priests are retired, sick or absent. Also, "total priests" includes religious priests, such as Jesuits or Franciscans, who make up about a third of this number, but less than a quarter of them are in parish ministry.

Many parishes around the world have no resident priest. The percentage of these parishes in any given country is closely correlated to the number of diocesan priests per parish. In the simplest of terms one might think that only when the number of diocesan priests per parish falls below 1.0 would a country need to potentially close parishes, have these administered by nonresident priests with multiple assignments, or entrust the care of these parishes to someone other than a priest (see Canon 517.2). Yet in practice these other options are often used well before the ratio approaches 1.0.

BarryS

And guess what, I was going to say exactly the same thing!

As for the next Pope, I would ask the Holy Spirit to have a good look at either Sr Joan Chittister or Sr. Elizabeth Johnson. Time for a complete change as the present system broke down long ago.

Brian. I am just re-reading this book by Bishop Robinson, along with Hans Kung"s The Catholic Church. Quite depressing to see what they spoke about is actually happening.

As for the next Pope, I would ask the Holy Spirit to have a good look at either Sr Joan Chittister or Sr. Elizabeth Johnson. Time for a complete change as the present system broke down long ago.

May God bless & guide our future Catholic Church as it leaves the Vatican behind. Just imagine how much money he will make by selling all the property & buildings.
BarryS

Any of us are going to be the last to get our hands on any of the profits from the carve-up. You can be sure those who are building the "smaller, purer Church" have had their eye on this matter for a long, long time.

When we were in the seminary, a prediction was made that after the next 2 Popes, the next one would be a non Italian. (We have had 2)then the next Pope would be non European but from part of Africa & he would then move the headquarters of the Catholic Church to a Dioces in Northern Africa where they already have the largest church in the world.

Maybe the prediction is about to happen.

May God bless & guide our future Catholic Church as it leaves the Vatican behind. Just imagine how much money he will make by selling all the property & buildings.
BarryS

What sad reading? After close to five decades of persecution and expulsion of the best minds, the gradual abandonment of recruiting from the "best and brightest" in the human gene pool, not to mention the entirely natural and at times deliberate "stacking" that's gone on in the College of Cardinals under JPII and BXVI, there is virtually nothing to be optimistic about for at least the next two conclaves — and more than likely forever. Institutional Catholicism is in deep 'nure today.

Watching the Leveson Inquiry on television and online last night I couldn't help thinking of the parallels between the Murdoch Empire and the Holy See. They're both now driven by the same essential philosophy: "The Christian believer is a simple person: bishops should protect the faith of these little people against the power of intellectuals." [The words of Joseph Ratzinger defending the decision to knobble Han Küng.] Those words might be adapted to the philosophy that seems to drive the Murdoch money-making machine: "The average citizen is a simple person: Murdoch newspaper editors should protect the beliefs of these little people against the power of intellectuals."

The essential underlying driving philosophy in both empires is elitist even though they would both claim that is the very opposite of their intention. It's "Orwellian Newspeak" straight out of the pages of George Orwell's book "1984"!

The ruling moral theology at the top of these temporal empires now is no longer some "quest for ultimate truth", some quest to civilize human society by lifting the standards of moral thinking and behaviour in society but a game of "see what you can get away with?" or "see how far you can push the moral envelope?". There is no longer even a pretence of seeking to lift the ordinary citizen to higher standards of thinking and behaviour but instead to pander to their reptilian brain instincts and mores in the pursuit of power or profit.

That the Catholic Church rewards Rupert with a Papal Knighthood only underlines the corruption that we are witnessing.

My mind has also been drawn to Bishop Geoffrey Robinson's book "Confronting Power and Sex in the Catholic Church: Reclaiming the Spirit of Jesus". It's unfortunate that the word "sex" appears in the title as that word tends to be a huge distraction wherever it appears in society these days. Perhaps the more appropriate, and less distracting, title to this book should have been:

I highly recommend Tom Reese's article in America [LINK] and James' response on Catholica [LINK] which are under discussion elsewhere in our forum today.

Angela

Good points in this article as you say, as everyone knows it happens everywhere in famalies and other Churches but i hope i see our Chruch and Bishops stand up and just give into to the Good Lord and say we made a mistake reach out to us all and bring us Home back to the Lord Jesus Christ without all this pain that so many of us are suffering.

macbee

http://ncronline.org/blogs/all-things-catholic/poll-average-rome-next-pope

Notice which cardinal's name is missing?????

But seriously, would anyone want to be Pope these days? A bit like getting the receiver in if you ask me!!!

Helen

Thanks Angela for referring us to this excellent article by Thomas Reese SJ. He makes some very good points.

Like him, I am no expert on the abuse crisis, but I did once, a long time ago, study Canon Law and have spent my whole professional life as a civil lawyer, working with the meaning of words. I can only draw inferences from what people say and write.

And while he talks about the problems of the clerical culture, he makes no mention of how this culture came about or was maintained and nurtured. He makes no mention, like so many others, of the role played by Canon Law.

The Pope is ultimately responsible for Canon Law because under a monarchical system, the sovereign is the only one who makes laws. But you also have to look at the reality of the situation. Popes are very busy people and they need to rely on trusted advisers. When John Paul II signed the Motu Proprio Santorum Sanctitatis Tutela in 2001, he was 81 years old and had then been diagnosed as suffering from Parkinson's disease. The people who drafted that document for him must have been Cardinals Ratzinger and Bertone, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. They also signed the accompanying letter that went out to all the bishops of the world, advising them of its provisions.

So, both of these Cardinals, one the Pope and the other his Secretary of State, must have some responsibility for the influence of Canon Law in maintaining and reinforcing the culture of secrecy. Further, Cardinal Ratzinger was told back in 1996 by Bishop Geoffrey Robinson and the Australian bishops what was the appropriate Canon Law solution to the problem. He was again told the same thing by Lord Nolan in 2001, and by Cardinal Levada who went to see him personally in 2002, advising him of the necessity to allow reporting of clergy crimes to police. Yet that policy was not even adopted in 2005, when he became the supreme law maker as Pope. It had to wait another 5 years, and then only after all these scandals were breaking everywhere, especially in Ireland.

These bishops who are now being asked to resign, really had no choice but to refrain from going to the police.

Further, this same Canon Law made it very difficult, if not almost impossible for these bishops to get rid of paedophile priests. Crimen Sollicitatonis provided that the punishment of defrocking ("degradatio") could only occur in these circumstances

63. Resort is to be had to the extreme penalty of reduction to the lay state – which for accused religious can be commuted to reduction to the status of a lay brother [conversus] – only when, all things considered, it appears evident that the Defendant, in the depth of his malice, has, in his abuse of the sacred ministry, with grave scandal to the faithful and harm to souls, attained such a degree of temerity and habitude, that there seems to be no hope, humanly speaking, or almost no hope, of his amendment.

But it seems that the Vatican itself applied the same almost impossible test when it was asked to defrock priests by bishops. There are numerous examples of this happening, and the most notorious was when Archbishop Weakland wrote twice to Cardinal Ratzinger in 1996, asking him to defrock Fr. Murphy, who had abused some 200 deaf mute boys, and yet the CDF refused to defrock him.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexual_abuse_scandal_in_Catholic_archdiocese_of_Milwaukee

This reluctance to do anything about such priests is as much a reflection on the almost impossible hurdle that Canon Law imposed to get rid of them. Now, admittedly, in 2001, Cardinal Ratzinger did something about this, but only on the internal side in terms of the Vatican's disciplinary procedures. He once again imposed secrecy - this time "pontifical", which unlike the "secret of the Holy Office" under Crimen, did not involved automatic excommunication, but an appropriate form of punishment determed by the Church. But it still stopped priests going to the police, contrary to civil law in many countries - a fact that Monsignor Lynn and Bishop Finn are being reminded of.

Bearing that in mind, Reese says this,

Third, we still do not have a system for bringing bishops to account. It is a disgrace that only one bishop (Cardinal Law) resigned because of his failure to deal with the sexual abuse crisis. The church would be in a much better place today if 30 or more bishops had stood up, acknowledged their mistakes, taken full responsibility, apologized and resigned. A shepherd is supposed to lay down his life for his sheep; these men were unwilling to lay down their croziers for the good of the church.

I have to ask the same question that Fr. Sean McDonagh asked after the Murphy Commission when there were calls for bishops to resign, and to paraphrase Reese above,

The church would be in a much better place today if the Pope and Cardinal Bertone stood up, acknowledged their mistakes, taken full responsibility, apologized and resigned.

As good and sensible as Reese's article is, he does not take that logical step further, that, to my mind (and also to Fr. Sean McDonagh and a number of others) is inescapable.

This is a great article from America magazine, thank you Angela.

Thomas J. Reese, S.J., senior fellow at the Woodstock Theological Center in Georgetown and former editor in chief of America has sent us his keynote address to the Clergy Abuse Conference in Santa Clara University today

Every bit of the article is quote-worthy, but these comments really struck me.

First, I think the church—and by church I mean both the clergy and the people of God—needs to re-envision its attitude toward the survivors of sexual abuse. In Latin America, liberation theologians developed the concept of the preferential option for the poor. The American Catholic Church needs to embrace a preferential option for the survivors of sexual abuse.

and

The Vatican also needs to do its job. It appears to have no problem investigating nuns and theologians, but investigating mismanagement by a bishop is not a priority. A bishop can be quickly removed in Australia for hinting that women and married priests might need to be discussed, but bishops who failed children are not removed. Only in Ireland were a few bishops removed because of their failure to protect children, and that took a brave archbishop and the full force of the Prime Minister and the government.

Annie

From Thomas J. Reese America magazine

http://americamagazine.org/blog/entry.cfm?blog_id=2&entry_id=5118