According to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), The Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People is a comprehensive set of procedures established by the USCCB in June 2002 for addressing allegations of sexual abuse of minors by Catholic clergy.
The Charter includes guidelines for reconciliation, healing, accountability, and prevention of future acts of abuse.
Unfortunately, the Charter and the Church’s actions based upon it are deeply compromised and can never address or repair what is fundamentally broken in modern day Catholic teaching and practice.
In the jargon of the therapeutic culture in which we now live, the Charter references “fixated ephebophilia” in order to hide the reality of the fact that adolescents and minors were molested by homosexual Clergy. The admonition to Clergy to “observe the boundaries” replaces the moral caution to “avoid serious sin”.
Such phony language is part of the problem, not the solution to the scandal caused by homosexual Clergy who violated those entrusted to their care as well as by those Bishops who were made knowledgeable of these scandals but who chose to protect the institution rather than faithful, especially innocent adolescents.
Let’s get honest, shall we!
Let’s speak plainly.
Here is the real scandal of the Clergy sexual abuse phenomenon.
Homosexual Priests, weakened by their disordered inclinations and lack of Christ-like spirituality, encountered vulnerable (often socially isolated) teenagers and young men and used them for their own sexual gratification. Subsequently, Bishops, absorbing the managerial counsel of their bureaucratic advisers, reacted not as Shepherds of souls but as CEOs.
If that is the truth, and nothing I have seen or heard suggests to me that it is not, then the Church has yet to address what is truly and manifestly at the heart of the sexual abuse scandal.
Something is wrong when psychobabble is used to constantly trump moral theology, when the language of the boardroom replaces the wisdom of the Scriptures in confronting the horror of a homosexual Priest seducing a teenage or even younger boy.
And something is more profoundly at odds with the Catholic Faith when the admission of sin and the need for repentance and restitution is equated by Bishops with the need to “restore public trust in the institution of the Priesthood and the Church”.
In the decades that have passed since these scandals first broke, very little of what the Church has said or done addresses the true source of the crisis.
But these scandals simply did not erupt from nowhere.
They come forth out of a weakened Church, a Church that has become complacent in its response to a culture of dissent (both internal and external) regarding fundamental Catholic morality and the authority which promotes it.
It has become increasingly accepted and experienced that the Priesthood is just another form of “ministry” among “all the different ministries” in the Church.
Respect and deference to the Priest as the ontological embodiment of Christ Himself has all but disappeared within the rank and file of Church membership.
For his part, the Bishop is no longer the valued teacher who, by virtue of his Apostolic Office and in union with the Vicar of Christ, is the guarantor of truths leading to personal redemption.
Rather, the Bishop appears to have become a "moderator" whose primary task is to keep contentious disagreements among the faithful to a minimum, keeping everyone feeling welcome, warm and accepted no matter how errant their opinions or behavior.
Leadership has been replaced by public relations gimmickry.
Now, when a scandal breaks and when a community is damaged by it, it is a spokesperson (very often the sly and clever choice of a female spokesperson at that) who stands before the People of God to read statements and bulletins prepared by a panel of lawyers.
The Bishops are content to be AWOL before the cameras and microphones, except when it comes to the latest diocesan-wide collection or fundraiser.
Of course, the faithful see through this thin veneer of manipulative response, simply shrug their shoulders and turn away from the Bishops, sometimes their Pastors, and sometimes even from the Church itself.
What the Church needs are Bishops and Priests who have the courage to see and admit the failures of leadership, institutional bureaucracy and the moral corruption within the Clergy and begin doing something to correct it.
A starting point is to begin changing the language used to characterize the scandal, replacing all the psychobabble with the words of the Gospel and the moral truths of the Church.
Where there is no truth, there can be no justice. No justice, no charity. No charity, no Church.
It’s all about fidelity. Fidelity to the truth behind the abuse scandal, fidelity to the Sacred Priesthood, and fidelity to Lord Jesus Himself.
The crisis over the sexual molestation of minors by homosexual Priests and Bishops who have compromised their sacred office will continue until these issues of honesty and fidelity have been addressed and the Church reclaims its moral authority in proclaiming them once again.
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