Does the work answer the question well? It starts with a frank statement of current scandals, and continues with an interesting history of scandals past. If the author’s intent were to show that the Church can survive this scandal because it has many before, he may have done so but at the cost of showing that the Church is subject to an endemic problem to which it has failed to find a solution, other than to change policy to report offenders once detected to the civil authorities. This is rather like responding to recurring housefires by resolving to call the fire department, instead of figuring out why your house persists in bursting into flames - it is a good start, but does not address the problem.
It is also not relevant to the "Why?" question.
The author does not consider why the Church keeps falling into these scandals. The author does not address why in the current scandal - the one for which we have the most detailed evidence - the hierarchy acted with secrecy and - as I and others directly observed - dishonesty.
I remember being lied to by every priest-teacher in my seminary as to why a priest-teacher at my minor seminary (a boarding school btw) had to suddenly go away in the middle of the school year. We were told it was because he was needed back East; decades later, we learned from the press that he was one of the many abusers shuffled around when they got caught.
It was not enough that the Rector lied to us; every member of the faculty went along with the lie and - more than 40 years later - not one has had the guts to admit that they lied, nor that with their lies they abandoned their duty to protect those in their care.
And why? The author of this book offers no reason except that at the time, the hierarchy believed the crimes could be addressed by concealing them from the civil authorities, administering verbal ritual healing (either religious or psychological), and releasing the criminal back into the population of potential victims ... and everyone with knowledge of the crimes were bound by their vow of obedience to participate in this wicked game.
To the extent that this procedure was intended to preserve the power of the clerical hierarchy, it worked. I know of not one honest priest or bishop who prioritize their duty to their flock over their vow of obedience. That vow had an impact that we may frankly call evil - and this book does not address it.
Even with the vow, something could be done to improve the quality of the clergy and therefore reduce the likelihood of criminality. However, the author s
neers at very sensible suggestions to end the irrational ban on married clergy and the frankly evil ban on female clergy. The rejection is not supported by any rationale except that married people and women can be abusive too, an assertion that would be all the stronger for evidence, but which also misses important points:
* every quality of the clergy - including an abjuration of criminal tendances - would be improved by widening the pool of applicants to the clergy;
* the rejection of qualified clerical candidates breeds adverse reactions among the rejected population and a wholly unmeritted feeling of superiority among virginal males
* while for the fraction of the human population who are asexual, and for whom enforced virginity is not a problem, it is a completely unnecessary burden for the majority, a burden that on the evidence distracts from getting their job done.
Remember the job?
Oddly enough, it is not mentioned in the book. A work that claims to address a problem with a system without reference to its mission is gravely deficient.
Let us assume that the job of the clergy has something to do with promoting spiritual health among the flock. The book provides evidence of the unde
rlying problem of the abuse scandal: the elevation of obedience to the hierarchy of piety. If you prefer another word then “piety”, that’s fine; in my years in the minor seminary I observed that obedience was continually emphasized; those who questioned were chastised and often asked not to return next year. Spiritual values were expressed in terms of rituals, rituals which the history that this author so clearly demonstrates have failed to prevent the scandals. Indeed, the forces behind the scandals were without exception very frequent practitioners of the rituals: priests and bishops who participated in the Mass and the Eucharist more frequently than any lay person, more often than their victims.
This is a book review about a short book whose title I forgot and I can't find the review on Amazon. It was by a Catholic bishop addressing the sex scandals in the church. It would be nice to have the title but Oh well, it's still thoughts I want to remember
The book suggests the solutions of even more frequent and more intense application of the rituals that failed in the first place. This is a blindness understandable among a clergy dedicated to the promotion of the rituals, but it is blindness nonetheless.
In reviewing the history of scandals, it recalls the creation of new orders - Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and the rest - born in reaction to scandal and who failed utterly to prevent its recurrence - so its hope in the rise of new orders falls flat. The book also urges the laity to become more observant, which is not only blaming the victims but redirecting the blame away from the structure of authority that not only permitted the abuses, covered up the abuses, and encouraged the abuses by emphasizing obedience over piety.
Understandably, the solutions proposed are probably the only ones visible to a clergy educated to see those rituals as the only tools in the toolbox. It may be too much to expect an author fully enmeshed in the system to be able to conceptualize the problem. There is no evidence of a lack of sincerity, but one can not expect a fish to see the water they swim in.
In the end, the answer to the question stated (...remember the question?...) is that the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church are uniquely suited to promoting spiritual health (it’s not quite stated that way, but that is the general idea). However the evidence presented in the book points quite the opposite.
A classical tragedy is a story in which the protagonist fails to achieve their aim, usually through some intrinsic flaw related to their intrinsic virtue. To be sincerely enmeshed in a structure emphasizing the virtue of obedience over piety, rituals over spirituality, commitment to the organization over commitment to the flock ... is a tragedy.
The book suggests the solutions of even more frequent and more intense application of the rituals that failed in the first place. This is a blindness understandable among a clergy dedicated to the promotion of the rituals, but it is blindness nonetheless.
In reviewing the history of scandals, it recalls the creation of new orders - Benedictines, Franciscans, Jesuits and the rest - born in reaction to scandal and who failed utterly to prevent its recurrence - so its hope in the rise of new orders falls flat. The book also urges the laity to become more observant, which is not only blaming the victims but redirecting the blame away from the structure of authority that not only permitted the abuses, covered up the abuses, and encouraged the abuses by emphasizing obedience over piety.
Understandably, the solutions proposed are probably the only ones visible to a clergy educated to see those rituals as the only tools in the toolbox. It may be too much to expect an author fully enmeshed in the system to be able to conceptualize the problem. There is no evidence of a lack of sincerity, but one can not expect a fish to see the water they swim in.
In the end, the answer to the question stated (...remember the question?...) is that the rituals of the Roman Catholic Church are uniquely suited to promoting spiritual health (it’s not quite stated that way, but that is the general idea). However the evidence presented in the book points quite the opposite.
A classical tragedy is a story in which the protagonist fails to achieve their aim, usually through some intrinsic flaw related to their intrinsic virtue. To be sincerely enmeshed in a structure emphasizing the virtue of obedience over piety, rituals over spirituality, commitment to the organization over commitment to the flock ... is a tragedy.
