BY FR. SHAY CULLEN
FOLLOWERS of Jesus of Nazareth have true faith in his teaching that goodness, truth, justice and love of neighbor and human and children’s rights will one day overcome and defeat evil.
Their faith, that of the People of God, will not be shaken. They will stand firm and welcome the truth- even the shocking truth of clerical child abuse- that is being revealed and challenged. It is a process that is cleansing the Institutional Church of complicity in crimes against children.
These investigations into clerical child abuse by the authorities in several nations, like in the Catholic Diocese of Baltimore in the US, where investigators are independent of the hierarchy revealed wide clerical child sex abuse and the cover up by bishops.
In the Diocese of Baltimore, over 150 priests were found to have sexually abused at least 600 children and many more cases were covered up by church officials. That is just the tip of the iceberg of clerical child abuse in Baltimore.
In the Philippines, no such investigations have ever happened as authorities, save for one or two brave prosecutors, seem to lack the courage and determination to pursue justice on behalf of child victims. Yet true Christians realize that God is inspiring people to cleanse their community of evil.
True faith is always found in the minds and hearts of the People of God even if not always present in all the clergy in the Institutional Church. That true faith comes from belief and action following the words and actions and example of Jesus of Nazareth. It will find life in the actions of a person of absolute integrity and will motivate the many thousands of good priests and laypeople and truthful bishops to take social action to implement the Gospel values. When will they act to protect children and report any of the child-abusing priests to the authorities and support child victims to get justice and stop more abuse?
That real faith of laypeople and true Christians will not be shaken no matter what scandal of child abuse by corrupt clergy is revealed. Many may fall away from the church and stop attending mass and the sacraments having lost trust in the Institutional Church. Yet, as true believers, they will not lose trust in Jesus of Nazareth, will believe in him and continue to help their needy neighbor, the victims of abuse and exploitation. That is the Faith that flows into action for children’s rights and dignity and will empower true Christians of integrity to speak the truth, fight for the truth and welcome the truth, painful as it may be.
Pope Francis has such faith and has condemned every act of child abuse and says the victims are the most important in the Kingdom as Jesus said (Matt.18:1-7) and abusers must be held accountable before the civil law and church law and, as Jesus said, a millstone be tied around the child abusers’ necks and they be thrown into the deep sea.(Matthew:18:7) What message is more direct, stronger and clearer than that?
The hierarchy must change and defend the victims and bring clerical child abusers to justice. Some cover up for abusers and transfer them or send them to “rest houses” may be harboring alleged criminals. They likely don’t believe that a priest can sexually abuse children or that it is a serious crime. The first case of a priest being jailed for alleged child rape and sexual assault in the Philippines has happened in Cagayan province. (To be continued)/PN
