Religion

Defending the Catholic church

Alex Wood should know that
teachers are more guilty of
child abuse than priests

Brian Fitzpatrick

It has never been easy to be Catholic and Scottish. Irish Roman Catholic immigrants to the US secured occupational parity around the time of the 1901 census. Here, we needed a century more to catch up. Just as the hurdles of sectarianism seemed mainly to be overcome, along comes the current clerical abuse scandal afflicting the church.
     One gets the sense some of our neighbours (Alex Wood, SR 244) are enjoying our discomfort. Being a minority from a global faith, we also have the odd experience of having our faith's tenets explained to us and others, usually wrongly, not least in present times. Often, the natural response when receiving a kicking is to curl up and roll with the blows. Certainly, there is no doubt the institutional church deserves much of the opprobrium headed its way but, as one of the billion or so Catholics on this planet who comprise 'church', perhaps I might respond to some of the more obvious howlers in Mr Wood's article.
     Leave aside for the moment the inconvenient fact that the church does not oppose stem-cell research but just certain forms of that research (and even there a wide range of views is expressed across the church). More tellingly, your correspondent is just plain wrong re the facts of the Murphy case. Murphy's victims went to the police in the mid 70s – they took no action.
     Moreover, like most commentators accusing the Pope, Mr Wood seems to prefer to re-hash old newspaper articles rather than check the facts. One might think Ratzinger's office had sent Murphy off to a golf resort. But it was only over 20 years later that Murphy first came to the attention of the Holy Office and not as a result of any abuse complaint. Mindful of his age and ill-health and the effects on witnesses of a canonical trial (he died 4 months later), Rome suggested to the local bishop that his public ministry should remain restricted and he should remain living in seclusion.
     Unlike Mr Wood, I doubt anyone dealing with the case was ever of the view that Murphy was anything other than 'fallible' and, quantum valeat, it appears he confessed his own sinfulness. Mr Wood confuses infallibility with impeccability, not least by using 'infallible', I suspect deliberately, in its non-technical, non-theological sense.
     Indeed, the error of the central thrust of Mr Wood's piece is that he clearly is unfamiliar with the Catholic teaching 'ex opere operato': that the grace of a sacrament is conferred by the sacrament itself not by the 'spiritual excellence' of the presiding priest. God manages that job perfectly well, fortunately enough for the recipients. This is not exactly a new notion: Ignatius of Antioch (1st century) and the early church leaders were not strangers to human nature. They appreciated that if the efficacy of the sacraments depended simply on the holiness of the priest, we were sunk.
     As a headteacher, Mr Wood will also know that the incidence of child abuse is higher amongst his own colleagues in education. Press coverage notwithstanding, if anything child abuse levels in the Catholic church are no worse and, on some research, less than amongst other professions and markedly less than amongst teachers and, dare one say it, evangelical boy scout leaders.
     We should take no comfort from those facts. Over the years, as a society we have got much better at identifying and dealing with abuse claims. Child sex abuse victims in the 70s and 80s met institutional incomprehension everywhere – not just in the churches. But Mr Wood omits an important aspect of that timing to the charges hinted at by him against Pope John Paul II. His response was necessarily coloured by his background – as a bishop he had a long experience of dealing with trumped-up charges from the communist authorities in Poland against priests, some of whom ended up as martyrs. A saintly man, I suspect he too readily found it incomprehensible that a brother priest might abuse those placed in his care.
     But there simply is no evidence that his successor shares that saintly but essentially naive outlook. Mr Wood, for his own reasons, may wish to characterise my church as committed to the confession of sins. As Britain's Catholics prepare to greet Peter, I would respond that we are more committed to the forgiveness of sins.
     Over the centuries, the demise of the church has been much proclaimed. Stalin derided Rome: 'How many tank divisions has the Pope?'. His statues now clutter the junkyards of Eastern Europe and Rome abides steadfast. That may be to the chagrin of the likes of Mr Wood but it remains the seat of hope and inspiration for millions of good folk across the globe. As we prepare to greet our Pope Benedict, Britain's Catholics are debating and discussing not least how best to confront the challenges the abuse crisis presents. I suspect our current child protection measures easily would stand comparison with those in Mr Wood's school. Rumours of our impending demise will remain a fond hope for some, oft-repeated but, Deo volenti, never realised.
 

Brian Fitzpatrick is an advocate