A Distinct Voice?
Having been at work during Pope Benedict’s delivery of his Vespers address this evening, I spent the ride home on the train reading it. I suspect that reading it rather than hearing it may color these reflections.
By contrast, Benedict was at his best when he was touching on themes that are clearly close to his heart. My favorite part of the speech was the section where he allowed his robust Augustinian sympathies to shine through:
People today need to be reminded of the ultimate purpose of their lives. They need to recognize that implanted within them is a deep thirst for God. They need to be given opportunities to drink from the wells of his infinite love. It is easy to be entranced by the almost unlimited possibilities that science and technology place before us; it is easy to make the mistake of thinking we can obtain by our own efforts the fulfillment of our deepest needs. This is an illusion. Without God, who alone bestows upon us what we by ourselves cannot attain (cf. Spe Salvi, 31), our lives are ultimately empty. People need to be constantly reminded to cultivate a relationship with him who came that we might have life in abundance (cf. Jn 10:10). The goal of all our pastoral and catechetical work, the object of our preaching, and the focus of our sacramental ministry should be to help people establish and nurture that living relationship with “Christ Jesus, our hope” (1 Tim 1:1).
None of this, of course, will be what the papers report on tomorrow. There has been a lot of speculation about how the pope will discuss the issue of the clerical sexual abuse crisis and tonight we heard his first real effort to address it.
I think that Fr. Jim Martin over at the New York Times blog has captured much of what was positive in Benedict’s statements about the crisis. He called it a “countersign to the Gospel” and a source of “deep shame.” He spoke of the “enormous pain that your communities have suffered” and called on the bishops to exercise their “God given responsibility as pastors to bind up the wounds caused by every breach of trust.” These were words that needed to be said and I am glad the pope said them.
There were other words that I wanted to hear, however, that I did not hear. The sexual abuse scandal has become a crisis for the Church in the
One wonders what might have happened if Benedict’s Augustinian voice had been allowed to shape and color this portion of the address. Would there have been as much emphasis on the “measures,” “policies,” and “programs” that the bishops have undertaken? Would the drafters have been more sensitive to how such talk could be perceived as self-justification? Would the address have included a frank acknowledgment of episcopal failures and a call for genuine repentance? One wonders what Augustine, if he were in the ambo this evening, would have said.
Peter,
A helpful reflection: I too would have appreciated a more distinctively “Augustinian voice.” I believe the Pope also met the bishops privately. I wonder what was said there, as I wonder what was said in the “Oval Office.”
I, too, would have liked Benedict to call the bishops to accountability more directly, instead of the implicit mitigation of locating the problem within the secularism of the wider culture. Parents can protect their children from what they might see on television, they did not get that opportunity when they were in the sacristy, the rectory, or the confessional. I suspect, too, that Benedict was not more direct in his remarks because of the concerns of diocesan lawyers that what he said could be used in court as evidence of the negligence of bishops. A sad commentary on the times.
Peter, your post and the subsequent comments put in words the ambivalence I was feeling about the talk. I did speak with Anne Burke this morning; she’s the very outspoken former head of the National Lay Review Board who met with then-Cardinal Ratzinger in January 2004–and came away impressed. She had a similar reaction today. I posted on her remarks here: http://blog.beliefnet.com/benedictions/2008/04/pope-gets-thumbs-up-cardinal-g.html
Yes, the absence of a strong word to the bishops on their role in the abuse crisis is deeply disheartening. It seemed evident even from from the early reporting that many bishops were not guilty merely of a failure in personnel management, (it wasn’t just “badly handled,”) but actively protected and enabled child abusers.
Privately admonishing them would not suffice for this reason–at least in Boston, some of the auxiliary bishops involved in the mess now have dioceses of their own. They were promoted. And, ecclesial subtleties of power and influence notwithstanding, for Bernard Law to be running a major cathedral in Rome, with a comfortable monthly stipend, hardly seems consistent with the pope’s declaration of “deep shame.” Some of those closely involved with the most serious crisis of the contemporary church have been publicly rewarded for their efforts. So some public redress, whether from the pope or the complicit leaders’ fellow bishops, would seem necessary. Absent that, why should we trust them?
Why might Benedict be reluctant to put too much blame on his fellow bishops? A suggestion or two. Perhaps the bishops were doing what they believed “Rome” wanted and expected them to do. Perhaps that were not wrong in this belief. Surely Benedict is an position to know these things. This is one consideration, and here is another. What about the refusal of Benedict’s much revered predecessor to face up to the Maciel affair? Was not Benedict himself, at least for a time, complicit in this refusal? And even when action was taken, at long last, why was it taken in such a way as to permit some to deny still that there was anything to the very serious allegations agsinst Maciel and the workings of the group he founded?
It would be too risky for Ratzinger to publicly correct the bishops. These bishops have been loyal and it is the main reason most of them got appointed. The Vatican would lose control once they publicly corrected them as it would be construed as not awarding loyalty. Benedict know that. So it might be that the closed meeting indicates a session on what should the pope say that will be the best politically…
Peter, when you posit Augustine you must always ask which Augustine. Having said that it seems clear that Augustine would have argued for punishment for Snap, VOTF, WO, Joan Chittister, etc
Lisa:
You asked,
So some public redress, whether from the pope or the complicit leaders’ fellow bishops, would seem necessary. Absent that, why should we trust them?
We can never trust them again, ever. Why? Because the fundamental Judeo-Christian sexual paradigms embedded within civilization’s written and unwritten behavioral norms have changed, and changed forever. As J-D civilization continues to decay, or rather, decompose, aberrant sexual behavior will itself continue to metastasize through the population at large. And that society is the pool from which priests and bishops are drawn. So from now on, its largely a defensive war, with the motto of Trust No One.
First, thanks to Peter for his reflection. I would hope most instaanlysis would be neither adulation or screed.
I think it’s early on to evaluate Benedict here.
We need to deal sepeerately with several questions, viz.:
-did he accomplish his own goals for this visit?
-did his wishes for the impact he sought come to any fruition?
-what long range impact will his visit have made?
Already, he has chastised his bishops verbally over the sex abuse crisis and wants more done. Does he need to act (as many, including myself think, ) first to lead the way?
-He has touched on the browning of America and the Church with reference to immigants yesterday and injustice to blacks and native folk this morning. How will this be received and emphasized here by hierarchy and Cathollics in general, given our political climate?
One last word of thanks – to David for his link to the Ann Burke conversation – it too underscores the immense problem many sharp Catholics continue to have
with American hierarchy.
Will the Pope’s chastisement change any of that?
“Already, he has chastised his bishops verbally over the sex abuse crisis and wants more done.”
Bob, as far as I can see you are the only one here who says this. Most are saying he should do this. Or have you late breaking news or have info we do not have.
Bill:
I have the same information all of you have. Its just that what I believe, which I guess many don’t, is this fundamental shift, a shift so fundamental and pervasive that it is almost invisible. But then I tend to see things darkly. Too darkly perhaps…
I’m taking him at his own words, Bill. What HE will do is the question. I concur with the SNAP statement in the thread above that we’re just (maybe) at the beginning of a process.
” One wonders what Augustine, if he were in the ambo this evening, would have said.”
It is just amazing how Augustine is quoted so much even now in the Catholic world. Most of the time without distinction as to the early, middle, late and late late Augustine. It is equally marvelous how most say how Peter Brown is the ultimate authority on Augustine but perhaps show little understanding about one Brown says about him.
James O’Donnell plainly writes about Augustine what Peter Brown writes in Brown’s convoluted way. O’Donnell was well regarded in the Catholic world until he destroyed a lot of myths in his biography of Augustine. Then the mood changed among Catholic authors.
What gives? Did they let their emotion obstruct their scholarship?
Pope Benedict knows his Augustine very well, for Fr. Josef Ratzinger wrote his doctoral dissertation over half a century ago on Augustine’s understanding of the “people of God,” and a very good piece of work it was. Augustine would not much know what to make of quarrels that were not his own and that preoccupy contemporaries, but I think he would be impressed and chastened by the influence he has had over the church’s leader.
Bill Mazzella is very kind about my book but a little hard on those who were discomfited by it. The doing of history is always an unsettling business, but we do progress, and knowing Augustine more accurately makes him more, rather than less, impressive.