how to make sense of catholicism /the child abuse scandals - sorry to raise topic

[mamatilly]

I am really struggling with this and wonder if any wise mumsnetters have any opinions - I just cannot understand how in the light of so many many stories of child suffering at the hands of priests (and nuns) so many people can continue to suppport Rome, and come out in their thousands to see a Pope who apparently had full knowledge for many decades...

Would it not be possible for all followers to simply cut loose from Rome and start over, without a single person from the Catholic hierarchy...

Sorry to raise this at this time, I would love to make sense of it somehow.

I'm not wise at all but I'm sure those that feel the need to leave the religion will do so (there have been several breakaways over the years including the CofE)
The abuse issue has rocked the church to the very core. I know that as a regular mass goer I has made many of us think and question our allegiance to Rome. But my faith is embedded in Catholicism and it's not as easy as leaping over the fence to another church.

if it's sense you're looking for, you won't find it in the catholic church.

I'm not a Catholic but my grandmother was. She stopped practicing during WW2 because of the pictures she saw of the Pope blessing Mussolini's troops, but never joined another church.

It really isn't easy for Catholics to join another denomination, certainly nothing like as simple as it is for Anglicans to move. And the Pope isn't just the spiritual leader but seen as God's representative on earth, with an unbroken line going back to the Apostles.

Having jumped ship myself as an Anglican, and walked out on organised religion completely, I can understand why it looks weird that people still honour the Pope and the Catholic church. But having seen how my grandmother could never abandon her faith and the pain that it caused her to not be able to go to mass in particular, it doesn't surprise me. It's really nothing like as simple as it seems.

Because forgiveness is at the very heart of our religion.

Things have changed a lot in the English catholic church around child protection. People who should have been protecting our children have made bad mistakes in the past, partly because they failed to understand that people who have abused in the past remain a threat to children, partly perhaps because they were too quick to protect their colleagues. Christianity is very challenging. It demands that you forgive, and that you love your enemy. It is not always easy.

and partly because there was a massive cover-up of systematic abuse! Which would be enough to make me walk away had I been raised as a Catholic!

Acorntree, the problem that I have with that is that I haven't been the victim of abuse by the Church, so it isn't my place to forgive that. I can forgive how the abuse scandal might make me feel, but I can't forgive the abuse itself, whether of young children or pregnant women.

I suppose it's a bit like a woman forgiving and taking back a man who has been abusing her children. It may be a noble thing for her to do but it's not difficult to understand why the children - and wider society - are disgusted.

I think Roman Catholics, more than other denominations, view their church as the church, going back over 2000 years, and therefore their loyalty to the church is not dependent on how good or bad the current hierarchy is. No matter how awful they may be, "the church" is about more than its current membership or leadership. So you can continue to be loyal to "the RC church" while utterly deploring the things that the hierarchy has colluded in.

Other denominations aren't the same, because we are all "splitters" from the start, so we don't have that same feeling that this is the only possible way to be, or that to separate from our denomination means to give up on the whole of Christianity.

spiritmum,

You are right that forgiveness of the abuse is for the abused and everyone would agree that the crimes were disgusting, but forgiveness of the hierarchy for creating a situation in which children were put at risk (which was sort of the question the OP asked ? how can people turn out for the Pope when he was allegedly aware of it) is a more general thing and the problem was systemic.

The two most important things to come out of this should be justice for the victims (which means prosecuting the abusers through the courts) and protection for children in the future... Things have moved in that direction.

But the way forward is to forgive (but not forget) the past and build for the future.

To me, the central truth of my faith is something I can?t just walk away from, whatever individuals within the church may do. A bit like putting a precious jewel into a building, sometimes part of the building crumbles and needs repair, or even demolishing and rebuilding, but the jewel remains precious.

I started over, and became an Anglican, and in many ways it was hard, because of the way I was brought up. For me it was the desire to remarry after divorce without waiting 10 years for an annulment. But I certainly was brought up to believe it was the one true church and anything else was second best.

I personally find it hard to find all the facts in the face of all the emotion and vitriol thrown at the RCC. Some of it is certainly deserved, but it does make it hard to see things as they actually happened.

I am not excusing what has happened, in fact I am disgusted at what has gone on, but I wasn't there when it happened and society has changed (certainly as far as protecting children, for the better). I wonder how much was covered up to protect the abused rather than the abuser? A sort of "least said, soonest mended?". A by-product of that is that you are also protecting the abuser.

AMumInScotland,
Yes, there is something of that. When we have had to deal with the crusades, the more violent medieval bishops, the Borgias, and plenty more, we have learned to be pragmatic!

I think to say 'if I had been raised a catholic I would do x' is a bit like saying 'if my child were abused I would do x' or 'if my parents died I would feel y'

Being raised as a catholic can be as a significant part of who you see yourself as, as is your family or the colour of your eyes.
To suggest that you can somehow reach adulthood and shake off things that have seemed central to who you are is simplistic - and I think why so much vitriol is thrown at catholics on here.

It is like saying to a British Person - you hated Tony Blair and you were against the Iraq war - you should leave the country and be ashamed of who you are.

The church is not the same as people faith.

And I say that having wandered away from the church in my twenties

Acorntree, that was exactly how my grandmother felt. Her faith was her precious jewel, but as far as she was concerned teh building that housed it has crumbled beyong repair. For her the biggest isssue was the necessity to believe in the infallibility of the Pope and I have noticed recently that Catholics on the TV are referring to him as 'our spiritual leader', which isn't quite the same thing. Maybe mainstream Catholic belief has moved on to accept that the Pope is human and flawed, but I didn't think church doctrine had changed on that.

When it comes to the abuse I think the biggest danger in terms of the church is the necessity for celibacy. There's a line in one of the Brother Cadfael books about Brother Paul, the master of the novices, who sleeps in the bed nearest the door in their dormitory because he was 'only too aware of the dangers that lurk for celibate souls.' We are sexual creatures and we need an outlet for that. And I think I can understand how the church heirarchy - the apostolic succession no less - could convince themselves of their rightness even to abuse young boys, because it wasn't the polluting kind of sex that you have with women.

I think this is reflected in the attitdes of the nuns that we hear so many shocking stories about. My mum was born towards teh end of the war and my nan was evacuated to a maternity home run by nuns. One woman there was pg by her Canadian airman lover so they made her scrub floors even when she was about to go into labour. And they didn't apologise when the guy came to take her and the baby home, either. They were so terrible even to the married women that my nan walked out durng labour because sh ethought she'd die; she ended up being picked up by romanies who took her in their caravan to eth nearest hospital. By some miracle they saved my mum and she has the (Catholic) midwife's name as one of her middle names.

But equally I agree with Mary that teh amount of vitriol heaped upon not so much teh Church as Catholics in gereral is deeply unfair. The bravery of many Catholics over the centuries, including many who were martyred durng the war, is beyond belief. One of the greatest examples of the love that come sfrom faith in action is that of Maximillian Kolbe and his story deserves to be better known.

And I read a very touching piece recently in the Telegraph by a gay man who lived in a Catholic orphanage as a boy and who was adopted. He said that the nuns told the story that his mum had been engaged but her fiance had been killed in a car crash before they'd got married; it was only later he'd realised this was a total fabrication on their part to make him feel better about himself and him birth mother. He was very much in favour of the church being allowed to keep its bar on gay adoptions because they often worked with children that the normal agencies had given up trying to home, even though he is in favour of gay adoption himself. I think I agree with him, in spite of the fact that a big factor in me walking away from organised religion is how it treats gay people.

Sorry, typos...sinusitis...

Catholicism is one thing- you could pick apart any organised religion and find fault with it. i disagree with many of it's teachings but would never feel a need to challenge an individual's belief- it's entirely their right to practice whatever religion they want to.

the abuse scandal and the handling of it is something quite different though. from my point of view i see an aggressive PR campaign.

i also have HUGE problems with the church's handling of the AIDS/HIV epidemic.

Blinks, I don't see the problem with the handling of the HIV epidemic. All the church advises is that people have sexual intercourse only within a married relationship. Surely if that advice was followed it would do more than anything else to prevent the spread of HIV?

here is article highlighting the vatican's response to aids prevention/promotion of condoms to halt spread of disease.

there are many many articles with direct quotes.

I agree blinks that it does appear that the Church might not be passing on the best information about condoms from that article. However, imo condoms probably shouldn't even be discussed by the church and I really think it only talks about them when it is forced to do so! The message the Church gives is sex only within marriage, and in that way i think it is doing its bit to prevent the spread of HIV.

!!!!!! am stunned you think condoms shouldn't be discussed.

and also, the catholic church, by spreading mistruths, is doing it's bit to SPREAD the disease.

thank you for all your thoughtful and insightful comments on my OP. they have helped my understanding of such an intense topic.

it seems that an individual's alignment to Rome can be so much deeper and wider than is immediately obvious.

acorntree said

"A bit like putting a precious jewel into a building, sometimes part of the building crumbles and needs repair, or even demolishing and rebuilding, but the jewel remains precious."

could it be though, that the precious jewel is the presence of God in our hearts, the breath within us, the light behind our eyes?

if this precious jewel is being held in a dusty crumbling building and not being duly respected or honoured, we have the freedom to take it back into our own protection until the builders can build something truly worthy of the jewel.

Papal infallibility is much misunderstood IMHO. I'd have to research when the last infallible declaration was made, but certainly the current pope and the previous pope have never made one (and the one before that was only in for 30 day, so didn't have much chance!). What the RCC says is not that the pope is always right, but that if he makes a declaration which he declares is infallible(ex cathedra I think is the term), then it is (in the church's eyes at least) infallible

... OK I've done some research, apparently the last time a Pope has made "an infallible statement" is in 1950, on the subject of the Assumption of Mary.

I don't think condoms shouldn't be discussed generally blinks, just that they're nothing to do with the catholic church. I know I'm repeating my self here, but the church says no sex outside of marriage, the church asks its followers to live up to that ideal. It does not say, 'we know you will fail to live up to that, so here's what you should really do...' - the Catholic church is all about trying to live up to the ideal of being christlike (and then forgiving and trying again!) It is therefore not the Church's place to advocate condoms imo because it would be saying 'We are asking you to do this, but here's what to do when you fail...' I agree completely that condoms should be discussed (and advocated) by more secular organisations - it's just not the place of the church.

freddo- if you're interested there's a very thorough paper about the medical ethics angle re: condoms/hiv and the CC

here

as the church now officially approves contraceptives for prevention of medical conditions eg endometriosis, the question is why should the same not hold for prevention of HIV? the CC up to this point are using the mistruth that condoms don't prevent semen infected by the disease from spreading and vice versa- a belief which has no medical/scientific evidence and this official line stops any further discussion.

and condoms have EVERYTHING to do with the catholic church... if you lived in a country more obviously affected by HIV your opinion on that would be very different, believe me.

Binks: ''as the church now officially approves contraceptives for prevention of medical conditions eg endometriosis, the question is why should the same not hold for prevention of HIV?''

The obvious answer is that HIV can also be prevented by abstinence, which is what the church promotes over condom usage.

Whichever country I lived in I still do not think it is the job of the church to advertise or condone condoms! Other charities and secular organisations yes, but not the Catholic church.