We saw a TV commercial this morning for the new film ‘Spotlight’, which deals with the ’Boston Globe’s exposure of clerical child abuse in Boston. It is apparently very good , and considered Oscar material. We mention this for two reasons.
A local parish in Mass asked a fortnight ago for prayers for a recently dead past curate. He was a convicted child abuser , the abuse partly during his time at that parish. . We don’t think anyone would deny him prayers , having been warned about casting stones. Moreover, he was an absolutely brilliant preacher , whose bon mots still survive. A local broadsheet pointed out, however, that he was sent to this church having offended previously in a junior seminary. We don’t how many readers of the broadsheet were present at the Mass, but no one seemed to object to an obvious omission. The death announcement was as brief as it could be. Rightly, although bizarrely, the Archdiocese has offered its apologies to his ‘victims’ . At no point has it ever offered an apology to the parishioners , to our knowledge. The slogan of the film is ’They knew- and they let it happen’.
To have made sure the family went to Mass, then find out that the celebrant has been a paedophile all the time, then face them, is humiliating. Were such humiliation to be contained within the family circle it would be bad enough.
But the West of Scotland is a peculiar place, its spiritual life inextricably entwined with land appropriation in Ulster in the seventeenth century and Irish republicanism. These elements help, along with cheap Irish labour in Scotland two centuries ago, and the fun element of participating, to create an uncommon kind of anti-Catholic sectarianism certainly not found in the Honduras or Korea. To go to work , and to do so daily among non-Catholics , and to hear comments like ’So that’s another one, then?’ and undergo such small humiliations as yet another priest- or cardinal- is revealed as a sexual adventurer is something which priests or bishops can hardly imagine. But we are sure it happens. We doubt if the kind of fierce and extravagant loyalty which the occasional Papal appearance in Glasgow has produced is entirely due to a community expression of ‘We don’t care so there’, but surely it plays a part.
How about an occasional apology to the entire Catholic community in Scotland ?
The second point is that in 2016 everybody now knows about the deficiencies in the priesthood. ‘Spotlight’ will put a nice cherry on the cake, but the appearance of a Catholic priest on any of the immensely popular US tv crime series seen all over the world is almost always yet another paedophile event. Everybody knows , even the Papal Delegate, we imagine. ‘Sorry’ is one of the most meaningless words in the language, especially in Britain. It should be said in this circumstance above, however. Why not say it ? Everybody knows !
We quote the Rev Michael Kelly SJ : ‘clericalism, that culture of self-interest which promotes and sustain the presumption of superiority among clergy and their practice of protective secrecy. It is something that priests share with all would-be elites such as professional associations in law and medicine, bureaucrats and the military .’
Have they really learned nothing?