Here’s the thing, though. I don’t want to know anything about it. I don’t read about it. I don’t scour the grand-jury reports or prurient excerpts. I simply can’t. Because of this, I don’t have a whole lot of information by which to feel that a public cri de couer is a prudent idea.
The question in my mind, though, is what are my responsibilities here? As a writer who has the ability to publish widely, as a priest with a pulpit, do people deserve an accounting of the decades of the dirt and the darkness? After which I shall make a distinction between the failures of the human beings in the Church and the immaculate, spotless Church herself? And I will solemnly explain this after I tell them what really happened in the confines of this selfsame institution, that the blessed Mother has been played for a harlot? I will tell them this and expect that they will nod their heads in understanding and return the next day as sheep to a shepherd?
The Catholic blogosphere is an artificial bubble of high-information folk. The average parishioner knows very little about it. Or do they know more than I think? If they know nothing, is it best to let the evil whimper away while we do the greater work of preaching the virtues, exploring the beauty of written and visual arts, and attending to matters that are more local and more under our control? Sometimes the evil is best left alone, or at least left to courtrooms and referred to whatever community of laborers it is whose job is to craft extraordinarily heavy millstones. In other words, the problem may best be left to the world of law and justice to be dealt with quietly and, hopefully, effectively. To those who are ignorant, perhaps it is better than way. After all, innocence and uncomplicated faith are not to be taken away from another person lightly.
My fear is that just enough information has filtered through for us all to be cynical and angry. None is quite innocent enough because too many people have already spoken up and even people who don’t pay much attention are aware that something rotten is surfacing. Maybe that’s not a bad thing that they’re aware and we should be grateful for those who alert us to the fact that there is, indeed, a massive [elephant in the room] that is sucking the air out of the living Body of Christ.
The point is, I’m confused. Should I write about this? Should we write about this? I don’t know what can be added at this point, or if this is the material of great art or introspective musing about beauty and culture. I have lots of other stuff to say on much more interesting, positive topics. But maybe this simply needs to be dealt with.
I really have nothing to say, though, and that’s the problem. I can say I love the Church. That I gave up everything to enter her mantle and I will cling to her until my fingers melt into dust. That perhaps we might want to rethink the post-Vatican II compromises we’ve all been quietly living with concerning marriage, contraception, etc…wherein we don’t change the teachings themselves but go on to steadfastly ignore them. Perhaps the [elephant] has stomped the Mass into a shambles because that’s part of [the elephant’s] modus operandi because it is ugly and it likes ugly things. Is that helpful for me to say?
Is all of this compelling subject matter for our fiction, our non-fiction, our social commentary, would I want to read a poem about this? Is it even something that ought to come up in everyday conversation? I have a lot of other things I want to talk about, I don’t want to waste my breath on this.
But here we are. What should we do?
I think you have a more valuable perspective to contribute than most. You’re more likely to suffer consequences from the fallout and, being of the same profession, so to speak, of the accused, you may know some enlightening details the rest of us wouldn’t think of. There’s some art that could help us process this; it was better that “Spotlight” was made than that it wasn’t. I think if the Spirit doesn’t lead one naturally to write about something, it’s only a self-imposed penance to seriously try to do so.
You know, last Sunday I went to Mass and looked around the crowded church wondering if other people were as angry as I am. Then I thought, What if everyone else here is thinking the same thing?
But I didn’t stand up and start shouting. I didn’t even stick around for donuts and ask random people what they were thinking. I drove off to get lunch because, let’s face it, that’s our routine. Church has become a bit routine. I don’t jump out of bed every day and knock my forehead on the floor in adoration; I don’t randomly burst into tears because I’m so happy to be alive and so grateful to God for making me. I’m tired and grumpy a lot because my one year old wakes me up at 4 in the morning, but otherwise my material needs are met and life is pretty enjoyable. I can’t remember the last time I interacted with a bishop… they are not relevant to my everyday life.
Ultimately I know that there is more to Christianity than this. I know that I could be better. I believe that this crisis is also an opportunity for ordinary Catholics to wake up and get involved instead of drifting along passively. If we aren’t angry, it’s because we are not involved. I wouldn’t call it “innocence.” It is ignorance. If people don’t know about the abuse and corruption, they are living under a rock.
As a married priest, perhaps you could give a different perspective on the celibacy requirement. I’m not one of those people who pops up and yells “end celibacy!” every time clerical sex abuse is mentioned, but I think everyone of every political and philosophical party needs to search their souls and ask uncomfortable questions. Every piece of this puzzle needs to be examined. Maybe if celibacy were optional we would have a larger pool of men to choose from, and a chance to bust up cliques that have formed. I always hated the anti-celibacy argument because so many people imply that sexual frustration can magically turn men into pedophiles. But maybe there are actually good arguments for making married priests optional that I hadn’t considered.
Aside from the celibacy question, I definitely think that lay people need to have more control over the bishops. When we call for more “accountability,” what can that possibly mean except making them accountable to people outside the hierarchy?
So yes, to answer your question, we must talk about this, write about this, and unite about this. I am not going to let go of this. Not again. Two more of my friends have announced leaving the Church recently… I remember going to school with them when they were super conservative and fervent. I knew too many innocent young Catholics then. There were powerful people who wanted to use their innocence against them. So I am down on innocence and docility now.
Father, I was just thinking the same about us lay people. Do we keep talking about it or just pray unceasingly along with other silent holy gestures? I’m leaning towards the latter, but I believe there is something we all should do. We should be calling for Catholics to come back to the Church, to put on the armor of God, to fight this evil with all our strength, to support our Mother Church like never before, and to work dilengently to learn and practice our Faith daily, if not minute by minute. Our Church is US and we need to defend her and its Holy clergy. Now is the time to step up, Catholics, not step away!
Dear Michael,
I did write about this. Years ago. The short story “Lavabo” is buried somewhere in Dappled Things’ archives. Bernardo Aparicio accepted it with some trepidation, published it, then buried it, I guess.
I remember showing it to two priests: one was angry, accused me of maligning the priesthood; the other declared that every priest should read it.
The question you ask “Should We Write About This?” needs asking. There has been and will be a lot of non-fiction written about this–until we get tired of reading it, and thereby tired of our own anger (which does have a fatigue-limit, you know), and that soul-weariness sets in that makes our lives more bitter and less meaningful, more hopeless and less joyful. And faith becomes a relic of the past.
Try reading Lavabo, somewhere in DT’s archives. Truth doesn’t live in non-fiction you know, where facts and opinions are such noisy neighbors; but in fiction.
Dena, I found Lavabo. It’s in the Lent/ Easter 2010 issue of DT, but unfortunately it is not available online. I personally don’t have back issues that old, since it predates my involvement with DT.
Bernardo says he may put it up online, Karen.
It’s about what the priesthood is (as opposed to what the priest is).
With all the contemporary passion for connecting everything into an amorphous mass, it’s still good to be able to distinguish one thing from another.
Dena, Dena, what’s this about burying it? I thought it was a great story, and if you recall my “trepidation” had much more to do with the image you were using in a first draft about the hands, which the editors had agreed was too reminiscent of Lady Macbeth and therefore distracted in that sense. Most stories aren’t published online because we save most of our quarterly’s content for the print edition. In this case, however, it might be a good idea given what’s going on to put it up online for free. All that said, this talk about burying your work seems rather undeserved, especially given how much of it we have published over the years.
Well, dear Bernardo, deserved or not, it is buried.
Your comments about Macbeth were well received and the ms was altered accordingly. It was your trepidation about the “correct” liturgical meaning of hand-washing where we went a bit awry. We went a bit awry a few times, actually, before I stopped submitting years ago. But I still love you!
Lol, Dena, you have your metaphor backwards: DT gave your story life by publishing it. Unpublished stories are stillborn; hundreds of millions of us authors are parents of those unfortunates. Be grateful your little one had its day in the sun. And show some respect for the constructive dialogue that was starting to happen in the combox before you killed and buried the momentum with your ego.
I’m sorry you’re offended, Hunter. Bernardo and I are old friends. But in deference to your sensitivities, I withdraw.
Goodbye. Again.
I’ve actually had “Lavabo” surfacing in my mind the last few days, Dena. I remember it well and I think its power to anger is a sign of how good it is.
Thanks, Meredith.
I’ve just written a novella titled Jazz, set in New Orleans, and I want to include a collection of stories, scattered about here and there; some, like Lavabo, no longer available online or in print. I was undecided about Lavabo, but I think now it should be included.
the word is “coeur”
Actually you do have an obligation to write about this and even more, to address it from your pulpit. You were ordained last year to teach and pass on the Faith to your parishioners- man up and do it.
If you think that your parishioners don’t know- tell them! You have a responsibility to help restore transcendent beauty and destroy the filth that is suffocating us
Try not to lie under oath like Archbishop Carlson did about not knowing it was against the law for a priest to have sex with children- just remember he is the one from whom your priestly ordination was passed on with his laying on of hands at the Basilica last year
Agnes, you seem to assume that I haven’t talked about this with my parishioners. You would be wrong.
I’m afraid I can’t agree with you about our Archbishop. I thank God for bishops like him who are courageous and transparent.
I was addressing what you wrote in this column. I have no idea what you did in your Parish
Concerning our Archbishop- he testified under oath I. 2014 and his taped deposition is again making the social media rounds thanks to uncle ted and his fellow enablers at the USCCB. I just wish our archbishop would grow a spine
Good question. I’m in the same boat: a writer, but I don’t know what to write. And my heart is prostrate with grief and rage.
I know how you feel, Mariette. Some of us, well-meaning and gentle souls, have accommodated so very much for so very long, consoling ourselves in our confusion, reassuring ourselves so much, and now we find that we’ve let ourselves be led far away from all that our hearts truly believe in. Others of us, less social perhaps, not so directly or intimately involved with those who are struggling, have watched from a distance, powerless, confused and sad, helpless, having to accept criticism of ourselves as unloving, uncaring, doubting ourselves in our conviction.
Everything that’s happening seems so sudden, yet we know, have known for so long now, that this day was coming. Should we write? No, I feel I shouldn’t. It’s a time (for me) for silence.