Mary van Balen

I was able to crawl into bed with a grateful heart much earlier than expected. The vote count did not extend into today, or as some feared, even weeks ahead. Romney delivered a gracious concession speech, Obama a rousing acceptance speech. I know rough months loom ahead. Some Republicans are already placing all the demand for concessions on economy at the President's feet. Doesn't bode well for compromise or an end to gridlock. Still, Obama is in for four more years, and that in itself is encouraging to me.

I am also relieved the the Roman Catholic Church's dangerously political posturing did not prevail as more than 50% of the Catholic vote was cast for Obama. I had followed what appears to me to be obvious crossing the acceptable rhetorical line by RC church officials. Cardinal Dolan allowing some of his priests to run obviously partisan rants in their bulletins; Bishop Jenky listing many of Obama's stands and implying that Catholics who voted for such a candidate did so at the peril of their eternal soul; Fortnight for Freedom running from June 21 through July 4, are just some of the most blatant examples of good reasons to remove tax exempt status from some of those churches. That likely will not happen, but the question has been raised already by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Read More 

As much as I would prefer to leave Sister Simone Campbell's joyful presence standing at the top of my blog posts for a few days, this story demands comment. On Thursday, Sept. 6, 2012, Bishop Robert Finn of the diocese of Kansas City-Saint Joseph, was found guilty of a misdemeanor count of failing to reportsuspected child abuse. Unlike most recent cases (see my blogpost on Msgr. Lynn's trial or the NYT's article on his conviction.) this offense occurred in 2011, ten years after the American Catholic Bishops made reporting such abuse part of their recommended policies. (I say "recommended" because in the end, the bishops answer only to the authority of the Pope.)

While this event marks the first time a bishop has been found guilty and sentenced in a civil court, something that gives me hope for future moves to accountability, the slight sentence of probation is a disappointment. Not that I take pleasure in seeing someone sent to prison, but the damage done to at least one boy and likely other children at the hands of a priest protected by his superior, is not reflected in the punishment given to Bishop Finn. It reflects a lack of understanding, putting the case in the best possible light, of children and the lifelong effects of such abuse. Bishop Finn should resign, and if he doesn't, he should be removed.  Read More 

PHOTO:MARY VAN BALEN - Saint John's Arboretum
At last. A bishop admitted that he did not report sexual abuse of children by priests and did not challenge the accepted Church practice of keeping such horrendous behavior within the institutional “walls.” Bishop James Moriarty of Kildare is not the first to resign over the abuse scandal in Ireland, but his candor and acceptance of personal culpability are refreshing, if late. He is a truthteller.

The Vatican can continue to berate the media for attacking the Pope and trying to bring down the Church, but pressure from the secular press is forcing the issue and compelling the Vatican to begin to deal with the issue.

Pope Benedict can continue to share his deep pain, praying and weeping with survivors and promising “church action,” but that is not all that is needed. We, the faithful, need more bishops to publicly acknowledge their complicity in the crimes and by implication, a longstanding accepted Church policy of cover-up and shifting offending priests around unsuspecting parishes.
We need the Vatican to admit to this institutional sin.  Read More 

PHOTO: MARY VAN BALEN
PAUL PHILIBERT

Last night I attended a lecture by Fr. Paul Philibert, OP, who spoke about Yves Congar’s vision for reform in the Catholic Church. Congar was a French Dominican priest who had enormous influence on the work of renewal both before and during the Second Vatican Council and was especially interested in both ecumenism and the place of the laity in the Church.

Fr. Philibert elaborated on Congar’s four conditions for reform without schism: primacy of charity and pastoral concern, remain in communion with the whole, patience, and return to the principles of Tradition. These points would be helpful guides for change in government or any societal institutions, I thought, and even though Paul’s comments on them captured my attention, the idea that played in my head on the drive home was one that came up again during the Q&A session.

While talking about the need for reformers to remain part of the whole rather than to break away and form a sect or a new entity, Paul identified two elements of the whole that should be constantly interacting: the center and the periphery. The job of the center is to maintain continuity. The job of the periphery is to interact with those it touches and to respond in new ways. The center is by nature conservative and cautious, the periphery innovative and pioneering.

Prophets are on the periphery. They speak the truth, as they know it. They act upon it. They often get in trouble, especially when the center is not functioning in a healthy way. That is nothing new. You can read all about it in the Old Testament, or in today’s newspaper. In the Catholic Church prophets have been met with variety of reactions including house arrest and exile to refusal to allow the “offenders” to publish or teach. The fear of change and desire to maintain power and the status quo can delay acceptance of truth and renewal for hundreds of years. The Civil Rights Era of the 1960’s is a good example of an unhealthy center refusing to admit to and address racism in our country.

In a conversation with a woman in the audience, Paul said that often today the periphery worries too much about the center, trying to convince it of the rightness of their words, trying to make those unwilling to embrace change understand the need for it. The periphery can spend too much time looking inward instead of engaging with the world and challenging issues. The periphery can be just as unhealthy as the center.

“The periphery must move outward, like the expanding galaxy,” Paul said.

Driving home, I wondered those words and thought about those of us on the periphery of the Church, of government institutions, of industry, of social policy. Are we spending too much time looking toward the center instead of looking outward? Are we willing to risk being prophets and truth-tellers?

“Prophets are not patient reformers,” Fr. Philibert said to the chuckling audience.

Patient reformers must be those who fill in the spaces between Prophets on the edge and those in the center. Patient reformers, like Congar, will wait out the exiles and continue to write and think with faith that the center will, in time, understand and accept.

Does the Church have too many “patient reformers?” Does it need more prophets? Does the world?
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