Thursday I posted on this blog. The title might have been  a bit misleading; it might be taken to suggest that I had been a victim of abuse. I have not. When I joined the church I was 39 years old. It was to happen in the spring of 1993 - new people usually receive the rites of initiation during the Easter vigil service - but in September of '92 I was advised by my doctor that I needed open-heart surgery and soon. Needless to say, that sped up the process considerably, although it wasn't as much as a hurry-up as it could have been. I had been attending the seminary of another denomination. I already could handle some biblical passage in Hebrew and in Greek; I already knew where Luther differed from Calvin who differed from Barth; I knew where Augustine and Aquinas differed. So during the afternoon of the last Saturday in September of 1992 I was baptized (I'd been baptized in another denomination, but the Catholic Church does not recognize that baptism), confirmed, received the anointing of the sick ("Viaticum"), and first Eucharist. There wasn't much else I could have done as far as receiving Sacraments; I was already married, which eliminated both getting married and receiving Holy Orders. I guess I could have gone quickly and sinned greatly so I could receive Reconciliation, but. . .no.

By the time I was received into the Church I was about six feet tall and about 250 pounds - about the size of an NFL linebacker. Not a tempting target even had the priests been so inclined. And they were not. Fr. Ressler - AKA Rocket Ressler; he got through Masses quicklike and in a hurry - and Fr. Osterhaus both understood celibacy for what it is. It's a gift of God to the Church, and an offering from the priests back to God. The two priests at the Church of the Nativity in Dubuque understood the vows and were faithful to them.

As are most priests.

In my previous blog I mentioned the primary and most obvious victims of the scandals - the kids. I forgot another big group of victims - the priests. The priests who must endure being painted with the same broad brush as the criminals.

The percentage of priests that engaged in abuse is a hard number to pin down, but a lot of the best estimates settle near the 4% figure. It indicates a problem, to be sure, and it's far higher than the percentage among the general populace. This may speak to inadequate screening of candidates. For those 4%, treatment should be the same as it is for anyone convicted of such a crime. In my opinion, the punishment for one convicted of child sexual abuse should be life. No parole. First offense. That's a subject for another posting. That should be the punishment for a priest, for a teacher, for anyone. Pedophiles don't age out of it, and they don't get better.

That broad-brush treatment means that we can't apologize enough to the other 96%, who know the vows they took and remained true to those vows. So, to priests, I apologize for leaving you off my last blog. You are victims of the animals as much as is anyone else.

Thanks for being around!

sex abuse, the church, and me

And the cardinals are in Rome, and God is in Her heaven, and the Vatican is - uh - suggesting that the American cardinals quit talking to the press. Such a chatty bunch, they are. Except. . .except. . .when there was somebody who really needed for them to say something.

There must be a special place in hell for those who didn't use their voices to give a voice to the powerless victimized kids who had no voice.

I am Catholic. I will stay Catholic. Even though I am no cradle Catholic, it has seeped into my bones. My faith is part of me, right to my toes. The prayer, the worship, the Eucharist, it's as much a part of me as is my liver. My faith heroes are almost all Catholic - Merton, St. Benedict of Nursia, Bernardin, Pope John XXIII, Nouwen, Berrigan, Congar, Rahner. There are non-Catholics among them - Tutu, King - but my heroes are predominantly Catholic.

And there is my wife, who is a faith hero to me in more ways than I can count.

You can imagine, then, my dismay - disgust - pure anger - at the sex abuse scandals that have occurred. I am horrified on so many levels. It has come back in view with the pending selection of a new Pope, and I hope it means that the next Pope will be one who stands open, honest and strong against the abuse. I long ago gave up on the idea that there is one true church, or the idea that one had a monopoly of truth. Most institutions have some truth. All organizations have some sin. Human nature is human nature, and is sinful. But, we can do better than this.

I am mortified at what happened to the youngsters, and I would tell every one of them, if I could, how sorry I am that this happened to them. If you list all the people around whom kids should be completely safe - doctors? police officers? teachers? priests? - there have been those among each of those groups who have abused that trust, and the kids who invested that trust in them. I am profoundly saddened and sorry that this happens.

I am disgusted by the fact that those, both among the conservatives and among the liberals, have used this to ride their hobby horses. The conservative hobby horse: "Get those gays out of the priesthood!" The position reflects a misunderstanding of pedophilia. Pedophilia, like rape, is a crime of power, not sex. If you were to draw up a prototypical pedophile, the person is more often straight than gay.

Besides, if one of your vows is celibacy, what could it possibly matter if you are a straight celibate or a gay celibate? The Catholic Church does not hold that homesexual orientation is a sin.

I am equally angered by those on the left who ride their hobby horse: "Let the priests marry!" Again, this is a misunderstanding of pedophilia. The profile of the pedophile would not necessarily be single. They have usually been married, although the marriages are often troubled. These people don't do well at handling relationships where the power balance is about equal. If a pedophile gets married, the result isn't a non-pedophile. It's a married pedophile.

And talking about a special place in hell - bishops, even archbishops and cardinals who knew that a priest had abused kids, and helped to cover it up by playing musical parishes? If a lawyer or paralegal reads this, can you help me with a definition of "accessory after the fact"? Bernard Law of Boston escaped only by virtue of the statute of limitations.

I am Catholic. I am under no illusions about the perfection of my church. I do, however, love that, when Catholicism is at its best, it brings forth the glorious and wonderful and beautiful like no other organization can. When we are at our best, we proclaim the beauty and glory of life, at both ends and every step in the middle. When we are at our best, we provide health care and education in many parts of the world where no one else is providing it. When we are at our best, we are Mother Theresa, holding the hands of the dying among the poorest and most outcast. When we are at our best we are the voice for the voiceless immigrants, love for the unloved, peace in war, tranquillity in chaos.

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love. . .

Thanks for being you, and allowing me to be me. Love you!

Stuff from tonight

So, last night the weather forecast called for 6-10" of snow. We had a church meeting - one I'd thought of as being important - scheduled for tonight, but with all that snow? I was thinking of postponing the meeting last night, but I waited until this morning to make the decision. This morning the National Weather Service was staying with that forecast - oh, yeah, 20 mph winds gusting to 35 - so the decision was made. We postponed. I rescheduled a medical appointment.

Then reality intervened - the reality that forecasting winter weather in the Midwest is devilishly hard. All it takes is a very small change in the atmospheric conditions, and by this evening one would wonder why we messed around with our scghedule. It's the Midwest! Don't like the weather? Wait a minute.

We went to a movie - Life of Pi. Good flick. I found the visuals to be stunning, and a lot of them were things I'd seen. In the Navy I was a destroyer sailor. The movie showed a scene in which a school of dolphins was leaping on the surface. I've seen that. There were scenes in which you see stars at night, then realize that we're not looking up into the sky, but down into the water. The points of light are reflections of the stars. I've seen that. You haven't experienced darkness unless you've been on a ship in the ocean, in darken ship conditions under a new moon. Yes, the stars do give off light.

I've heard that people can be divided into mountain people and ocean people. As much as I love mountains, I'm an ocean person.

The spiritual theme is clear and unmistakeable. Pi as a youngster grows up as a Hindu, then goes through a Christian phase and a Muslim phase. Noah had his arc, and after the shipwreck Pi has his little assortment of animals on his boat. (Hyenas do not play well with others, but trust me: if you have a Bengal tiger on board, you don't have a hyena problem.) The Israelites had Moses and forty years in the wilderness. Pi's wilderness is the ocean. They had manna, and God intervened when hope seemed lost. Pi had an island that they landed at.

Great movie. It gave the adults food for thought, and our 11-year-old granddaughter was able to follow it, and wants to see it again (I'm sure she would have missed the religious allusions.)

Thanks for hanging out. Love that we're sharing parts of the journey.

We are. Until we're not.

Tomorrow we were to have our Core Group meeting. It was to be one of our more important meetings. We took a parish survey on the weekend, and tomorrow we were to discuss the survey results, and take some direction for our Core Group actions from that.

Alas, tomorrow we have in our forecast about 6" of snow, with a 20 mph wind gusting to 35. We want to meet, but we're not willing to put safety at risk to have it. We won't make the decision until tomorrow morning, but it's not looking good.

Sigh.

News stuff and book stuff and suchlike thingys

Once upon a very long time ago Moline had a newspaper (the Dispatch, aka the Dishrag), and Rock Island had a newspaper (the Argus. It had no clever nickname. It had no clever anything else, either) I remember a day in 1978 (yes, I'm old) when there was a headline. It looked like typical filler - small, back pages - and the story led with, "World War II was ended with the Japanese surrender on August 14, 1945."

For filler it was OK, I guess, but I did wonder why it was there. The date of the story wasn't August 14, so it wasn't an anniversary. The only thing I can think of is that the Argus thought that they had a hot news story - a scoop! I'm just sure that no one else even knows this!

I'm told that there was a photo yesterday in their Faith and Values section that shows that old habits die hard. The Dispatch and Argus are no longer separate papers. In yesterday's edition, March 2, there was a photo taken at the Dream For All prayer vigil. That prayer vigil happened on February 6. It was on the TV stations on February 6. It was in the Quad City Times on February 7. On March 2, the Dispatch/Argus gets around to noticing. Hmph.

And that got me to thinking about other reading. . .

When I was in fifth grade my teacher noticed that I'd developed a fondness for sea stories. So she let me borrow one of hers: Moby Dick. Hint for all: Moby Dick is not for fifth graders. I didn't get through it then - very intelligent adults get lost in Moby Dick. I did read it as an adult, and I had better comprehension. But as a fifth-grader? No chance at all. You could spend a lifetime on that novel and not plumb its depths.

BTW, that thing about the sea has carried into my adult life. I served in the Navy. I love the sea and respect its power. Joseph Conrad is one of my favorite writers.

Gulliver's Travels was a cartoon show for kids. Gulliver's Travels, the novel, is not kids' material. Trust me.

And Don Quixote. I don't know how many references I've seen to Quixote tilting at windmills, and when I see it, I know that the writer didn't get far into the novel, and had no comprehension of what Cervantes was  driving at. The bit about the windmills is very early in the book, and of very short duration. Don Quixote is a book about books, and about Spanish society in Cervantes' time.

'Nuff. Thanks for hanging out with me!

Late. Tired.

Trivia night tonight was great. We raised some funds, and a good time was had by all.

And now I'm tired, it's late, and I still have a junior high class to prep for. 'Niters!

For Catholics: No we're not. For others: No we're not

We have now survived our first day of being unPoped. DePoped? Fear not; soon enough we'll be rePoped.

The day after the Pope announced his pending retirement the front page headline in the Quad City Times read, "Catholics Face Uncertainty."

O, come on now. Seriously?

We've been around for almost 2,000 years. Been there, done that. A Pope retires? Four times. The last two were voluntary, although Celestine's fate wasn't pretty. Things have changed over the last 600 years.

At any rate, the strength of the Roman Catholic Church does not lie in Rome. It never has. It does not reside in the bishops or in the College of Cardinals or in the Curia.

It lies in the Parishes. It lies in my Sunday School class. If I live another 25 years, my parish, St. Mary's, will be in the care of that class. I will be in the care of that class. It will be in great, trustworthy, faithful, strong hands. And it will be stronger than ever. The reason the Catholic Church has survived and thrived for two millenia isn't because of some old guy in Rome who has a yarmulke and red shoes. It's because of generation after generation of kids and their forming their relation with Jesus. Jeans and t-shirts and Chucks and the Holy Spirit. The Church is a bottom-up institution, or it is nothing at all. That's true of any church. Don't waste time talking about what great guys are at the top of the pyramid. Tell me about the congregations.

The strength of the church is local. It's in Africa, where the growth has been explosive. One parish recorded 102 baptisms in one week, and the Church in Africa has more vocations to the priesthood than they know what to do with. It's in southeast Asia and, most of all, it's in Mexico, Central America, South America. . .the largest Catholic nation in the world is Brazil.

May the Cardinal electors be blessed with wisdom and the Spirit. May the next Pope govern with wisdom, the Spirit, and a strong pastoral sense.

But we know where the true might of the Roman Catholic Church is. It meets at 10 AM on Sundays, in an upstairs room in a house right across Fillmore Street from St. Mary's.

Thanks for hanging out!