Should the Catholic Church disband itself?

Religion wasn't one of the topics I intended to write about when I started this blog. Not just because it's classically a subject to avoid but partly because, having been steadfastly in the agnostic category for the most part since I was a teenager, whenever I thought much about the topic I decided it was in the "too difficult" tray, along with its related question "why are we all here?"

But Stephen Hawking's obituaries made me ponder Why are we here? (22 March) and  a review of John Gray's book Seven Types of Atheism made me posit Why We Can't Know Why We Are Here (28 April). I then read Yuval Noah Harari's fabulous book Sapiens, which I highly recommend, on holiday. It is thought provoking on many levels but he happens to provide a useful (and neutral) idiot's guide to religion as a concept and also to many of the main religions. Subsequently a friend has recommended another super and thought provoking book called The Language of God by Francis Collins. It is subtitled "A scientist presents evidence for belief". And not just any old scientist - Collins lead the team that deciphered the human genome. And another friend has provided me with a short but fundamental pamphlet What was God doing before Creation? which begs the answer "God only knows" but actually delves into the scientific realm from the theological perspective.

I'm still slowly trying to digest the jumble of ideas and hypotheses - c'mon, cut me some slack, there's been football, cricket and golf to contend with, as well as loads of work on the house and garden, let alone Brexit!

I will return to these more fundamental concepts one day but today I am addressing an entity which is related to religion and for some is the embodiment of it - an interesting phrase as I mean the Roman Catholic Church, with it's belief in transubstantiation. I nearly added "weird" before belief there, but that might reveal my prejudices and, I accept, could be offensive to Catholics even if they understand why non-Catholics might think that.

Indeed, I have considered more than once deleting the draft of this post as it may easily upset or offend some of my readers. However, as my friends know, I am nothing if not opinionated, so here goes. Warning: this will be a lengthy rant.

The Catholic Church has had a lot of bad press lately, though it perhaps has deserved far more than it has got in recent years as the mind blowing global extent of the child abuse scandal has become ever more apparent. I first meant to write about this earlier this year having picked up the local free paper from my original manor and reading its lead story about a Catholic priest charged with possessing indecent images of children*. Father Thomas Wood of Our Lady's and St Gregory the Great churches in Lydiate was caught in a US investigation into paedophiles using videoconferencing facilities and the British authorities were tipped off. Although Wood had the prescience to throw away his iPad (how did he know - friends "upstairs?") police found three temporary internet files on his hard drive which proved he had viewed child abuse videos including joining 50 people looking at a girl aged 8 to 10 years being raped by a man. Egregiously sordid but not too surprising, I suppose. What did surprise me was that the judge, saying that Wood had written "one of the most powerful statements of mitigation the court has ever considered" did not hand down the expected short jail sentence but a three year community order**. (Er, didn't he just work in the community anyway??) But even more surprising was the fact that Wood was also Judicial Vicar of Liverpool, handling all legal duties for the RC church in the diocese, ranging from marriage to new saints. It is no surprise that such people were able to hide in plain sight in the RC church when they occupied such roles. And one begins to understand how come so few of them were ever dealt with properly when their behaviour came to notice, generally being shuffled off to another parish to prey on a different flock.

This particular case isn't one of the worst, as there was no evidence of direct harm being committed. But it was very local to an area I know well. And just a microcosm of the global problem for the Catholic church. As Bryan Appleyard summarised:***

Abusive clerics are a worldwide phenomenon. Earlier this month we heard from an inquiry that Britain's two grandest Catholic schools - Ampleforth in North Yorkshire and Downside in Somerset - had harboured abusers. Chile, Argentina, France, Australia and many other countries have been affected. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court last week released the report of a grand jury that concluded after a two-year investigation that the church had covered up the abuse of at least 1,000 children by more than 300 priests in the state. "Priests were raping little boys and girls, and the men of God who were responsible for them not only did nothing; they hid it all. For decades" the report said, "monsignors, auxiliary bishops, bishops, archbishops, cardinals have mostly been protected; many, including some named in this report, have been promoted."

As Appleyard said, one child abused is a scandal, 1,000 is a crime against humanity. But wait a minute: that was 1000 in Pennsylvania alone by some 300 priests over a 70 year period. So given that problems have surfaced worldwide, across the decades, simple extrapolation suggests the figure must be many, many times more.

Despite the scale of this, Appleyard also noted that the RC church seemed to be weathering the storm worldwide, though not in that hitherto most Catholic of countries, Ireland, where the scandal seems to have materially shifted an already slowly changing atmosphere. The scales have fallen from the eyes of the Irish and, as a nation, they now see the Catholic Church in a very different light. When the Pope celebrated mass at Dublin's Phoenix Park a few weeks ago the throng was expected to be 60 % lower than for the last papal visit in 1979. In the event it was lower still as 100,000 didn't turn up, although it was plooting doon (but it's Ireland, so they're used to that).

Appleyard visited Ireland before the Pope and reported his taxi driver saying that, of his five uncles, three were abused by the Catholic Brothers, a Catholic teaching community. "The church has lost it's stranglehold, it's been tamed" said the taxi driver. Another journalist was quoted as saying that the Church leaders regarded clerical offenders as the real victims, not the children. The priests were seen as suffering from an "illness". In the 1970s and 80s the offenders were sent away for therapy and returned to parishes, supposedly "cured", where they committed more abuse.

Appleyard noted that the betrayal and staggering hypocrisy had proved toxic for the RC Church in Ireland. Where once almost the entire population attended Mass, it's now down to 30% - still high by international standards but falling and with ageing congregations. Appleyard met a group of thirty-somethings who just shrugged when the church came up. They may go to weddings and funerals. but that's it. He pointed out to them that they had turned into Anglicans!

The Pope has, of course, apologised. In Ireland towards the end of August he said "The Failure of ecclesiastical authorities - bishops, religious superiors, priests and others - adequately to address these repugnant crimes has rightly given raise to outrage and remains a source of pain and shame for the Catholic community. I myself share these sentiments". But what, Holy Father, are you going to DO to adequately address these crimes?

The apology didn't just come across to me as mealy-mouthed and insufficient. Colm O'Gorman is director of Amnesty International Ireland. O'Gorman's childhood was destroyed by a priest who raped him for more than two years. He saw it as an exercise in diversion and blame-shifting. "The Pope spoke about the pain and shame of the Catholic community. Is he actually suggesting that ordinary Catholics should feel shame for the cover-up of abuse by the institution? I lived with shame for decades because of what happened to me. I'm not interested in the Pope's shame and distress. What I want is for him to tell the truth and take responsibility for the cover-up. How is the Vatican going to hold anyone to account for a cover-up it won't even acknowledge or take responsibility for?" ****

In just about any other area of activity the Pope, as CEO of his organisation, would quit. And the organisation would be so tainted it probably could not survive in its present form. If it was a company it would go out of business or be taken over. If it was a public body it would be restructured under entirely new management or disbanded.

To be fair to the Irish Tsaioseach (and I'm usually not), Leo Varadkar said "There can only be zero tolerance for those who abuse innocent children or who facilitate that abuse. We must now ensure that from words flow actions".****

In case I'm being unfair to His Holiness I checked reports of the Pope Francis's response to the Grand Jury report which was given in an open letter to the world's 1.2 billion Catholics. It's widely covered but the report I read was in the Independent***** which makes it clear that the Pennsylvania cases occurred mainly before 2002 when US Catholic bishops adopted strict guidelines towards sexual abuse reports including immediately contacting the police and removing accused clergy. The Pope's letter refers to "implementing zero tolerance and ways of making all those who perpetrate or cover up these crimes accountable". (Er, just make them accountable here on Earth chum, let's not wait for the Last Judgement eh?) "We have delayed in applying these actions and sanctions that are so necessary, yet I am confident that they will help to guarantee a greater culture of care in the present and the future". This sounds pretty weak and very unspecific to me for someone who is supposed to believe he is infallible. (I realise that is in matters of doctrine, but think on Frank and try a bit better to get it right on this stuff as well, won't you?)

What fascinates me about all this is that, as sniggering schoolboys, we just knew, or thought we did, that this stuff went on. That didn't just include Catholic priests, with their vows of celibacy, but also private boys' schools, where we were convinced many pupils risked having a sore backside from a variety of actions. And, by Jove, the received stereotype had a huge element of truth in it!

I am glad to see that, in our country, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) has the Roman Catholic Church on its list of investigations, as indeed is the Anglican Church - which has had its own abuse cases - though in the latter case at the request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. It would certainly seem more sensible to be looking there than at the hapless BBC, employer of the egregious Jimmy Savile, though there was also a degree of turning a blind eye there.

To be clear, I am not intending to be anti-religion or anti-Christian here. I am attacking an institution that claims to represent the Almighty on Earth and, on its track record, I am simply unconvinced that the Roman Catholic church deserves to survive in its current form. The actions it has taken seem minimal and insufficient to me. This ain't a confessional where you can say a few Hail Marys and all sins are forgiven: by God maybe but not by society. Trust cannot be regained until the RC church shows it means business on the behaviour of its clerics: for example by investigating back through records and taking evidence over a reasonable time frame, then actually turning over to the police those priests the church hierarchy suspect have abused children rather than waiting for complaints to be laid and booting out others who covered things up. It's just not good enough to pretend that these are isolated cases involving individual mavericks and that its all in the past. There are too many cases, they have been routinely covered up and it looks blatantly institutionalised. All of the Catholic Church's active bishops in Chile offered their resignations when called to Rome earlier this year. Why just Chile?

If the RC church and other churches will not reform themselves they must be compelled to change. They must be made to answer to the authorities in the here and now. The government would take a dim view of almost any other type of institution which was so malevolently dysfunctional.

I had felt that the IICSA was a waste of time and money. But it might actually have a worthwhile job to do in making recommendations about what sanction to take against organisations that just will not conduct themselves properly when it comes to protecting vulnerable people over whom they have power and influence. Taking sanctions against an established religious institution would be controversial and, in the UK, would have echoes of the dissolution of the monastries. Well so be it. Brought it on yourselves.

What would Jesus have thought, I wonder? Oh, forgot, he was into forgiveness. As you can see, I'm not, for me it has to be won. Suffer little children to come unto me. But not, for God's sake, unaccompanied to the local priest.....


* Aintree and Maghull Champion 28 February 2018
** Liverpool Echo 21 March 2018
***  This devout Ireland is dying, Sunday Times 19 August 2018
**** Apathy and anger greet Pope. Sunday Times 26 August 2018
***** Pope addresses Catholic Church sexual abuse report in open letter, The Independent 20 Aug 2018