The Musical Priest

In general, I rather like Maureen Dowd 's columns in the New York Times. This morning, however, I was saddened to see Maureen column making the same sort of leap I decried in my previous post. Maureen's brother writes: Vatican II liberalized rules but left the most outdated one: celibacy. That vow was put in place originally because the church did not want heirs making claims on money and land. But it ended up shrinking the priest pool and producing the wrong kind of candidates — drawing men confused about their sexuality who put our children in harm’s way. There is the common, if not wholly accurate, belief that clerical celibacy was instituted solely in order to preserve the economic status of the Church. Maureen, by quoting her brotherappears to buy into this this. This is not to say that nepotism was not one area that reformers intended to address with the institution of clerical celibacy. Nevertheless, I don't believe that it is the entirety of the story. John O...

I read this morning an article entitled " Helpless in the Vatican: The Failed Papacy of Benedict XVI " published in Der Spiegel , the German weekly magazine. As I wrote on Holy Saturday, I have been terribly discouraged by the waves of sex abuse that continue to buffet the Catholic Church. I'm disappointed in the actions of bishops and the culture of secrecy that allowed horrendous abuse of the innocent to take place. I grieve that the Church has lost the trust of many and is now looked at with scorn and suspicion. I am angry at many bishops who, in my estimation, have too often been spectacular failures, preferring the role of "institutional administrator" rather than commission to follow Christ as shepherds of souls, stewards of grace, and heralds of faith. Yet, my frustration with the failures of the hierarchy of the institutional Church is only compounded by my frustration with the facile and sloppy reporting of the media. The authors of the Der Spiegel pie...

Over the last few weeks, the drama of sex-abuse has played itself out on a national stage. The New York Times has carried a series of articles raising trenchant questions concerning, "Who knew what and when was it known?" concerning abuse allegations that date back decades. I am in no position to offer commentary on these. Were I to try to defend or contextualize the actions of the bishops and the Holy Father, I would be accused of being a "party-man" and failing to recognize the grief of the abused. Were I to join the chorus of voices calling for the Pope to resign or those decrying the entirety of the Catholic Church, I would be accused by others of being a traitor. So on this Holy Saturday, I find myself silenced. It's profoundly difficult to speak to the complexity of the issue of sexual abuse...sort of like trying to speak to a person following the death of the beloved: you want to say something, you want to offer a word, but deep down you know it's be...