Last week, however, the pope sounded a dramatically different note. He told reporters accompanying him on a pilgrimage to Portugal, “The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church.” He added, “The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice.”
His words have been matched by actions. The Vatican has taken control of the Legion of Christ, an ultraconservative Mexico-based order whose late founder exploited his Vatican connections to escape punishment for molesting seminarians. It also has issued guidelines that for the first time explicitly say that church officials should report instances of sexual abuse to the police. That policy has been in force in the American church for the last eight years.
The pope’s acknowledgment that the church has sinned more than it has been sinned against can’t exorcise its past failures, for which victims continue to seek justice ”” including a lawsuit filed in this country against the Vatican itself. But it is important nonetheless if it signals what in Catholic theology is called the “firm purpose of amendment” that must accompany a confession of sin.
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LA Times on the Roman Catholic Crisis–A penitent church
Last week, however, the pope sounded a dramatically different note. He told reporters accompanying him on a pilgrimage to Portugal, “The greatest persecution of the church doesn’t come from enemies on the outside but is born from the sins within the church.” He added, “The church needs to profoundly relearn penitence, accept purification, learn forgiveness but also justice.”
His words have been matched by actions. The Vatican has taken control of the Legion of Christ, an ultraconservative Mexico-based order whose late founder exploited his Vatican connections to escape punishment for molesting seminarians. It also has issued guidelines that for the first time explicitly say that church officials should report instances of sexual abuse to the police. That policy has been in force in the American church for the last eight years.
The pope’s acknowledgment that the church has sinned more than it has been sinned against can’t exorcise its past failures, for which victims continue to seek justice ”” including a lawsuit filed in this country against the Vatican itself. But it is important nonetheless if it signals what in Catholic theology is called the “firm purpose of amendment” that must accompany a confession of sin.
Read it all.