There were 32 worshipers at noontime Mass in a side chapel of the soaring Cathedral of SS. Michael and Gudula, which dates from the 11th century. A third of the faithful were African; there were two nuns and a police officer.
The priest, a stocky man with brushy white hair, murmured about a “time of difficulty” and spoke of Jesus and of the Pharisees, who kept the letter of God’s law without understanding his love. “The Pharisee doesn’t recognize the border between the pure and the impure,” the priest said.
His sermon before a thin crowd seemed an obvious demonstration of the anguish of the Roman Catholic Church in Belgium, staggered by a sexual-abuse scandal that has already affected 475 victims. There have been 19 suicide attempts, 13 of them successful, by Belgians abused by clergy members.
The Catholic Church in Belgium is undergoing a severe chastisement of the Lord for the crimes perpetuated against children in its care. This is to be expected and should be welcomed by the faithful. Just as legal remedies should also be.
But it also gives people a chance to ponder the ever growing cry by the usual suspects to liberate the sexuality of children (not my term but the way the argument for more sexual freedom for children is presented).
I believe we are at a crossroads now. I believe very strongly we as society will soon be presented with arguments in favor of tolerating so called consensual sex acts between adults and younger adolescents.
The crisis of sexual abuse in the Church shows us that such consent is not truly possible and that the damage done to the victims stays with them for many, many years.
So this is an opportunity for all Christians but especially Catholics to argue again and again for the right use of our sexuality. This crisis shows how dire the consequences are when we forget that God has sanctioned sex within the marriage bond only.
“I believe very strongly we as society will soon be presented with arguments in favor of tolerating so called consensual sex acts between adults and younger adolescents.” This is already happening. Witness NAMBLA.