A balanced view of the Roman Catholic paedophilia scandal

Yesterday I asked some questions about how does one differentiate between a conspiracy and simple paranoia thinking? How does one accept criticism from those outside of your political or philosophical or religious circle? Well, I have an excellent example of how to do so in an article written by Peggy Noonan, a former speechwriter for President Ronald Reagan. Ms. Noonan regularly writes as a conservative Roman Catholic in support of both political and religious conservatism. She is somewhat within the circle of people that are so quickly declaring conspiracy. But read some of the quotes below for a flavor of how she is handling it. This is a stunningly fine example of how one handles criticism from outside one’s circle. In the interests of self-disclosure, let me say that I agree with most of her entire article on this topic, though I have some very serious questions about some evasions and abstentions in her article, please do go read the full article by following the link.

The Catholic Church’s Catastrophe

The press and the pope deserve credit for confronting scandal. . .

[in a Church]. . . where hundreds of priests and bishops thought they could do anything, any amount of damage to the church, and it would be fine. . . .

It is damage that will last at least a generation. It is an actual catastrophe, a rolling catastrophe that became public first in the United States, now in Europe. It has lowered the standing, reputation and authority of the church. This will have implications down the road.

In both the U.S. and Europe, the scandal was dug up and made famous by the press. This has aroused resentment among church leaders, who this week accused journalists of spreading “gossip,” of going into “attack mode” and showing “bias.”

But this is not true, or to the degree it is true, it is irrelevant [Emphasis mine]. All sorts of people have all sorts of motives, but the fact is that the press—the journalistic establishment in the U.S. and Europe—has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on this issue. Let me repeat that: The press has been the best friend of the Catholic Church on the scandals because it exposed the story and made the church face it. The press forced the church to admit, confront and attempt to redress what had happened. The press forced them to confess. The press forced the church to change the old regime and begin to come to terms with the abusers. The church shouldn’t be saying j’accuse but thank you. . . .

Some blame the scandals on Pope Benedict XVI. But Joseph Ratzinger is the man who, weeks before his accession to the papacy five years ago, spoke blisteringly on Good Friday of the “filth” in the church. . . The most reliable commentary on Pope Benedict’s role in the scandals came from John Allen of the National Catholic Reporter, who argues that once Benedict came to fully understand the scope of the crisis, in 2003, he made the church’s first real progress toward coming to grips with it.

As for his predecessor, John Paul the Great, about whom I wrote an admiring book which recounts some of the scandals—I spent a grim 2003 going through the depositions of Massachusetts clergy—one fact seems to me pre-eminent. For Pope John Paul II, the scandals would have been unimaginable—literally not imaginable. . . Because priests don’t act like that, it’s not imaginable. And he’d seen it before, only now it wasn’t Nazism or communism attempting to kill the church with lies, but modernity and its soulless media.

Only they weren’t lies. . . .

There is more to the article that you should read. But, can you see the balance in Ms. Noonan’s approach to the scandal? She looks at both the good and bad points of the press and the Roman Catholic Church and brings both of them up. You will see that more clearly if you would read the full article. But, look also at her approach, because this is the most important part.

She handles the news with quiet logic. There really is a major problem that is not just the invention of outside forces. The Church really did not handle the problem in the way they ought to have handled it. The press was doing their job in an excellent manner because it is their job to expose this type of scandal. Even if there were some bias, “it is irrelevant.” Bias or not, the press brought out a real evil that had been really covered up and had really not been dealt with and was really still going on until the scandals began to expose the cover-up. This is a point that those who accuse the media of bias quietly avoid. Remember that the Irish pædophilia cover-up continued until 2004 despite the American experience from years earlier. Had it not been for the news media, we would still live in a world in which the way of handling pædophilic priests would be to continue transferring them around. Those who charge bias have yet to propose a mechanism that would have done the job as efficiently as the exposure by the press. One cannot blame the messenger for the avalanche of lawsuits and legal problems. That is the consequence of the sin, not of the reporting.

Having looked at the data, she begins to sort through to bring some balance to the accusations. On the one hand, she is unremitting in her clear condemnation of the sin itself, and of the cover-ups that followed the sin. We dare be no less unremitting in our condemnation of both the sin and the cover-up. On the other hand, she cautiously points out that the extent of the poison in the Church did not become clear in Roman circles until 2003, at which point then-Cardinal Ratzinger began to take steps to deal with it. There is little doubt that after 2003, Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) clearly began to act strongly in the area of discipline. I suspect that there will never be full clarity on the then-Cardinal’s actions in Germany, and it is those failures to act that are most damning against Pope Benedict XVI. This is the only point at which I have some serious problems with Ms. Noonan. She has soft-pedaled (or not even mentioned) those actions a bit much for my taste.

But, she also points out that Pope John Paul II grew up in a world in which that type of abuse by a priest was unthinkable. Sadly, this provided the opening for Satan to work. The soft untried and earthly powerful Church of the First World was a far cry from the persecuted and spiritually powerful Church of Eastern Europe. And, it was a common trick for both the Nazis and the Communists to lie and spread false rumors about the Church. It was easy for Pope John Paul II to transfer his profound distrust of communist “news” to “modernity and its soulless media.” Unfortunately, that is not exactly how Western media works. Sadly, far too many Roman Catholics and Religious Right Christians have adopted this view of today’s world and have ended up as incapable of accurately evaluating news reports and opinion articles as Pope John Paul II was. Ms. Noonan presents a far better engagement with the media than have the previous and current Popes.

So, here in this article, one has a good recipe for how to be a conservative Christian, but be open to receiving and evaluating criticism from outside one’s circle. Notice that her approach even leaves room to disagree with her without fearing that one would be labeled a non-believer. Her cool and rational approach is one of the best ways to cool a story down and show that one has heard, is evaluating, and is ready to take appropriate action. Ms. Noonan ought to be commended for her approach.