All the Vatican's men

The article below appears this week in the regional papers of Independent Newspapers.

Has any organisation or institution ever been so much in the media limelight as has the Catholic Church of late? It’s doubtful. By this stage most columnist worldwide have had their say. It is also the perfect organisation about which someone can have a good rant. And strange as it may seem it continues to grab the headlines.

Almost on a daily basis we hear of new revelations. You would imagine we would all be punch drunk at this stage. And then the Vatican issues Norme de gravioribus delictis. In English it means Norms concerning grave crimes. The document lists norms governing how to deal with clerical child sex abuse. And in this same document it refers to the crimes of ordaining women priests and of a Catholic priest taking part in the Eucharist with ministers of ecclesial communities, which do not have apostolic succession nor recognise the sacramental dignity of priestly ordination.

A Vatican official, Monsignor Charles Scicluna, explained that the illicit ordination of women is a sacramental crime, whereas child abuse is a moral crime.

The sacraments have to do with theology. Child abuse has to do with immoral and illegal behaviour. How could any person or organisation talk about sacramental wrong-doing and sexual abuse in the same document? The institutional, hierarchical church has just done so. One thing is for sure, the Vatican doesn’t do spin.

But there is a delicately woven thread linking these issues. Something to do with the fact that the world is made up of women and men but that within the institutional hierarchical church, women are excluded.

This is not at all a rant or a bashing of Mother Church but it is a call for an open, honest and real debate about how the institutional hierarchical church thinks about and relates to women.

Are there any theologians or bishops out there who are simply embarrassed by so much of the shenanigans that come from the Vatican? If so, it would be great if they had the wisdom and courage to express their opinions in a genuine and prophetic fashion.
When I was a novice we were given two reasons for celibacy. We were told it had an eschatological sign and that it gave the priest more time to work with and for his people. Both arguments simply don’t stand up. I have seldom if ever found any priest anywhere who was as holy and heaven-focused, and as hard working as my late mother and father.

But it is not simply the celibacy issue. The institutional hierarchical church seems to have an ‘out-of-world’ vision or attitude towards women and so much of that has to do with sexuality. There are those who will argue that the institutional hierarchical church is at its core misogynistic.

I keep using the expression ‘institutional hierarchical church’ because it is essential to distinguish between the church – the people of God – and the career priests who work in the Vatican.

Over generations, centuries, millennia, the church leadership has been in the incredibly fortuitous, and powerful position to choose what men it calls to Rome to sit in positions of power and influence. Its gene pool encompasses all five continents. It has developed its system over a long period of time. Many aspects of Vatican governance are the envy of the world. It is generally accepted that the Vatican has the best secret service agency in the world. Its library and archives are the envy of the world. It does things well. It has the brightest and the best and it has always known that. And then added to that aura it has that ingredient called God. It actually has inscribed in its vocabulary the word ‘infallible’. So is it possible for the men in the Vatican to sit up and listen to views and opinions that express any sort of criticism?

People outside the walls of the Vatican consider it impossible to come to any understanding about what is at the roots of child sexual abuse without the help and insight of women. Of course, child sexual abuse is a society-wide problem.

The men inside the Vatican genuinely believe they know best and that they have that remarkable and infallible word of God to support and help them in their deliberations. Is there any other way whatsoever to try to begin to explain the mindset of the authors of Norme de gravioribus delictis?