Faith Works 4-10

Faith Works 4-10-10

Jeff Gill

 

Clericalism and Its Discontents

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Respect for the clergy is one of those categories of "how things used to be" that I suppose I could have written about, along with other changes in the life of faith communities in general and Christian denominations in particular, Protestant or Catholic alike. (I leave Orthodoxy out only because they're fairly under-represented in Licking County, although I know they're out there, usually driving into Columbus for worship.)

 

This past Easter season saw a firestorm of clergy sexual abuse coverage, most of it stemming back to stories coming out of the 1960s and 70s, within the Catholic churches of the US, Ireland, and Germany. Questions of proper handling then and cover-ups or pay-offs later all gave much fodder to the usual media shots taken at the Roman Catholic Church, using eminently telegenic shots of Vatican liturgy with Pope Benedict XVI front and center.

 

That's called having your cake and eating it, too.

 

If you think I'm downplaying the problem of clergy sexual abuse, you've not been reading my columns for very long.  It's a huge issue, and one that I believe deserves cultural and media attention.  Thank heavens that, since Martin Luther reaffirmed the right of clergy to marry back in the 1500s, Protestant Christians have had no sexual scandals among their ministers.

 

Oh, wait.

 

My point is that there's a gleeful piling-on aspect to all this pre-Easter froth, where some, especially in TV news, have been dealing from the bottom of the deck in their treatment of the Catholic tradition. They want to show they're addressing religion, since the research on their dwindling audiences shows that many of us located somewhere in between their New York and LA studios actually attend worship services and read old books for current guidance. So they want the visuals, but they also want to get in snide references to hypocrisy and tell untold stories hinting at mystery and hidden secrets. Think "DaVinci Code."

 

The reality is that these stories are very simple, and not unique to the Catholic faith. Powerful people in charge of organizations tend to not like to turn in their own employees, and back in the 60s, 70s, and even the 80s, a "therapeutic model" was in the ascendancy that said "let's not traumatize the kids further, and let's send the abusers to a remote residential treatment program."

 

Which turns out to be a fairly muddleheaded way to proceed, but it wasn't a Catholic piece of muddleheadedness.

 

But where's the story in saying that? And folks who disagree with a male only clergy, or dislike clerical celibacy, will have their own reasons for pushing these stories a bit farther than they really can roll on their own.

 

Meanwhile, if you're thinking I'm saying any of this as a Catholic myself: not so much, nor is anyone in my immediate family. I grew up with more extended family members scared of Catholicism than understood it (another element to the coverage I'm not even going to get into).

 

Just as a general point -- I said to my fellow mainline Protestant clergy colleagues back 20 years ago "don't enjoy laughing about Swaggart & Bakker too much, because they are impacting us and our churches, too." Oh, no, they all cried, those fellows aren't like us at all, and our parishoners and communities know we aren't them.

 

That next year, with no national financial issues roiling the waters, the United Methodist Church saw a 3+% decrease in giving; many UMC, PCUSA, UCC, & DoC churches in our area saw the same or more, up to around 5%.

 

I fear that while I tend to hang out with a more mixed mainline and evangelical crowd these days, they are, too many of them, repeating this mistake: I say "beware your amusement with the plight of the Catholic hierarchy flailing to explain their incompetence and irresponsibility in reporting child sex abuse." Oh, no, they respond, no one would confuse us with the Pope in Rome and all his pomps . . . and the current generation hears and feels even more affirmation for their lack of respect or consideration of any authority, temporal or spiritual, that is relevant to their lives from the leadership of wiser, more senior figures.

 

When we Protestant Christians get in our own digs on the Vatican and the Roman magisterium ("wrong in 1517, still wrong today!" a clergy acquaintance nearby chortled in his blog), we may be digging a pit that we'll shortly find ourselves inside.

 

I don't like the view.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he will never be Pope. Tell him a story from your road to faith at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.