"The moral collapse of our time cannot be fought unless the fog of banality is lifted, unless evil is called evil, felt as evil, and fought as evil."

In the past day, three different but interrelated pieces have crossed my screen, providing a depressing but needed glimpse into some of the challenges and difficulties that remain with the sex-abuse scandals. First, from Phil Lawler, a leading Catholic voice on the topic:

Look at the latest official figures on the cost of the sex-abuse scandal, and what do you see?

For every dollar spent last year on therapy for the victims of priestly abuse, American dioceses have spent $5.29 on lawyers’ fees. For every dollar spent on therapy for the victims, another $1.54 was devoted to support for their priests (or, in many cases, ex-priests) who molested them.

It wouldn’t be fair to say that the Church spent more money on the victimizers than the victims, because there is also that massive $70.4 million figure representing the settlements won by victims. Yet to keep things in perspective, even that huge expense was only a bit more than twice what dioceses paid the lawyers. And when you consider that the plaintiffs’ lawyers took their fees out of the settlement awards, it seems likely that in the final analysis, the total sum that went into lawyers’ accounts probably rivaled the amount that actually found its way to the abuse victims.

So, to recap, the lawyers pocketed roughly as much as the victims, and the cost of therapy for victims was less than the cost of care for predators. Something is seriously wrong here.

Lawsuits against the Church have become commonplace. We no longer blink at a cost of $124 million in one year to pay the costs of perversion in the clergy and malfeasance in the hierarchy. We expect it, God help us. The Church is still staggering through an ongoing crisis; the “long Lent” is not yet over.

Delve a little deeper into today’s report.

Read the entire piece on CatholicCulture.org. Lawler notes, "The sex-abuse crisis erupted in the US because American bishops shirked their responsibility to discipline priests." And speaking of bishops, Robert Moynihan, editor of Inside the Vatican magazine, takes a long look in his most recent e-letter at the disgusting situation of former Bishop of Bruges Roger Vangheluwe. But it is his remarks prior that are worth reading a few times over:

Reflections on Our Crisis

The present crisis of our Church is not something that can be exorcised merely with a wish and a prayer. There must be sacrifice, and discipline, and actual change of behavior.

There must be a thorough cleansing, a purification, as so many have lost their way, and in their disorientation, no longer even realize -- as the archbishop in Belgium confesses -- what they are doing, why they are doing it, or even that it is wrong.

And this cleansing must include sacrifice, beyond wishes and prayers.

Our tragedy is that evil has become banal.

(The phrase "banality of evil" was coined by  the Jewish writer Hannah Arendt and incorporated in the title of her 1963 work Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. It is the idea that the great evils in history generally, and during the persecution of the Jews during the Second World War in particular, were not executed by fanatics or sociopaths, but rather by ordinary people who accepted the premises of their state and therefore participated with the view that their actions were normal. Explaining this phenomenon, Edward S. Herman has emphasized the importance of "normalizing the unthinkable." According to him, "doing terrible things in an organized and systematic way rests on 'normalization.' This is the process whereby ugly, degrading, murderous, and unspeakable acts become routine and are accepted as 'the way things are done.'")

The moral collapse of our time cannot be fought unless the fog of banality is lifted, unless evil is called evil, felt as evil, and fought as evil.

Our age has fallen into this trap: we no longer sense that we are in the grip of evil. We have grown numb.

In one of his books, Walker Percy, the American Catholic novelist who died about 20 years ago, uses an epigram he attributes to Dante. Certain human beings, he says, no longer have a sense of the gravity of sin, and this is a terrible condition, he says. "So low they had fallen that they no longer believed themselves creatures worthy even of being damned."

In other words, the very worst condition of all is to forget one's true nature.

A powerful reflection, especially relevant at the end of The Great Fast. Finally, as Holy Week approaches, Dave Pierre presents this news:

As Christians observe Holy Week and the anticipation of Easter, PBS' Frontline program will air another investigation into abuse by clergy of the Catholic Church. In an episode entitled, "The Silence," the program (Tue. 4/19/11) is scheduled to profile the awful abuse from decades ago of under-aged Native Americans and Eskimos in Alaska.

The network claims that it is covering "a little-known chapter of the Catholic Church sex abuse story." Yet the narrative is hardly "little known." The New York Times, for example, has run a number of articles in the past few years about this topic, while the Los Angeles Times ran a humungous front-page piece about these cases a while back. (We even commented on it at the time.)

One cannot help but conclude that PBS is piling on this narrative as a means to hammer the Catholic Church. To wit, Frontline already aired a lengthy episode on the Catholic abuse narrative not that long ago ("Hand of God," Jan. 2007). If this upcoming episode is anything like the last one, viewers can expect to hear stomach-turning stories of abuse while being shown visuals of Church items and other holy images. (This is a not-so-subtle attempt to connect the thoughts of criminal child abuse with the Catholic Church.)

It is also possible that notorious attorney John Manly, who represented many of the alleged victims, will make an appearance on the upcoming show. Viewers should be warned (if he does indeed appear) that Manly’s relationships with truth and facts are not always reliable, to say the least. 

Read the entire report on TheMediaReport.com site. Finally, a Psalm on the need for the forgiveness of sins:

Psalm 32: A Psalm of David. A Maskil.

Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the man to whom the LORD imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
When I declared not my sin, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long.
For day and night thy hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
I acknowledged my sin to thee, and I did not hide my iniquity; I said, "I will confess my transgressions to the LORD"; then thou didst forgive the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let every one who is godly offer prayer to thee; at a time of distress, in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him.
Thou art a hiding place for me, thou preservest me from trouble; thou dost encompass me with deliverance.
I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, else it will not keep with you. 
Many are the pangs of the wicked; but steadfast love surrounds him who trusts in the LORD.
Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!

Comments

[Bill Russell]

THERE WERE NO PROPHETS IN THE LAND IN THOSE DAYS

In 2004, as President of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Wilton Gregory said, "This terrible history recorded here today is history." oops

In 2010, upon his election as President of the same USCCB, Archbishop Timothy Dolan said, "It’s not like — thanks be to God — we’re in crisis. Things are going well.” - oops

Nothing to see here, folks. Please disperse.

[Carl E. Olson]

Bill: Fair enough. But a few months later Abp. Dolan, on March 20, 2011, on "60 Minutes":

Calling the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal "hideous" and "nauseating," New York's Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan says the scandal "needs to haunt" the church for some time to come. ...

Asked if he feared the impact of the scandal would go on forever, Dolan replies, "In some ways, I don't want it to be over, because...this was such a crisis in the Catholic Church that in a way, we don't want to get over it too easily," he tells Safer. "This needs to haunt us."

[Sharon]

Once again I will recommend the book put out by the Linacre Institute, within the Catholic Medical Association, "After Asceticism: Sex, Prayer and Deviant Priests".

This book didn't garner much publicity because it isn't full of any juicy bits of scandal but an objective analysis of the statistics. The authors of this book assert that the sexual abuse scandals were brought about by the collapse of traditional ascetical disciplines withing the Church. You can read the introduction to the book at the following website:
http://www.catholicculture.org/news/features/index.cfm?recnum=50434

[David K. Monroe]

Thanks for the recommend, Sharon. I think this is the point that most people are missing, some perhaps intentionally - sexual abuse scandals among the clergy are not the failure of the practice of ascetical discipline but rather failures in the practice of ascetical discipline. It is not a situation substantially different from sexual abuse in public schools, or private schools, or the workplace, or anywhere else. It is people abusing positions of authority and power in order to gratify sexual desires that they ought to but fail to keep in check. But it is only in regard to Catholic priests that people make the absurd claim that the abandoning of the boundaries and disciplines native to the office is the solution to the problem.

[Alex]

Carl, once again I have to take issue with your central premise, as in when you say, "The moral collapse of our time cannot be fought unless the fog of banality is lifted, unless evil is called evil, felt as evil, and fought as evil.

Our age has fallen into this trap: we no longer sense that we are in the grip of evil. We have grown numb."

I, and MANY other non-Catholics like me, do not for one second think that there is no real evil in the world. We just differ on its source. I find it unthinkably evil that anyone would seek to deny women birth control and sex education. I find it an unspeakable evil that anyone would tell a pair of consenting adults that they will be forbidden to marry. I find it beyond mere evil that ANYONE, once they KNOW of the abuse of a minor child, would do ANYTHING OTHER than turn that abuser over to the police along with all evidence of their wrongdoing.

I believe in evil. I fear it. I fight it where I see it. I think we just see it in different places.

[Dan Deeny]

Alex,
Very interesting. Why do you "find it unthinkably evil"? Very few doubt the sincerity of your convictions, but some of us are interested in how you support your sincerity. For example, did you learn these convictions in church, in school, at home, etc.?

[Alex]

Dan, strangely enough I simply used the brain God was kind enough to provide me with. I read and read widely, with a particular emphasis on historical and scientific books and articles. You should try it some time. There's all sorts of neat stuff to learn.