The Feast of Fools

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool [shall be] servant to the wise of heart." -- Proverbs 11:29

It is reported that Governor Keating has resigned from the panel of laymen appointed by the bishops' conference to oversee how they are handling the crisis of clerical sexual abuse:

"To obfuscate, to explain away; that is the model of a criminal organisation... My remarks, which some bishops found offensive, were deadly accurate. I make no apology..."

Roger Cardinal Mahony, Archbishop of Los Angeles, called Keating's remarks "irresponsible and uninformed." Uh-huh.

Meanwhile, not to be outdone, Pheonix Bishop Thomas O'Brien, "...who recently admitted he let priests accused of sexual abuse work with children was arrested Monday on charges he fled the scene of a weekend accident in which a pedestrian was struck and killed."

There was a time when bishops would cover the actions of their priests in order to save themselves. More recently, they have been throwing the errant priests to the wolves to save themselves.

And now? Having thrown all the excess from the lifeboats, they are still sinking. Did anyone think to simply plug the damn hole?

To do that, you have to admit you're wrong. That's hard to do when you're always being told you're right. To live in a little world of artificial construct, surrounded by minions who tell you only what you want to hear, is a trap that has plagued leaders of the Church at one time or another. Up until now, some of them have exercised a form of damage control, adapting to the situation, in order to keep up appearances. This is nothing new, as we learn from an old English folk song about "The Vicar of Bray":

And this is law that I'll maintain
Until my dying day, Sir.
That whatsoever king may reign
Still I'll be the Vicar of Bray, Sir!

At a weblog entitled The Inn at the End of the World, in an entry dated June 11, new words have been given to the old tune. All together now...

In great Pope Pius' golden days before the revolution
I swung my censer every week, I gave swift absolution
My music was Gregorian, on Holy Day and High Day
I knew my rubrics inside out, I ate no meat on Friday.

And this is law, I will maintain, until my dying day, Sir
That whatsoever Pope may reign, I still shall lead the way, Sir.

When Good Pope John assumed the throne and called his famous Council
As wise peritus I did serve, but kept the middle ground, Sir
Old principles I would uphold but change their application
And thus acquire a much-desired but fleeting reputation.

And this is law, etc.

I took the lone heroic course that all the world was taking
For medieval night was done, enlightened dawn was breaking
Denunciations old and stale, I said we should withdraw 'em
Of Rousseau, Marx and those who fill the Syllabus Errorum.

And this is law, etc.

In Paul the Sixth's betroubled reign, an age of contradiction
The all-renewing Council was a cause of constant friction
All its decrees were pastoral, it made no definition
But he who dared to question it was fated to perdition.

And this is law, etc.

And now that all in chaos lies, and churches are forsaken
My curate is to Cuba gone, and I a wife have taken.
I deck my flat with disused tat, by way of quaint memento
And trust the coming pontiff won't reverse aggiornamento!

And this is law, etc.

And so it goes.

What to do then? The only reform of the Church that has ever worked has been from within. That is to say, within one's own heart. It sounds very trite and sentimental, but there is two millenia of evidence to support this. If every bishop were replaced tomorrow, they would be products of the same culture that produced the current batch.

Try telling that to the folks who run the local chapter of Voice of the Faithful. For the past week, their discussion list has been yammering about the people who supposedly resigned from the advisory board set up by Arlington's Bishop Loverde, on the grounds of non-disclosure. Then today, somebody in the group stumbled on this gem from The Ever-Infallible (still, after problems of their own at the top) New York Times:

"An article on Friday about conflicting pressures on Roman Catholic bishops over publicizing accusations of sexual abuse misidentified a diocese where a bishop reportedly disregarded a review board's recommendation to remove an accused abuser from the ministry. The diocese, in Virginia, was Richmond, not Arlington; the bishop was Walter F. Sullivan, not Paul S. Loverde."

Oops.