Apologies : Agendas

Suffer the little children to come unto Me

Attempts to right wrongs can be exorbitantly costly. In terms of dignity, of self-perception, of value to the observing community, of hard cash payment in lieu of turning back the clock and undoing that which has been wrought. The Catholic Church, once the fount of all that was blessed in man's higher spiritual aspirations in the minds of its passionate adherents has fallen from grace. Not onto the billowy white softness of a cloud once thought suitable as the home of holy communion, but with a thump, onto the nail-stippled bed of reality.

Oregon Jesuits have agreed to what is considered to be a huge cash settlement to settle sex abuse claims in Alaska. A settlement whose sum total of $50-million for 110 victims appears to satisfy victims rights advocates and their lawyerly support teams, no doubt rubbing their hands in glee. "It seems that Alaska was a dumping ground for predators", according to the president of the Chicago-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. So who can blame them for humbling the Church for its human-rights violations, then denying, denying.

Which is to say high-ranking prelates themselves sighing in exasperation at the only too-human soul-destroying behaviours of their priests and yet outraged at their obvious lack of focus of duty to their flock; succumbing to their base urges and violating the trust of children. In response to which when faced with the reality of a priest whose pederasty made him a threat to the reputation of the church - never mind the futures of the preyed-upon children - it became an urgency to re-assign them.

Not de-frocking these slayers of child-innocence, but sending them off to other parishes where it would most certainly be known their predatory activities would continue. And, it would seem, the further away these miserably conscienceless men of God were sent, the greater the sigh of relief in the offices and administration of the clergy. Where better than frozen Alaska where it might be thought the frigid atmosphere might cool the wicked ardour of these failures?

Where better, in fact, than parishes where the majority of the faithful would be indigenous populations? Hesitant to speak out for themselves, fearful of the wrath of the Church should they despoil the reputation of a ranking cleric, prepared to submit to the corruption of their trustingly vulnerable young. Yet another insult to be borne by the victims of white superiority and churchly virtue. For in their isolated villages, shut off from outside contact for months on end, what could they do other than to helplessly submit, these trusting children, one after another....

"In some villages, it is difficult to find an adult who was not sexually violated by men who used religion and power to rape, shame and then silence hundreds of Alaska native children. Despite all this, no Catholic religious leader has yet to admit that problem priests were dumped in Alaska", grieved one of the victims' lawyers. "No amount of money can ever bring back a childhood, a soul or a community," he offered.

While money will change hands in the settlement, there is no requirement that Jesuits admit to having performed any harmful acts against their congregants. How is that for meaningful contrition, an admission of wrong-doing? Indeed, the provincial superior of the Oregon Jesuits informed the Los Angeles Times that his group felt "disappointed" at the substance of the disclosures revealed by the victims' lawyers "which we see as premature and detrimental to the province".

Earlier a whopping settlement of $660-million was paid out by the Los Angeles archdiocese to offset the claims of 508 plaintiffs. Followed by the diocese of San Diego which settled lawsuits with 144 victims of abuse for $198-million. The Boston archdiocese may have originally set the standard for abuse and scandals. It's truly beyond comprehension that the Church would take to its bosom men whose predatory pathology overtook their humanity.

But wait, there are confessions of wrong-doing and regret expressed by church elite; one such from the mouth of Marc Cardinal Ouellet, Archbishop of Quebec City. He asks forgiveness for the sins of the church committed in the province of Quebec. Commenting that "errors were committed" by Catholics, by church officials - ah, there's the rub - prior to 1960. The current representatives of the Catholic Church conveniently excluded.

It was their unfortunate predecessors who so badly handled sex scandals and shaped attitudes favouring "anti-Semitism, racism, indifference toward First Nations and discrimination against women and homosexuals". Present company is of a different, far finer stock. And in them should we trust. His is no voice of denial, for he outright makes claim to the sordid past of sexual offences: "youngsters were subject to sexual aggression by priests".

Delicately put, nicely done. Yet what's this? the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops and the association of Quebec Bishops cannot find it in themselves to support and stand behind Cardinal Ouellet. He speaks, they gravely intone, "only for himself", for bishops are free to say what they wish to in their own diocese. He stands alone in his noble admission of failure which unfortunately for these dissenters sweeps them grandly along in the matter of responsibility and silence when they should be heard in support.

That's a long time, from the 1960s to the present. We are obviously to take comfort in the unspoken, that in the interim the Church and its spiritual representatives have been exemplary soldiers of the Holy Spirit. Inspired, he was, said Cardinal Ouellet, by Pope John Paul II's apology for wrongs committed by the Church in the last thousand years. Now there's a sweeping admission and repentance.

The Cardinal looks to the future, away from the past. Exhorting lapsed Catholics to return to the fold. The Church is not now what it was then. For behold, has not the Vatican opened his arms to scientific research recently unveiled that promises not to insult the life-giving monopoly of God, by using ordinary human cells for reproduction purposes and not the forbidden stem cells?

Can the ordination of women and gays be far behind?