The Anchoress Looks At the Pope's Remarks Penance and the Sex Abuse Crisis

The Anchoress has a excellent post on Pope Benedict's off the cuff remarks yesterday on the Sex abuse crisis. See her post here at Benedict, Off-the-Cuff – UPDATED

I left this comment in response to one person


“I understand penance for something bad we do. Are we all to do penance for something bad someone else (priests, bishops) did?”

Bill I would say in a way you are touching on a matter that the Laity does not want to deal with.
As the saying goes when a finger is pointed people should be reminded that there are 4 pointed back. That in some respects goes for the Laity here.

The Church does not operate in a vacuum. It wrestles with the world and it gets itself at times dirty with it.

There is a good bit of judging past actions by by a awful lot of 20/20 hindsight. “Scandal” was treated quite differently (often wrongly) by society as a whole back in this age. From families to other organizations.

We all have heard of course of the medical advice people were being given as to these folks.
Finally why did we see the new abuse cases start to fall around 84. What does that indicate. Does it indicate in society as a whole there was something wrong in the air that affected even the Church.

There are plenty of stories of how now respected politicos in France and elsewhere wanted to lower the age of consent to like 13!!

These Priests came from society. Good Priests are not dropped down from Heaven. They are made often before they get to seminary through the influence of family and the community. The same is for “bad” Priests in some degree though pedophilia is truly truly something dark with the disturbing sideline that many victims become the new abusers.

America Magazine on their blog actually had a good piece relating to this as to the mob mentality we are seeing. I think they hit right on the head and indeed I think this was Benedict is getting at in some ways . The post was “Abuse coverage reveals scapegoat mechanism"

I think in many ways it hit it right on the nail

“The scapegoat mechanism comes into play when tensions — often buried and unconscious — accumulate, when those involved must ‘let off steam’ or the social fabric will burst. The energy of indignation and anger is fuelled, over this issue, by the fact that sexual abuse of minors is extremely common in families — 70 per cent of victims have suffered at the hands of a relative — yet almost never talked about, let alone dealt with. The Church has become a surrogate victim, unconsciously identified as the cause of the tension which society feels but cannot identify.”

I think that is right on. People see that even the Church has becomes soiled with this. They know there is a wider problem . I think that is what Benedict is getting at.