As a brief counterpoint to what I just posted re: today's New York Times editorial decrying the Vatican's attempt to link clerical abuse of minors to women's ordination in its recent guidelines about penalties for pedophile priests, I'd like to note an outstanding article of Fr. James Martin at Huffington Post recently. This piece had previously appeared at America magazine's "In All Things" blog.
I'm mentioning it here not merely because of its powerful argument that the suppression of respectful, open dialogue in the Catholic church is exceedingly harmful to the church as it negotiates the crises of this moment in history. I also mention this article to underscore a point I've been making on this blog, as more and more secular news coverage of the current Catholic crisis appears in print, on television, and on websites.
I've noted previously (e.g., here) that, in my view, the opening of discussion about intraecclesial Catholic issues in the secular media, is on the whole, good for the church itself. And I continue to want to stress that point as I read articles like Fr. Martin's at sites like Huffington Post.
The cat is out of the bag, and nobody is going to put it back in. No matter how loudly apologists for the ecclesial status quo keep screaming that the secular media need to keep their hands off Catholic discussions, and that the media are anti-Catholic, news coverage and open discussion of Catholic matters at secular websites is not going to stop.
No matter how many right-wing watchdogs for orthodoxy follow people like Jim Martin around and scribble notes about his purported lapses in presenting Catholic truth as he lectures and writes, the ineluctable movement towards increasingly frank, open, public discussion of Catholic issues is not going to stop. The world at large has a vested interest in understanding these issues because a problem like the sexual abuse of minors is not only a church matter: it's a concern of society as a whole.
The kinds of discussions we're now seeing on secular websites are all to the good. They help the church. And it's a shame that they haven't occurred in the church itself for some time now, due to the climate of fear Fr. Martin's article addresses.
Maybe the opening to discussion in the secular media will shame our pastoral officials into creating similar openings in the church itself. Maybe.
