From National Catholic Reporter's latest editorial, entitled "A Hierarchy Deeply Damaged from Within":
Are we witnessing the ecclesial equivalent of one of those slow-motion depictions of implosion, the kind where a seemingly invulnerable structure falls in upon itself, laid waste by some well-placed explosives? Perhaps.
It would be a mistake, however, to think that what is imploding is the church. The church is, in many ways, just fine. What is imploding, rather, is a culture of clericalism, especially the hierarchical layer of that culture, which has become so disconnected in many of its expressions from the core mandates of Christian scripture that it seems to barely function at all.
The authority that has been slowly leaking from the structure for decades is now gushing out as bishops contort themselves in attempts to convince the world of their good intentions and transparency while simultaneously railing against those within the church and without who are working to reveal the truth.
So disconnected from the core mandates of scripture that it seems hardly to function: and yet there are many Catholics who believe themselves to be good, faithful servants of the church, who join the hierarchy in railing against calls for transparency and for the truth about the behavior of our pastoral leaders. I encounter some of these Catholics daily at the Open Tabernacle site, where they inform me that I have an agenda (they don't), that I am interested only in bashing the papacy and bishops and have nothing constructive to say, and that the pope and bishops have handled the abuse crisis well and set the church on the path of healing.
How can we move forward when many of our own church members do not see the disconnect between pastoral practice and scripture mandate, at the highest levels, that many other church members see so clearly? And that the public as a whole is coming to see with equal clarity?
And how can anyone who wants the church to be an effective sacramental sign of God's salvific love at this point in history possibly resist the conclusion of this NCR editorial:
What seems clear at this moment is that the hierarchy as it has evolved in the past half millennium is deeply damaged from within. And there is little evidence of the imagination, the creativity, the spirit, necessary to repair or rethink the structure.
I repeat the point I've been making all week, both here and at Open Tabernacle: if we love the church, we'll welcome the truth about the church's need for far more faithful pastoral leadership than it has at present. Defending the system we have now, with its overweening unwise, biblically unwarranted investment in clericalism, is tantamount to wanting the church to fail in its fundamental mission in the 21st century.
