I was in Assisi last week when news of Archbishop Viganò’s dossier broke, swelling the tsunami of scandal that raged all summer. The geography alone was fortuitous because it meant I could go and pray before the San Damiano Crucifix.
This is not really a crucifix but an icon dating from the early 12th century written on the broad, flat panels of a Latin cross. Surrounding the figure of the Crucified are other painted images. There is a cockerel to reminds us of Peter’s denial and a shadowy figure of a fox or a cat, symbolising deceitful, cunning acts of treachery, placed there as reminder that Christ died to overcome the evils of both public and secret sin. All such have been present in the Church since the beginning. The cross stands on a solid mass of rock, said to represent the Church. Below it, almost obscured by the constant kissing by pilgrims, are the images of saints who, in their turn, appear to be supporting the rock of the Church. The merits of Christ’s Passion and those of the saints will never leave the Church.
In 1206 the young Francis Bernadone was in crisis. He had recently suffered a near fatal illness and was desperately seeking conversion and vocation. It was his practice to withdraw to pray in the ramshackle church of San Damiano. Even today this remains a tranquil spot, set on a steep hillside below the city. His biographers recount the beautiful prayer he repeated before the crucifix:
Most High glorious God, enlighten the darkness of my heart. Give me, Lord, a correct faith, a certain hope, a perfect charity, sense and knowledge, so that I may carry out Your holy and true command.
One day Christ spoke to him from the cross, saying ‘‘Francis, don’t you see that my house is being destroyed? Go then and rebuild it.’’ I am sure that Jesus must be saying at the moment to us all, “Don’t you see that my Church is being destroyed?’’
Just as Francis eventually grasped that Jesus didn’t mean just a particular church was in ruins, but the Universal Church, so the present crisis is not just whether powerful men will crumble or whether the media will lose interest and move on as they have been encouraged. At stake is the reputation of all priests. The priesthood is the love of Jesus Christ, St John Vianney tells us, and the crisis of priestly abuse will continue to obscure that love for years to come.
Abuse flourishes in an imbalance of power. The moral and spiritual power of a priest predisposes young people to trust him, powerless to oppose his insistence.
Historically, when a young person accused a priest of abuse, that same power was the obstacle used to deflect the accusation or, in the face of irrefutable proof, used to justify the priest’s continuation in ministry. Until recently, the faithful retained the trust that such crimes only happened because they went undetected. The problem was not institutional. Now, tragically, we know that some bishops were not only covering up such crimes but actually committing them. Their outrage was simulated. The same imbalance of power means we felt powerless to stop it.
Archbishop Viganò has made serious and corroborated allegations concerning specific persons, incidents and dates, offering documentary evidence. These touch on the conduct of the most powerful in the Church.
I say: Holy Father, your silence feels like groundhog day for abuse survivors. It is also a position which the least of your priests could not adopt in a comparable situation and hope to carry on as normal. Please address these allegations speedily.
It is the very fact that you alone have the power to order their investigation that impels you to do so if you are to rebuild a Church of transparency and not just one with the odd peephole to defuse outrage. For the good of the Church, justice must now be seen to be done, even if you know these claims are outrageous lies.
Anything which looks remotely like using moral and spiritual authority to say that your moral and spiritual authority are beyond question, and that any allegation therefore must be malign, merely repeats a modus operandi all too familiar to clerical abuse victims from years past. The same conundrum was used to ignore and silence legitimate as well as bogus claims, and it destroys faith and the hope of those who braved speaking truth to power.
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