WHAT WOULD THE PARENTS SAY?

Yesterday, in LOST's local parish, the Saturday evening Mass featured a homily provided by the recently minted permanent deacon to join the faith. Ah, the Permanent Deaconate. You know, married guys that have to go through nearly every class and bit of training that the Boyz n the (priest)hood have to endure - and their wives do too. They can assist at Mass, and even preside at Weddings, as LOST and the Mrs. know from first hand experience. Ah, the tale of the Deacon who presided over LOST's nuptials is a sordid one that shall not be repeated here; suffice to say it has left LOST and the Mrs. to contemplate a vow renewal on more than one occasion.

Our Deacon ignored the big news story of the week for Catholics - the relegation of "Limbo" to the discard pile, where it could commiserate with Saint Christopher, the geocentric Universe and other atavistic articles of the faith. This Deacon weaved a tale of the early Church's struggles - reflective of the readings from the Second Sunday of Easter - tales of Peter heroically rebuking the Sanhedrin, of Peter encountering the Risen Christ after an all night fishing excursion, the three times being asked "Simon, Son of John, do you love me?" As if the trio of questions were undoing the three denials. But where the Deacon veered from the roadway and over the cliff in LOST's estimation was in the apocryphal statement that the "Church as a whole is under attack for the actions of a few." For LOST, it was a clear swipe at the molestation litigation crisis - as sore a subject as there could be here in San Diego, where the local collared crowd has retreated into Bankruptcy court. But the oft repeated twin poles of deception - that the suits are an "Attack" and that the clerical malefactors are few in number are horribly disingenuous in a way that only Rupert Murdoch and Karl Rove could love.

As to the first pole, an "attack" requires an attacker. A normal person does not slice his own abdomen and then credibly claim victimhood. It is illogical and deceptive in the extreme. The litigations faced by the Church - - LOST's Church and that of his parents, their parents and so on, are the result of self-inflicted wounds. The initial failure to regulate internal behavior properly, coupled with the decades long (centuries even?) efforts to ignore, deny and otherwise deflect the outcries of those who truly were victimized. That the Church leadership seems to be requiring or insisting that its current parish-level leadership yelp from the pulpit about victimhood evokes memories of the Menendez brothers seeking pre-trial judicial sympathy on the ground that they had been orphaned.

Which of course brings us to the second issue, that these are the actions of a few. The Church has consistently pushed as a talking point few things more ardently than the number of predators is "small - only about 2% of those in ministry" who are the targets of credible accusation. Let's ignore the convenience of that number - dependent as it is upon the willingness of those violated to put aside their fears and the shame, and step forward. How much fun it must be for the accuser to come forward and level an accusatory finger at someone who, for the majority of an unsuspecting congregation is a beloved, respected parental surrogate in a local faith community.

No, the unspokent convenience of this talking point is its complete disregard for the number of those in active ministry who, though they didn't actively participate in the unspeakable acts of violating the young faithful, had knowledge of it and chose not to act. This runs the gamut from those in the predators' peer group who sensed something odd going on, from those pastors who could see evidence of strange bonds between cleric and child, all the way up to those crozier carriers who knew - who were told - and who yet chose to shell game the perpetrators off to the next parish. Now, LOST has no idea what that number or percentage is - but it has to substantially exceed 2%. And we're talking about men who are still there, without sanction for their failure to speak out, yet responsible in some tangible degree for the perpetuation of the problem. How many of these same non-actors are now speaking the "attack" talking point from the pulpit? How many are alsospeaking individually to others that the "Scandal" is a mere creation of greedy lawyers and unscrupulous newspaper publishers.

Sure, Greed is real, and is part of the scandal's aftermath. It richly deserves its place as one of the Seven Deadlies, and it does in fact permeate the culture. Nor can anyone deny that journalism is not at its historical zenith of informing the public. Yet these are at best distractions - the actions of those desperate to cling to power and influence. Perhaps its just another manifestation of the very same greed? Whatever the reason, the use of these talking points is an impediment to true healing in the Church, and it should end immediately.