The grace of penance in summer of shame

The Catholic Register, 15 July 2021

Truth demands the record be set straight, but where there are injustices the first spiritual response is to do penance.

In 2018, American Catholics experienced their “summer of shame” — first the revelations about Theodore McCarrick and then the Pennsylvania grand jury report on priestly sexual abuse. Given the media reach of the United States, the shame spread around the world. Soon Pope Francis announced a global summit on sexual abuse for February 2019. From that emerged some key reforms for episcopal accountability.

Canadian Catholics are experiencing something of a “summer of shame” as the history of residential schools is again at the forefront of public debate. Much like the Pennsylvania report, the general media impression is at wide variance with the facts. The history is already painful enough on its own; misinformation serves no good purpose. Indeed, it can distort the record of what has actually been done, fomenting turmoil and tension. That may be what is behind the church burnings and vandalism.

In the Pennsylvania case respected journalist Peter Steinfels, no lapdog of the Catholic hierarchy, amply demonstrated the manipulations and misrepresentations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report, which made long resolved cases seem like ongoing negligence. Steinfels concluded that what Americans supposedly learned from the grand jury report was “grossly misleading, irresponsible, inaccurate and unjust.”

There is something of that in the air at the moment, and over the several issues I hope to sort through some of the key issues, as I have already done in these pages with regard to Church apologies and papal encounters with Indigenous Canadians.

Yet before that, it is important to live this “summer of shame” as a spiritual experience. Shame arises from regret, anger, embarrassment and humiliation. Catholics are likely feeling some combination of all those. It can make one prickly and defensive, feeling set upon or even “persecuted” in the words of Archbishop Richard Gagnon of Winnipeg, president of the Canadian bishops’ conference.

Archbishop Gagnon’s “persecution” remark earned him considerable criticism. Yet, aside from the public debate, I think that it pointed Catholics in the wrong direction, toward protesting false allegations rather than accepting penance for real injustices.

Continue reading at The Catholic Register.