Catholic
historian George Weigel makes some interesting points in an interview
with Canada’s National Post (May 10)
First,
on how to fix the mess. The answer is not dropping celibacy or updating the
Church’s views on sexuality:
I’m
not sure that “most” critics don’t understand the point about
fidelity-as-the-answer, but some certainly don’t–and likely do so because they
are either advancing a “progressive” agenda in the Church or because
they’ve succumbed to the prevailing libertine culture–or both. In a difficult
and complex mess like that of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, it can be
hard to see what’s directly in front of your face: namely, that faithful and
holy priests don’t abuse young people or anyone else, for that matter.
Second,
the contrasting roles of the media in 2002 and 2010:
In
2002, the media did the Church a service by forcing to the surface things that
had to be dealt with. What’s happening now is the dredging up of old stories in
an attempt to either disempower the Catholic Church as a moral authority or
satisfy the greed of the plaintiffs’ bar.
