Andrew Hamilton, S.J., offers an unflinching and intriguing take on the Catholic abuse crisis seen through the perspective of Easter this week in Eureka Street, the Australian Jesuits' online magazine. "The stories of sexual abuse throughout the Catholic world are not a distraction from Easter. If we are to enter this Easter it is appropriate to attend in a sustained way to the complex patterns of sin that are involved in abuse and in its consequences," he argues. 

The miracle of Easter is that the demonstration [of the power of sin over humanity in the crucifixion] turns out not to be definitive, but is interrupted by Jesus' rising. Precisely the events that prove the power of sin turn out to be the source of life. God's gaze, and so the Christian's, takes in together the devastation made by sin of Jesus' life and the seeds of life that burst through sin.

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...The systematic crushing of Jesus' humanity and of his vision speak of defeat and of scorched earth. But his rising from the dead says that humanity can never be crushed, that life comes through the most terrible death, and that the last word is not of a scorched earth but of seeds growing.

Click here for the full read. 

Jim McDermott, S.J.