Collateral Damage
Some of the brutal reality of the U.S. campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan emerged when footage from the killing of two Reuters photographers in 2007 was leaked on the Internet in April. Actual combat is never going to look pretty, and this footage, depicting the brutal ending of the lives of more than a dozen people, is certainly hard to watch. The U.S. crew mistook the camera and tripod of the photographers for weapons, and many of the people gunned down when the helicopter crew got a green light to engage were clearly unarmed. When a van pulled up later to retrieve the wounded, the assault continued—this time killing the would-be good Samaritans and seriously wounding two children. It is all too easy to second-guess decisions in the field, but it is hard to view this gun video without wondering if current rules of engagement are sufficiently protecting innocent lives in complicated combat zones.
No one should be under the illusion that the killing of noncombatants is completely preventable, and the U.S. command should be commended for its many efforts to keep civilian deaths to a minimum. This episode is a gruesome reminder that attention to that commitment cannot falter for a moment. Also troubling about this incident, however, are apparent attempts to divert investigations by withholding or tampering with evidence. The United States will not win the hearts and minds of the Afghan or Iraqi people if it does not reconsider its engagement policy in light of these unwarranted deaths. The government cannot but sacrifice the support of the American people when it attempts to cover up such failures.
A Sacramental Response
In his homily on April 15, Pope Benedict XVI spoke frankly. “We Christians, even in recent times, have often avoided the word penance, which seemed too harsh to us. Now…we see that being able to do penance is a grace, and we see how it is necessary to do penance, that is, to recognize what is mistaken in our life, to open oneself to forgiveness, to prepare oneself for forgiveness, to allow oneself to be transformed. The pain of penance, that is to say of purification and of transformation, this pain is grace....”
To heal the church in the wake of the sexual abuse crisis, the sacrament of reconciliation provides a model for a way forward. The sacrament includes several steps: first, confession. This has already begun in dioceses where bishops admitted their sins to victims, in liturgies or through pastoral letters and personal meetings. Second is a firm purpose of amendment. The U.S. bishops’ Dallas charter is a step in this direction. But then comes penance. Oddly, this step has been avoided by many church leaders seeking forgiveness from the people of God. Only a few bishops have resigned. There have also been calls for penance to be undertaken by the entire church, like the pope’s in his letter to Irish Catholics. But why should lay Catholics and innocent members of the clergy do penance.
Authentic penance must be done especially by abusive priests and the bishops who allowed the abuse to continue. That would mean more resignations, more public acts of penance and more of these bishops retiring to pray for victims of abuse. Only then can the church approach the ultimate goal of the sacrament—forgiveness. For in the present crisis the offending members of the clergy and hierarchy need the forgiveness of the whole people of God.
Vanishing Seals
Canada’s annual seal hunt has begun. This year the hunt’s quota has increased by 50,000 to a total of 333,000. By the 1970s, unrestrained hunting had reduced the population of harp seals to an estimated two million, and quotas were introduced. The harp seal is the most targeted species, and 90 percent are pups less than three months old. The European Union has voiced concerns about inhumane aspects of the hunt. Killing methods include clubbing, netting and shooting. The U.S. Humane Society cites veterinary studies that “show high levels of cruelty at the slaughter, including wounded seals left to suffer in agony...impaled on metal hooks, and live seals cut open.”
In addition, because of climatic warming less ice is forming on Canada’s east coast, threatening seal birthing areas. When the ice is too thin, pups are forced into the open water before they are old enough to survive. As a consequence of these diverse pressures, seals represent yet another species whose survival is imperilled.
Now the fur industry has slowed because of the recession. Pelts that brought $100 a few years ago now sell for only $15 each. Campaigns against seal hunting have also played a part in the slowdown. But the hardest blow to the industry may be the European Union’s ban on products from commercial sealing. Finalized in July 2009, the ban takes effect next August. The European Union is to be applauded for taking this step.
Having viewed the video footage, I can see how initially the helicopter crew perceived themselves and nearby US groundtroops to have been gravely and imminently threatened. Especially troubling, however, was the utter lack of a sense of regret and sadness that Augustine taught just warriors should have when fighting an enemy. This aspect of right intent was absent when these soldiers laughed as they killed someone (or ran over a body with an armored vehicle) and when the helicopter gunner kept wishing that a wounded man crawling on the ground would reach for a weapon so that he could then be shot. How can we win the "hearts and minds" of the Iraqi or Afghan people if our own hearts and minds are so calloused towards them?
Collateral Damage - The mistake made by the US crew was to assume that the RPG rifle carrying fellow hit a jog when he was behind the building and that what came around the corner was the insurgent's weapon that had popped behind the corner moments before. Accounts that omit that the party included an RPG wrongly distort the military facts. The Reuters crew was embedded with insurgents. While insurgents are people, it is important to remember that Iraqi insurgents of that era and even today frequently take action to increase the chances of civilian deaths. The confusion engendered is real and is a war crime. The moral culpability of civilian deaths that are caused by these confusion war crimes is supposed to be assigned to the non-uniform wearing, human shield using cowards who commit those war crimes.
A Sacramental Response - I would wish that more editorials were like this one. Stick to what you know and you will improve the effectiveness of this mission.
Vanishing Seals - Wise herd management prevents the ugly natural population crashes that nature provides. Overpopulation among animals leads to starvation and mass disease outbreaks, fates much worse than a relatively quick clubbing to death. But you don't generally catch the consequences of natural animal starvation on the evening news.
The number permitted killed is adjusted by trained wildlife biologists who calculate how many need to be killed to avoid a catastrophic and cruel natural population crash. If the number is adjusted upwards, it means that the animal species is thriving and humans must work harder to keep that species' population within its habitat carrying capacity.
Another "tell" that you're off the mark is the commercial commentary. For commercial interests, a reduced kill would permit the pelt price to rise and there would be much pressure by politically connected interests to reduce the kill to increase profits for those well connected enough to maintain their permits. But the price of pelts is going down and the kill numbers are going up. This spells bad news for the hunters but better news for the seal population.
Dear Editors,
This is very good. Thank you. I would like to amplify a few points. First, please help your readers understand that when it comes to child sexual abuse by clergy, there is no distinction between priests and bishops. It is more accurate to refer to clerical abusers as both priests and bishops. For example, you wrote the following:
"Authentic penance must be done especially by abusive priests and the bishops who allowed the abuse to continue."
Unfortunately, this sentence separates bishops from the population of clerical abusers of children. A more accurate sentence would read:
"Authentic penance must be done especially by
abusive priests and bishops, as well asthe bishops who allowed the abuse to continue."
Second, a firm purpose of amendment is suspect as long as the Dallas Charter is characterized ONLY as a start, and non-bindind at that. A firm purpose of amendment is an affront as long as church leaders use their lawyers to continue the abuse of victims. It is shame how they excuse their callousness by saying the lawyers are only doing their job. NO. The lawyers are doing the church's job and bishops and Cardinal's are responsible for this.
Third, the abusing priests and bishops will be grossly under-identified as long as civil and criminal statutes of limitations prevent victims from coming forth. Penance is great, but it would be nice to identify the penitents. At the same time, it can go a long way to identify the penitents who enabled the abuse by priests and bishops. Pope Benedict XVI has stated, in no uncertain terms, that abuse MUST be reported to the governmental legal system. How, about our bishops lobbying for the elimination of statutes of limitations for the very serious crime of sexual abuse of minors.
Finally, you, me, all of us have to end the presumption that the failure of our bishops was due PRIMARILY to personal inadequacies like ignorance, stupidity, lack of guidance, fear of scandal, and protection of church assets. There are bishops, themselves, who are deep into a life of sexual predation upon children, as well as adult sexual activity counter to their vows of celibacy. This goes a long way in understanding the cover up, reassignment of abusers, delays, secrecy, denial, and lack of action. Not only do we have bishops who are predators of children, there are rings of poedophile prests - many of them. Over the course of clerical careers, they support and promote each other with a clear motive to protect themselves from exposure and consequences. Non-poedophile priests, bishops and cardinals are subject to blackmail (explicit and implicit) because of their own failures to keep their vow of celibacy. Clergy and laity who have spent years dealing with abusers and victims in the church know all about this. Until it comes out in the open, the bishops will stall, and encumber, and use the right words, and make a big show of it. They will do the right thing only by being dragged, kicking and screaming, until they have no other choice but to do the right thing.
The Sacrament of Penance (Reconciliation) is a blessing for all of us. Your words, above, bring me back to catechism class in parochial school. The Sacrament of Penance requires confession, a firm purpose of amendment, and penitential acts. Let's remember that we are a long way from really understanding what has to be confessed, who has to do the confessing, what constitutes a firm purpose not to continue the abuse of victims, and what is an appropriate penance that can be seen and understood by the victims and the rest of the faithful.
Pope Benedict XVI was correct about the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. Everyone deserves forgiveness and mercy including the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
However, when someone commits an act that is clearly criminal, they are subject to Statutory Criminal Law. This includes Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, the Pope and any other member of the Clergy. Equally important, if a person or persons aids in a criminal act, before, during or after its occurance, they are also subject to Statutory Criminal Law.
Why does the Church only choose to speak of reconciliation, forgiveness and penance at these times? What are the changes that the Church is making with respect to this crisis?
Words are not enough. If you cannot convince the Body of Christ, the majority of Catholics, that the problem is effectively being managed, it is not. Any type of effective reform will not guarantee against all future criminal acts. However, it will start the reconciliation and healing process and restore faith in Church hierarchy.
Pope Benedict XVI was correct about the sacrament of reconciliation and penance. Everyone deserves forgiveness and mercy including the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church.
However, when someone commits an act that is clearly criminal, they are subject to Statutory Criminal Law. This includes Priests, Bishops, Cardinals, the Pope and any other member of the Clergy. Equally important, if a person or persons aids in a criminal act, before, during or after its occurance, they are also subject to Statutory Criminal Law.
Why does the Church only choose to speak of reconciliation, forgiveness and penance at these times? What are the changes that the Church is making with respect to this crisis?
Words are not enough. If you cannot convince the Body of Christ, the majority of Catholics, that the problem is effectively being managed, it is not. Any type of effective reform will not guarantee against all future criminal acts. However, it will start the reconciliation and healing process and restore faith in Church hierarchy.
A tragic outcome of the past 35 years for me- a wife and mother - is how the Church's institutional response to children and women has made the confessional seem an almost impossible door to open. In 1975, an older Jesuit confessor -speaking from his experience working in a women's prison-told me he had met women victims of abuse who would never be able to pronounce their confession to a man. He also said at the time that the obstacles to women's ordination were not theological but cultural.
That was one year before the CDF under Cardinal Ratziner published "Inter Insignores" banning female ordination. (The same year, 1976, the Pontifical Bibilcal Commission said there was no scriptural reason to oppose it.)
How times have we have changed; my confessor has gone to GOd and the prohibted has become the "impossible."
My desire for forgiveness lives on nonetheless in the daily and the dramatic. My ability to find it, though, has sadly been altered. This is not a theological excuse; it is a personal explanation of how I have been changed by the hardening of the sacrmaental arteries of a male church.
Hopefully,
Emma R Clery
Emma Rose Clery,
Here's an except from a prior post of mine. It is relevant to your comments about women:"
Here's a suggestion. Read, carefully, the recent full reports on abuse in church schools and church run institutions in Ireland. Buried in all that depravity, denial, and duplicity are some real solutions to the clergy abuse scandals. The most significant fact is that abuse was at a minimum in schools and institutions run by nuns. They were far more alert to signs of abuse, and acted with greater speed and deliberateness when they found it."What does this mean? WOMEN!"WOMEN were better caretakers and protectors than men."
One solution is WOMEN.
"More WOMEN!"
More WOMEN in the church at all levels!"
All war is inherently insane and ultimately evil. Seek and destroy missions are even more subject to such mistakes as portrayed. Video games controlled from California or Miami with subjects in Iraq and Afghanistan are the ultimate detachment of the infliction of deadly force upon an unsuspecting, hard to identify and isolate enemy. We are just kidding ourselves with 'smart bombs' and 'surgical strikes' and 'military intelligence.' To avoid further sin, let's simply bring the boys (and girls) home now!
"But why should lay Catholics and innocent members of the clergy do penance."
Presumably because they were complicit in not speaking out at the time. Many lay people knew what was happening and chose to remain silent. If they'd spoken out, matters might have resolved themselves far differently from the way they did.
Unfortunately, the SACRAMENT OF RECONCILIATION provides a woefully inadequate sacramental model for dealing with the clergy abuse scandals, mainly because of its historical BAGGAGE: 1) an emphasis on SECRECY and "the internal forum" (to borrow a hairsplitting piece of jargon from manuals of moral theology), 2) the way it has been USED by the institution to cover up so much wrongdoing, and 3) the institution's continual reticence to implement anything other than INDIVIDUAL AURICULAR confession and absolution.
I would look instead to appropriately adapted rituals from the much healthier RCIA, with its emphasis on the community in action - especially the EXORCISMS!
Norman, there has been abuse by both genders. Removal of the abusers including those who have covered it up is the best response.
Mike Bolognese: AGREED!
Incredibly the editorial begins by suggesting without proof that prevasive brutality occures in the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan by U.S. troops. Quote "Some of the brutal reality of the U.S. campaign in Iraq and Afghanistan emerge ..." in tone and content is a sinister, prejudical generalization harmful to the good name of all our troops serving in combat. This statement is excessive to any known facts about the war. The prospective that our troops are serving in a war zone where combat related deaths occure all the time is lost from the beginning. Our troop's service can not be legitimately represented as acts of serial brutality as the introduction implies.
The war context of this incident is poorly represented. The viewpoint from the troops involved in this incident is not presented. A speculative third-party narrative is instead offered to the distant taste and prjudices of the narrator. This one-sided account, void of the real war context leading up to and sourronding this incident should not be relied on for accuracy let alone the rash and false conclusions that the troops involved in this incident are "war criminals". An objective, professional presentation careful to fairly represent our troops is not found in this editorial. This editorial is abhorant.
Re: Sacramental Response
The Editorial asks why parishoners should be asked to do pennance for the abuse perpetrated by the some of the clergy and leadership of our Church. Frankly, we should not. But we have been doing the pennance as we negotiate the the loss of community parochial schools while church treasure is exhausted in cover-up and silencing. Our neighbors will do the pennance as they negotiate a world with fewer moral leaders in our midsts, educated in a spiritually oriented living by those same schools. And, oddly, our Lord is doing the pennance as fewer people are willing to praise and thank our Lord though participating in the local and generally loving church communities.
Culling the seals is a necessity to maintain the health of the herd. In Northern Europe they simply kill them and let them sink to the bottom of the ocean. For a fruit tree to bear fruit it must be pruned. Likewise, animal herds must be managed. Right now because of over-fishing the cod stock off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland are depleted, even though this trawler factory fishing was stopped two decades ago; it is the main food for seals. Cruel starvation causes desease.
You know, Jesuits living in the inner city should never comment on food production; they shouldn't even be allowed to eat hamburgers and wear any leather products such as shoes or belts. As any good inner city person knows, milk comes in platicized paper containers not from gaseous, fecis splattering cows. Only bucolic from a distance.
Your article on the seal hunt betrays the knowledge gap between the urban and the rural, and how the rural people live off the land and sea. I don't know if all members of the Society of Jesus are PETA card carriers, but there are other view points.
MUCH APPRECIATION, for the comments, questions about 'penance' (Sacramental). America published a fine article written by the late Cardinal Avery Dulles (circa 2004) titled "When to Forgive". The word 'forgive' caught my eye, and immediately raised my hackles, but as I read it, I began to appreciate how Cardinal Dulles brought the requisite of repentance into the discussion. It's an article that I have reprinted a couple of times, and sent one copy to my bishop only about a year ago suggesting that it be the focus of any of the regular periodic trainings of our diocesan priesthood.
As for 'the Church', including the laity 'doing penance', we would do well to use the word 'repentance' in its strictest meaning (to 'turn around', to 'turn back to God') and realize that we, the laity have a major role to play in 'turning around' the Church. We have been made a Church of adults through this painful period. Though we may not be a 'democracy', nor a 'monarchy', too many of us have not acted like the mature adult people of faith who assume responsibility for shaping, and creating what the Church is becoming...we expect (some of us) to be told what to think and do and allowed ourselves to be infantilized. Those who refuse to be infantilized have (in the past) been treated like misfits. It's time for us all to 'grow up'. I pray that the people of the Archdiocese of Boston receive the Nobel Peace Prize for showing how a people united defeat and jetison neglectful leaders. And if Pope Benedict XVI sent Cardinal Law back to Boston to face justice, this would show a further maturing of the Catholic Church - top to bottom, bottom to top.
THIS is what it means for the laity to "make repentance in the Catholic Church." This is what a mature faith does, "...for the greater glory of God!"
I particuliarly enjoyed some of the thoughtful and insightful comments about this crisis in the Church. Specifically, the comment that the role of women in the Catholic Church is primiarily cultural and not biblical. Ditto for Celibacy, Papal Infallibility, the Pepetual Virginity of Mary, Birth Regulation, the list goes on.
Truly we have a disconnection between the Church and its parishioners.
I confess my sins to God each day, but not to a priest anymore. I have an individual relationship with God but not with any priest or the Catholic Church, despite my historical desire and effort to to so. I trust in the fundlemental teachings of the Catholic Church, but not all of them. I don't go to Church anymore and I am among the millions who pray that his will, not mine, be done. I trust in God and in daily prayer. There is only one true answer to our salvation. His name is Jesus Christ. I pray for the Pope and the Church. I pray for change. Amen.
You think the laity is NOT doing penance for these "spiritual assaults" (I am loathe to use the word "sexual abuse" because of our idolatry of "sexual titilation" found in the way over-exposure of this horrendous mess?
I no longer read Catholic news websites nor emails coming from these.
All the answers we need to this ARE found in the Sacraments, Holy Scripture, the depository of faith, and the teachings of the magisterium-and most of all in the community of our parishes: it is here that this healing must take place.
When was the last time YOU listened to a tortured soul's story? In the re-telling of our life experiences to the "face of Christ" in our community members-along with the support found in Catholic agencies which can supply what is needed for dignity until "back on their feet"-we re-connect the neural pathways for our ability to heal-the reason for the ancient formula of "myth-making". the ancient wisdoms of the Sacraments provide miracles everyday... oh, that we not limit Christ's healing power! To those not finding help in them: perhaps a lesson I learned a long time ago from a very wise Sister of Providence: "we always get what we need in the Sacraments." Open your eyes and look around you-you'll be surprised by what you see-God's hand in everything!
I, for one, am not going to feed into the continual devaluation of ANY person by focusing on "abuse"... and continued blaming. I'm working to a healing of it... and penance, found in the ordinary struggles of the sustaining of life, is already abundantly being granted by our loving God, Who is just! (the little way of St. Therese) "Blessed are the righteous, for they will be satisfied."
I have to wonder how many thousands of times priests and religious participated in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and admitted to the crime of child sexual abuse and then were given absolution. It cheapens the notion of grace when these criminals were not required by their confessor to report to the authorities before receiving absolution. How else could they show true repentance? How else could they express a commitment to accepting responsibility for real personal change and the avoidance of future sins of abuse?
Certain bishops, such as Providence Bishop Thomas J. Tobin, have recommended not offering the Eucharist to those who have a public record of supporting abortion rights. Has anyone ever suggested not offering the sacrament of Reconciliation to those who have a public record of child abuse? Or to those who have privately confessed the crime of child abuse on multiple occasions but have refused to take public responsibility for these crimes? God's grace is not the magical removal of guilt and responsibility, and the born should be offered at least the same protection as the unborn. Such selective imposition of restriction to a sacrament cheapens the idea of God's grace, reducing it to a political weapon.
To quote Dietrich Bonhoeffer,
“Cheap grace means the justification of sin without the justification of the sinner. Grace alone does everything they say, and so everything can remain as it was before … Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will gladly go and self all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble, it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him.”
Up until now the abusive priests, bishops and religious have been offered and have relied upon only a cheapened notion of grace. There has been no transformation. It is time for them to pay the cost; it is time to pluck out from our church those that have caused it to stumble.
Many of America's commentators are outraged that for some reason, abusive priests have not been held accountable for their crimes under the law. The implication, with which I agree, is that for some reason it exists not only in our church, but in our government, some idea that the church and state can be separated. This bogus extension of separation exists only in a letter from Thomas Jefferson on a vastly different subject. It has been to our immense detriment that this has been allowed in the past and will continue to be allowed in the future, as far as I can tell. And the harm has been immense to our children. Several thousand children have been abused by this silence combined with toleration, and unless the Dallas accords of 2002 are scrupulously observed by all bishops, this will continue. Another bogus application of this idea exists in denying vouchers to our inner city children. Many more thousands have had their economic futures ruined by denying them escape from their deplorable public schools through vouchers.
It seems if we fail to kill them before they are born, we then deny them the opportunity for decent educations by denying them access to good schools through vouchers. Then, there is this horrid scenario of sexual harm in our schools.
We should also all be mindful that this issue of sexual abuse of minors in our schools exists in far greater numbers and percentages, 6-10% of all students, representing 290,000 children over the period 1991-2000, in the public shool system. These figures are from a recent study funded by the Department of Education. The great majority of this abuse goes unreported and unpunished, many times the numbers of the last half century for the church.
After we clean out the church's stables, we will all have a far greater task ahead of us.
Mona Villarrubia,
Well put. Thank you.
"Also troubling about this incident, however, are apparent attempts to divert investigations by withholding or tampering with evidence. The United States will not win the hearts and minds of the Afghan or Iraqi people if it does not reconsider its engagement policy in light of these unwarranted deaths. The government cannot but sacrifice the support of the American people when it attempts to cover up such failures."
Perhaps one of the most important results of the internet's free and open information flow could be the hastening of the end of war. A very important reason to resist government censorship.