“Weathering the Storm”

I listened to a deacon of the church refer to what is being experienced in Catholic churches today as “weathering the storm” during this time of turmoil in the church.

I got out my smart phone to look up the common definition of “weathering the storm.” I read the following:

“To reach the end of the a very difficult situation without too much harm or damage.”

How can the abuse of children be equated to weathering a storm? The rage is running hot in my blood. This is no storm to be weathered. Thousands of children and young people were sexually and physically assaulted by adults. Adults vested in power and authority. Adults protected from the law as the church saw fit to be a law unto itself.  Weather the storm?

I continued to listen to the subtle serpentine shifting of responsibility for reparation being laid on the shoulders of the laity. The laity is powerless in this corrupt hierarchy of powerful adult men and their entrenched hidden catacombs of deceit and betrayal. It is disgusting to manipulate scripture and lace it with guilt, comparing the laity to Judas and Peter as betrayers of the church.

Shame and bullying. Shame is a pernicious tool in bullying souls, it causes insidious harm. Shame, bullying, and fear, those are tactics of predators.  I hear those who are mindfully retreating from the church being shamed and bullied. Their accusers hold the Eucharist as a hostage and use it to condemn those who need space to breathe from the horror. And yes, this is a horror.

There are thousands of criminals being protected by a church that wields a massive amount of power. A church that is politically powerful, socially powerful, financially powerful, those are not Gospel values.

The church will not recover from this, abuse of children is not like having a cold or a broken leg. This is a death, a death of what once was allowed to grow unchecked with greed and power. There will be new life, but it will never be what it was, thanks be to God. Nothing can give those abused and their families back their lives. New wine skins are called for, let the old wine skins rot with the maggots.