COLUMN: OPINION ON PAGE ONE- Annus horribilis and more – By Francisco S. Tatad
THE year 2018 was a very tough year, both locally and globally, not just for individuals, but also for governments and institutions. Migrants, refugees, trade wars, drug wars, terrorists, petty tyrants and predatory priests may have made the term annus horribilis no longer sufficient to describe the year. Not only were our strongest political values attacked; our deepest human values were attacked. The first great institution to suffer was the Catholic Church.
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The sex scandals
Prior to Pope Francis’ visit to Ireland in August, several serious clerical sexual scandals surfaced. In Ireland alone, where the Church has been scarred with such scandal for years, the Pope wept over the sins of predatory priests who had victimized children and adults. In the northwestern county of Donegal alone, overlooking the Atlantic, 14 priests were accused of clerical abuse; four were convicted, the most notorious of them having raped 26 boys, from 1965 to 1982.
In Pennsylvania that month, a grand jury report accused American bishops of covering up seven decades of clerical abuse by 300 priests of over 1,000 minors.
That same month, the former papal nuncio to the United States, Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, revealed that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI had ordered sanctions against Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, Archbishop of Washington, D.C. for his alleged sexual abuse of minors and adults over a long period of time, but that Pope Francis failed to do anything about it, and instead allowed him to remain in office, where he grew in power and influence, especially in the appointment of bishops.
The Pope refused to comment on Vigano’s testimony, but as the scandal grew, he was ultimately compelled to remove McCarrick.
In Chile, more than 200 priests were reportedly being investigated for clerical abuse. In May, 34 Chilean bishops offered to resign; in June, the Pope accepted three resignations, and defrocked two archbishops emeriti from the archdioceses of La Serena and Iquique. In September the Pope defrocked Fernando Karadima, an 88-year-old “pedophile” priest.
Before that, the Pope also accepted the resignation of an auxiliary bishop of Honduras for the same offense.
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Scott Hahn’s view
In a recent lecture, Scott Hahn, Catholic apologist, author and professor at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, pointed out that clerical sexual predators should be excommunicated, rather than defrocked. Reducing clerical offenders into laymen does not do justice of our understanding of laymen.
Before Christmas, Atttorney General Lisa Madigan of Illinois revealed that 690 priests had been accused of abusing children over the years, but that only 185 names had been made public.
The scandal has shaken the Church so much that many have stopped going to the regular services. In 2013, Pew Research Center reported 37 percent of American Catholics going to church on a weekly basis. This figure has apparently declined because of the clerical sexual scandal.
In a strongly worded Christmas address, Pope Francis was quoted as saying, “Hand yourself over to human justice and prepare for divine justice.” All American bishops are meeting outside Chicago this January to discuss the crisis; by February, all presidents of Catholic bishops’ conferences around the world will be meeting at the Vatican at the instance of the Pope. This will be an unprecedented summit of bishops on this issue, in the history of the Church.
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The worst in 500 years
Church historians consider the sexual scandal the biggest such scandal to hit the Church in 500 years. The clergy has not always been celibate; celibacy was made a precondition to priestly ordination only after the second Lateran Council in 1139. Pope Benedict IX, who served as pope from 1032 to 1045, was accused of sodomy while in office.
Now, as then, only a small number in the Church are guilty of sexual abuse. But the Church as such and the innocent are the first victims of the scandal. This was the point made by the political philosopher, Prof. Robert Peter George, in a recent interview with Raymond Arroyo on EWTN. George is the McCormick professor of jurisprudence and director of the James Madison program in American ideals and institutions at Princeton University.
But this is not the only serious controversy to confront the current pontificate. The controversy arising from the 2016 apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia has not been laid to rest. Four cardinals—Raymond Burke (US), Carlo Caffara (Italy), Walter Brandmuller (Germany), and Joachim Meisner (Germany)—have raised five questions (dubia) to the Pope concerning certain points in Amoris. Caffara and Meisner have since died, but the following questions remain unanswered:
—Whether adulterers can receive Holy Communion?
—Whether there are absolute moral norms that must be followed “without exceptions”?
—If habitual adultery is an “objective situation of grave habitual sin”?
—Whether an intrinsically evil act can be turned into a subjectively good act based on “circumstances or intentions”?
—If, based on “conscience”, one can act contrary to “absolute moral norms that prohibit intrinsically evil acts”?
The Church can only have one answer to each of these five questions. But because of the Pope’s failure to speak out, one bishop could say yes to one question, and another could say no to the same question.
Philippine problems
The Philippine Catholic Church has not been completely insulated from the problems of the Universal Church, but since President Duterte came to power, it has had to face a different set of problems.
Confronted with a murderous anti-drug campaign that has singled out the poor and the powerless, our militant bishops, priests and religious have had to speak out for those who cannot speak, and in doing so have drawn unto themselves the terror of the state. Thus, the Bishop of Caloocan and vice president of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference, Most Rev. Pablo Virgilio David, has become the President’s primary target of character assassination, slander and menacing speech for his uncompromising defense of the Gospel and the victims of state violence.
DU30 has also hoisted himself up as the lord and master of Church and state, calling God “stupid,” and calling on Catholics to stop going to church and contributing to the support of priests and religious and their services. Where Louis XIV said, “L’etat, c’est moi,” (I am the state), our charming provincial from Davao seems prepared to declare, “I am the Church and the State, thou shalt not have any strange gods before me.”
Let’s try to stay focused on where we’re going this 2019!
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IN MEMORIAM
Antonio Gatmaitan, 79, “Tony Gat” to his countless friends, passed away last week, in the peace of the Lord, after battling his fatal illness for a couple of years. The New Year holidays interrupted his wake, so it will begin on January 3, 2019 at the Santa Maria della Strada Parish at Pansol/La Vista, Quezon City.
Victor Almeda Consunji, 68, vice chairman, president and COO of Semirara Mining and Power Corp., was laid to rest by family and friends yesterday at the Heritage Memorial Park in Taguig. He is remembered well by countless beneficiaries of his many benevolent projects.
Rodel Batocabe, 52, party-list representative of Ako Bicol, who died in an armed attack in Barangay Burgos, Daraga, after a gift-giving event on December 23, will be interred tomorrow in Daraga, where he was a candidate for mayor at the time of his death. His friends in Congress and President Duterte have offered a bounty of P50 million for information leading to the capture or death of those responsible for his death.
I ask the pious reader to pray for the repose of their souls. Thank you very much.
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