The Pope's visit to the UK #2, or 'Ha-hmmm'.

The following is taken from a Vatican Radio transcript of an in-flight interview given by the Pope to several media outlets. I'm indebted to Cranmer for pointing out the issue, and the highlighting is mine: 

'Q. As is well known and as was also highlighted by recent surveys, the sexual abuse scandal has shaken the confidence of the faithful in the Church. How do you think you can help restore that trust?' 

'A. - First, I must say that these revelations have been a shock for me, not only a great sadness. It is difficult to understand how this perversion of the priestly ministry was possible. The priest at the time of ordination, after having prepared for this moment for years, says yes to Christ, to be his voice, his mouth, his hands and serve Him with his whole life, so that the Good Shepherd who loves and helps and guides to the truth is present in the world. How a man who has done this and said this may also fall into this perversion is difficult to understand. It is a great sadness, a sadness that even the authority of the Church has not been sufficiently vigilant and not fast or decided enough in taking the necessary measures. Because of all of this, we are in a time of repentance, humility, and renewed sincerity. As I wrote to the Irish bishops, I think we now realize its a time of penance, a time to renew and relearn humility with complete sincerity. Regarding the victims, I would say there are three important things. Our first interest is for the victims: how can we repair the damage done? What can we do to help these people overcome this trauma, to regain their life and rediscover confidence in the message of Christ? Care, commitment to victims is the first priority, with material, psychological, spiritual aid. Second, the problem of the guilty persons. The just punishment is exclusion from all possibilities of access to young people because we know that this is a disease and free will does not work where there is disease. So we have to protect these people against themselves and find ways to help them, protect them against themselves and exclude them from any access to young people. The third point is prevention in education, in the choice of candidates for the priesthood to be so careful that, as much as humanly possible, we exclude future cases. And I would now also like to thank the British Bishops for their attention and cooperation with both the See of St. Peter and with public bodies. It seems to me that the British Bishops have done a great job in their attention to the sensitivity of the victims and the law and I am very grateful to them for this'. 

(http://www.thepapalvisit.org.uk/The-Visit-Live/Speeches/Speeches-16-September/Pope-Benedict-Interview )

Now there are two ways of looking at this. Firstly that the Pope is trying to say that paedophilic priests cannot be allowed access to children because we cannot rely upon their being able to control their desire to harm. This is, I would think, relatively uncontroversial*. The second is that outlined by 'Cranmer'. If what affects these men is a 'disease', then they cannot exercise free will over their actions (as the Pope himself states in the highlighted section above). To quote from Cranmer's argument: 

'A mortal sin cannot be committed accidentally: a person who commits a mortal sin is one who knows that their sin is wrong, but still deliberately chooses to commits the sin regardless. Mortal sins are therefore premeditated by the sinner and so constitute a rejection of God’s law and love.

But if 'free will does not operate', the paedophile priest has not chosen to sin, for there can be no choice where there is no expression of will. God's law is not rejected, for there is no premeditation where there is no free choice'. 


Ha-hmmm

* There is the question of his actions while Archbishop of Munich, but I don't want to commentate on those here at the moment. 

The Pope's visit to the UK #1

A small, but noteworthy, dispute is raging on the Guardian Unlimited website.

Last week a meeting apparently took place at Richmond Council's local library, supported by the 'Protest the Pope' campaign. The Guardian's 'Church Mouse' commentator has taken offence to its location and content, and Andrew Copson, of the British Humanist Association, has written an opinion piece defending the meeting and those at it.

Copson's defence is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/18/religion-catholicism-pope-protest. It links to 'Church Mouse' piece, which can be found here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/belief/2010/aug/16/pope-protest-richmond-council?showallcomments=true.

Needless to say that my theological and philosophical sympathies are not with Mr. Copson. Yet he seems to have had the benefit of actually being at the meeting, as opposed to 'Church Mouse', who relies on second-hand reports from the Telegraph. The linkage that 'Church Mouse' draws between the Richmond meeting and a Catholic group that has had to call the police over threats linked to the Pope's visit is clumsy at best.

Here debate over the Pope's visit should be divorced from the ongoing theological battle between Christian Apologists and New Atheists. The fact of the matter is that there are important reasons to hold the Catholic Church up to examination. The Church's reaction to the clerical abuse scandal has unearthed a culture where the survival and well-being of the Church has been placed too often above the teachings of Christ and the needs of individual believers, and that must stop. We cannot go forward, and reform Catholicism where it needs reformation, if at every point the dialogue between church hierarchy and secular society continuously descends into the same arguments of old (it is noticeable how many times 'Church Mouse' emphasises the role of the Richmond LGBT Forum as an organiser of that meeting). Just because these people are humanists and atheists does not necessarily mean that the views they are putting forth on these individual points aren't also correct.

As Christians we should be guided by prayer and by the Holy Spirit in seeking to help the Catholic Church overcome its difficulties. If we are to oppose opinions, they should be because they are contrary to our position as Christians, not because they are proposed by people who we object to.

At the same time though, can we try to have a papal visit that does not include large scale atheistic protest? The issues that Mr. Copson mentions in his piece are important; the fact of the matter is that people do disagree with the Catholic Church's position over African aid, homosexuality and women's rights. They have every right to do so, and should not be stopped doing so. The danger I feel is that we end up with two sides shouting at each other, but never really listening to one another. Let's put it another way: as mentioned, I disagree with Mr. Copson's theological beliefs entirely. That doesn't mean that I should automatically bar my ears to what he says, as he should not to what I might say to him.