tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5078331897510807942.post2410456712457247920..comments2023-12-28T01:11:49.188-08:00Comments on Cum Lazaro: Safeguarding in Scotland: McLellan Commission ReportLazarushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09716412032074416331noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5078331897510807942.post-59841181355657866532015-08-19T11:51:23.063-07:002015-08-19T11:51:23.063-07:00The only "right" way of dealing with thi...The only "right" way of dealing with this would have been for a Catholic leader to have dilated and denounced his own to the police. The fact that this would never happen, and that the filth which occurred actually took place should give us pause for thought.<br /><br />I was struck by the Japanese PM last weekend saying that Japan is reaching the point at which it should stop having to say sorry for WWII. Leaving that question aside, what point would our Church have reached for us to be able to say that it could stop apologising? Obviously there's no answer, but charting the course that gets us from here to there at least involves facing up to the enormity of what this means for us all. <br /><br />I've never abused a child, and I can list large numbers of priests and brothers who I have dealt with over the last fifty years who never abused me, but we might as well accept that unless we are prepared to accept that there is institutional guilt, and that all of us who are members of the institution share in that guilt (totally separate from the personal guilt of the abusers) and have to find our way forward, we will be condemned to the neo-liberal-protestantising tendencies you identify above as the way forward which will be imposed on us.<br /><br />You're really right too in pointing out that while sexual abuse seems to have been widely prevalent outside the Church, this is our patch, and we can't hide behind the fact that these abuses were prevalent in other patches as well. The best thing we can do is find a penitential way forward which cleanses us, and at least offer an option for others.<br /><br />I would be hard put to say with any sort of honesty that however much I hate the sin, I love the sinners. That Hell's gates appear to gape open for them is, I'm afraid, something I find it difficult to ascribe to anybody's fault but their own.<br /><br />Ttonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15185875893212146794noreply@blogger.com