The begging of forgiveness by the pope is always encouraging and soothing, though likewise pitiful. The Roman Catholic Church is writhing in pain after its worst credibility crisis since reformation.
About a year ago, the apparently frail Pope begged forgiveness for the abuse of little ones by paedophile priests and pledged to do everything possible to stop the scourge. The scandal interestingly hit the church when it was celebrating the Roman Catholic Year for Priests.
The pope said, “We insistently beg forgiveness from God and from the persons involved”, and promised to do everything possible to ensure that such abuse will never happen again.
Even before the healing of the wound, we are staring at another scandal. Last week the pope went to Canada to seek for forgiveness from the indigenous community, whose sons and daughters (150,000 in number) were forcibly taken from their cultural environments to residential schools.
They were however starved to death, beaten and sexually abused at those residential schools from 1881 to 1996. Sixty per cent of the residential schools were administered or managed by the Roman Catholic Church. The pope, who was well received, reiterated that what transpired was in conflict with biblical teaching of love and care for the weak and underprivileged.
Later on his way back to Rome, he likened the scenario to genocide. No wonder, despite the many words of apology, some of the indigenous Canadians were not convinced. Could they have wanted compensation as a sign of repentance from the high office?
What we know is that compensation for the paedophile cases left the financial coffers of some diocesan churches struggling and others in bankruptcy. It would have been a tough option to make.
Most revealing was his intention to slow down his activities or even step aside. Perhaps he sees that the beast in the field is a hard nut to crack and opts to resign and leave others to continue asking for pardon for church misdeeds.
Apart from asking for forgiveness and trying to cure the scandals, the pope should have addressed the causes of this disease of paedophilia, secret marriages of clergymen and inhumane treatment of Canadian indigenous learners.
In my view the cause of all this mess is the mandatory celibacy. Mandatory celibacy insists that there should be no marriage for clerics serving the church. It was a church rule that came into effect in 1123 AD.
Not marrying, for your information, renders you superhuman and one has no touch with human reality. It is unbiblical and unnatural because this is not what Yahweh intended from the beginning. Do you think God was crazy when he created both male and female?
The mandatory celibacy clause inclusion was indeed a sad and black day for the church, because it marks the beginning of the end of the Roman Catholic Church and take it to the bank.
If this issue of abuse is not going to be treated with the seriousness it deserves here and now, it is going to continue affecting seriously 'papal infallibility’, as well as the Sacrament of reconciliation, in the sense that, how can you go to confess to a priest who is himself a paedophile or superhuman?
The other lurking danger is exodus from the church (recently, one-third of Catholic Christians in Germany threatened to move out in the wake of the prevailing scandals). The resignation of Bishops is also not a good sign for a church, which considers a bishop to have the fullness of priesthood.
In a letter to all the bishops of the world, theologian Hans Kung underscored, “A faith that is not reasoned out renders one a slave, a pretender and worse so, a non-performer.” It goes without saying that the vow of celibacy is no longer tenable. It does not hold any water.
Archbishop Emanuel Milingo's (former Bishop of Lusaka, Zambia) dream and vision is likened to that of Hans Kung. Mine is also likened to that because as a member of the reformed Catholic fraternity in Kenya, we want to preserve the sanctity of the true church left by Christ on earth.
Milingo humorously recalls the suffering of priests and Christians in general under the aristocratic church leadership and says formation of priesthood and celibacy was based on lies. There was no choice. Marriage is demonised. How many women saints do we have? he poses.
No wonder the seminary formation today has a funny curriculum, which would render you irrelevant in society in case you happen to change your course. Any formation should aim at transformational leaders and not conformist leaders. Truth and not blind obedience should be advocated.
In conclusion, the people of God must return to hunger and thirst for righteousness. We demand a halt to superficial religion that substitutes for personal faithfulness. The ministers of God must repent of their failure to fulfil their calling.
When people in the medical profession fail to do their jobs, it amounts to malpractice. When finances are mishandled, it is fraud. All this is inexcusable, criminal and cannot be tolerated. But when ministers of the Word fail to fulfil their calling, the public shrugs it off and quietly leaves.
This cannot go on. The pope should know or be told by his henchmen without mincing words that the church is in a crisis. My understanding is that it can take a crisis to call forth openness and a desire to think and act differently. The openness is that priests should be allowed to marry, period.
The writer is a Married Catholic bishop, who has served the church for 33 years. He is an author and marriage counsellor. [email protected]
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