Too little, too late

Consider this job description. The headline is a community counsellor. The responsibility is to be available to anyone within a defined boundary to offer comfort, advice, hope and suggestions. You are offered legitimacy in the role by the support of an international hierarchy of such counsellors, and by undertaking fixed rituals, including regular speeches. Those you are counselling come to believe that this backdrop gives you power to support and heal, to forgive and even to offer life after death. Your legitimacy is further boosted by some darker powers over anyone who does not follow some rules or your guidance. Pay and lodging is provided, and you will be well looked after even if you are unlikely to grow rich.

This is quite an interesting job description, is it not? Imagine it appearing in a local paper. Who might be interested? Who might turn out to be good at the role?

About who might be interested, on the plus side, they would likely be kind and have a benevolent wish to do good for others. The global hierarchy and the consequent possibilities for career advancement, despite that rather poor pay, might attract some of ambition, which might be good or bad. More risky is all that stuff about power – this might attract those with a need for control and who feared they might lack the skills to acquire it without the uniform or rituals.

As for who might be good, well the job would require massive patience, empathy, optimism and resilience. They must be good listeners. Some sort of psychology training would help. The empathy would be aided by a wide experience of life, suggesting people old enough to have such experience but not so old as to be out of touch. Ambition and control would need to be tempered – these people must lead through service. Like many caring and supporting jobs, on balance women might typically be better suited than men.

If might be tough, but if society decided to create such a role, maybe it could be filled by qualified candidates and do some good. But, sadly, there is more, none of it positive.

First, only men are accepted. Next, the training is long and theoretical and arduous and applicants must consider that the role is for life. The hierarchy is absolute, the doctrine restrictive, but there is almost no scrutiny from outside the hierarchy. Finally, no sex is permitted – no flirting, no masturbation, no sex at all.

Who will be interested now? Rather fewer people. And while they will still have a benevolent streak, they are far more likely to be motivated, at least in part, by the stuff about power, probably ladled with a strong fear of intimacy and the opposite sex. If recruited at thirty or below, they seem very likely to be under strong influence from a mother figure and to have some slow-developing and confused ideas abut sex and sexuality. As for whether this profile would turn out at good at the job, well, there will be some happy successes, but few would be able to overcome the handicap of lacking worldly experience, and for a minority the combination of power, absence of scrutiny and mixed up thoughts about sex could be highly dangerous.

Of course I have been trying to describe the job of Catholic priest, admittedly using corporate type language that those of a spiritual nature might dispute. But looking at it in this stripped-down, corporate way seems to me to go a long way to explain the mess the Church has got itself into, even its inevitability.

What surprises me about the most recent revelations is that anyone should be surprised. The lid was taken off this scandal years ago, and exposed further by wonderful movies such as Spotlight and Philomena. The Church responded as defensively as you would expect from an institution of such arrogance, wealth, vulnerability and freedom from external scrutiny. To its credit, it has put procedures in place to make a new generation of priests far less likely to fail.

But it was inevitable that more abuses from the past would come to light. Previous revelations required brave whistle-blowers to defeat entrenched positions so were sure to be only a tiny part of the story. Even now, there must be a lot more to follow. Why should Pennsylvania be unique? And think about a place like the Philippines, where all the temptations will have magnified and the scrutiny even less.

Only now have priests in the USA been allowed to publicly express their anger and shame, and it is to their credit that my local ones have been clear, and even cautiously proposed some controversial reforms. While I was impressed and moved by this statements, my overwhelming feeling was one of “too little, too late”. Where was the focus on victims ten years ago? Where was the urging for reform? Where was the condemnation of cover-up? It was all missing, following the lead of a callous and divided Vatican. Sadly, asking us to believe in these people to reform now is not really credible.

It is sad because the Catholic Church remains a force for good, perhaps the most effective global NGO and sometimes a stalwart for human values. Even on the values, the track record is blemished, both past and present; the Church can seem like a single-issue lobby group at times, following its prime source of money rather than its conscience. How can a Trump administration be tolerated by anyone grounded in the gospels?

So an institution providing hope and practical charity is perhaps holed below the waterline and beyond self-repair. The previous time a pope visited Ireland, 2.5 million souls turned out to greet him; last weekend the tally was 130,000. The current pope is clearly hemmed in by entrenched interests. Beyond prayer and personal advocacy, can anything be done?

I believe it is time for states to stand up to the unacceptable face of religion. Most religions have a dark side. Jews are taught to believe that they are God’s chosen people. Evangelical Christians are divisive and tribal. Radical Islam harms its own adherents, especially women, while preaching hate. Hindus perpetuate the caste system. Buddhists cheer on persecution of Rohingya. Nearly all religions hold back women’s rights, and gay rights.

The solution is obvious; end all legal carve-outs for religions. Already universal human rights declarations mandate religious tolerance. But most states actively or passively tolerate practices that would be illegal were they not based on religion. Most of the root causes of the Catholic mess would be eliminated, as would many dark effects of other religions. Yet charity, promoting respectful values, and non-abusive private rituals of hope and comfort would be supported and can continue.

The effect would be transformative. Obviously, the abuses would largely stop. But I suspect the main beneficiaries would be religions themselves. The Catholics cannot reform alone, but if forced to reform they could provide an attractive haven for recruits, both adherents and celebrants (of all genders, living healthy lives) . The same would be true of many other religions. And as individuals we would have less reason to hate others, while ignoring our own hypocrisies.

Will this happen? Not in my lifetime. But a quiet movement might create some valuable osmosis. If they are smart, reform-minded Catholics should be in the forefront. And because Christianity is the religion in most trouble and is the established religion of the rich world, perhaps that world might be able to lead.

In the meantime I will continue to attend mass and support my local churches and their leaders. I will continue to try to hold my own religion to the same human standards that I try to judge other religions by. And no doubt I will be saddened, but not remotely surprised, by the next torrent of human failing in the name of religion that hits the news.