By Valson Thampu
Former principal of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi
Former principal of St Stephen’s College, New Delhi
Email: vthampu@gmail.com
Pope Francis began well by acknowledging that the
sexual abuse of nuns and children was rampant among priests and bishops. A vast
number of nuns, he said, were condemned to live like sex-slaves. These abused
nuns suffer in silence because they ‘fear retaliation’, which also means they
fear for their life in case they resisted. They are, he said, brainwashed into
submitting themselves to ‘religious authorities’. The prospect of resisting
them or exposing them in public terrifies them. The Pope said that the time to
eradicate this atrocity had come.
So far, so good. But there is a worrisome note in what
the Pope said thereafter. “Behind this, there is Satan”. He added, “In these
painful cases I see the hand of evil that does not spare even the innocence of
the little ones.” This takes the sting out of the Pope’s forthright stand
earlier. If Satan is the real villain, redressal recedes to the intractable
realm of the supernatural.
The problem in expecting solutions to emerge from a
distance or from cosmic sources is that it blinds us to what we can do for
ourselves. The solutions for all of our problems are within our own reach,
provided we care and dare to do what we can. By expecting solutions for local
problems to be supplied from afar, we prove ourselves unworthy of remedies. We
prove ourselves deserving of nothing other than the present swamp of
degradation, if we are content to stay acquiescent in the status quo.
The Pope’s transference of responsibility to Satan
means, in ecclesial lingo, something like, “The real culprit is not priests or
bishops. Left to themselves, the poor guys would be harmless. But Satan will
not let them be. He stands breathing down over them. So, how can they, poor
souls, help being what they are?” Significantly, the Pope does not say why
Satan should be so intimate with them. Or, why the said Satan should have greater
authority over them than God or himself. That’s why Christians need to think
remedies afresh and do what they can locally. I outline below a practical
strategy to that end.
The first part of the strategy is derived from Jesus’s
condemnation of priests as hypocrites. A hypocrite—going by the Greek root of
that word—is an actor. Believers in all religions need to realize that priests
are no more than ‘actors’. Their job is to keep a show going. The more
consummate an actor a priest is, the better his prospects and the higher he
ascends.
Actors go on with the show on the stage of organised
religion only because the audience is passive and complicit. The moment those
among the audience begin to get up and question the actions, the show screeches
to a stop. A single spectator in a theatre becomes more powerful than all the
actors on the stage when he refuses to swallow the make-believe unfurled before
him. Christians must know that the invincibility of the church hierarchy is an
illusion sustained by the ‘willing suspension of disbelief’ on their part. Just
stand up and ask a few questions in the interest of truth and justice. Do that,
and see for yourself the reformative power sleeping under your tongue.
The second part of the strategy is illustrated best by
the sphere of art. Assume that a classical painting—say by Leonardo da
Vinci—hangs on a wall. You walk past it. Someone spots it and says, “Don’t you
realise that it is a Da Vinci piece? It’s worth twenty million dollars, you
know?” You stop at once, overawed; even if you still understand nothing of its
merits. What has effected the difference is the “aura” created around the
painting. From that moment onwards, you will respond to its aura, and not to
the paining per se.
This is exactly what happens in religion. An aura is
conjured up about priests and bishops. The aura prevents us from responding
factually and rationally to them. It doesn’t matter to us what they are. Only
the aura matters. The comically ostentatious and quaintly anachronistic
costumes worn by priests, the titles they flaunt—Right Reverend, Most Reverend,
Holy Father, etc.—and fanciful claims like ‘Apostolic succession,’ ‘spiritual
anointing’ are all meant to conjure up an aura. This aura is a lie. Truth needs
no aura; falsehood does. What needs ornamentation cannot be genuine. Christians
would do their daughters and sisters minimum justice by debunking this
deceptive aura, and cracking the mask behind which the predator lurks.
The third part of the strategy is purely biblical.
Treat the vile as contemptible, says the Bible. The frightening reality is that
even after the criminals who pass for priests and bishops are exposed for what
they are, they continue to enjoy reverence in the faith community. This is
abominable. So long as Christians remain too cowardly to call a wolf a wolf,
the masked rapists and paedophiles will continue to ply their hobby—the
chase—as aristocrats used to in feudal times. Frankly, many of the modern-day
priests are feudal overlords, who refuse to reckon that times have changed.
They will change if the laity would dare to shout out the truth, like the
little boy did in Anderson’s tale, “The Emperor is naked”.
So, unlike Pope Francis, I’d spare Satan. I see, in
Satan’s place, the brainwashed, credulous laity lying prostrate before the
predators. The present abominable state of affairs will surely change; provided
the laity rises up. Till they do, they remain complicit in perpetuating the
atrocities that their hearts condemn and their souls abhor.
The problem in expecting solutions
to emerge from a distance or from cosmic sources is that it blinds us to what
we can do for ourselves.
http://www.newindianexpress.com/opinions/2019/mar/03/priest-predators-wholl-bell-thecat-1946000.html
Published: 03rd March 2019 04:00 AM |
Last Updated: 03rd March 2019 08:46 AM
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