Discussion for article #220969
“…the church must be even bolder in its efforts to protect the young…”
Protecting the vulnerable is a worthy cause. In the case of a church obsessed with children and fetuses, I’m not sure advocating boldness is the right tone. I suspect that if one were to ask the children and fetuses, they’d say something like “It would be a big help if you stayed the hell away.”
I have responded to this issue elsewhere, and won’t repeat that discussion beyond reiterating that the notion of asking for forgiveness strikes me as raising a number of questions, especially in the absence of any clear articulation of an understanding of why it might be difficult for someone we have injured to forgive us, let alone acknowledgement of the possible negative consequences of someone (especially an individual with the symbolic significance of a Pope) asking us for forgiveness when the echoes of our injury may still be playing an active and often crippling role in our experience of almost everything in our life, but most particularly impacting upon our relationship with anyone who is associated with those who have inflicted our injuries upon us.
I have no problem with someone striving to earn forgiveness, especially by seeking an understanding of the scope, depth, and other significance of the injuries they have caused to all those affected by their actions, including not just primary, but secondary, and other victims, and seeking to redress to the extent possible, those injuries. That kind of a quest can benefit everyone.
I also recognize the healing and liberating value of bestowing forgiveness upon someone who has injured us, but that has to come in the fulness of time and only after the achievement of considerable self-examination and insight into the nature of ourselves, and a clearer perspective on the nature and full significance of the injuries we have experienced. To be granted any earlier reduces the likelihood that it will be freely bestowed. And, if it is not freely bestowed, of what value is it?
But I would caution anyone to think more than twice about asking for forgiveness lest they repeat, and/or, renew injury to others, in their quest to seek benefit for themselves, and/or, those they represent. And how is that different from the original abuse?
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