|
COMMENTARY
Scandal and Conscience: Joining VOTF as an Act of Conscience
Sally Vance-Trembath, VOTF National vice president
Gaile Pohlhaus and I have been asked to serve VOTF
by offering theological reflection on a regular basis
in the Vineyard. The theme for VOTF's Spring Action
this year is the notion of conscience in Catholic theology.
Given that, and the recent excommunications" in
Nebraska, we thought it worth devoting some time to
the adjacent notion of scandal.
A well-formed conscience will use the "avoidance
of scandal" as one of its tests in making a good
decision. Scandal is one of those multi-valent words.
Like the word reception, it has a common discourse meaning
as well as a technical theological meaning. In both
its common use and its theological use, the word scandal
derives from the Greek word for "snare" or
that which causes us to trip or stumble. Theologically
it refers to those actions or failures that might damage
someone else's relationship with God. In other words,
we can "cause scandal" by our actions and
that adds another layer of gravity to a sin.
When I was invited to speak to a newly formed VOTF
group here in San Francisco by Peg and Ed Gleason, I
quickly discerned that failing to speak might damage
the faith of my students and especially of my own children.
What kind of theologian would I be if I failed to confront
this situation? In the years since then, I have always
set aside one day in my Catholicism courses to explicitly
discuss this crisis. Not to do so would be a scandal.
How?
Let us suppose that one of my Catholic students was
talking with one of her peers who is attending Santa
Clara, not because it is Catholic but because it is
a rigorous, intellectual environment. And let us further
suppose that my student is asked to say what she thinks
about pedophile priests. In her theology class, my students
should be given the tools to help her questioner understand
the situation using the same intellectual rigor that
she is asked to use in her chemistry or rhetoric class.
If I had not given my student those tools, her confidence
in the Church might appear foolish to her friend. After
just a couple conversations like that, my student's
own relationship with God might be dented. Certainly
her relationship with the Church would be. My failure
to provide her with those tools would be a significant
factor because I am responsible to both my student and
to the Church.
So relationships are at the heart of the teaching on
scandal. Just as there are people in my parish whose
relationship with God gives me life and nourishes my
own faith life, the opposite can happen as well. There
are actions that can damage the inner life of others.
I think this is what Fr. Tom Doyle means when he talks
about abuse as "soul murder".
Like so many teachings in Catholic theology, these
two aspects of scandal are two sides of the same theological
coin. Sin is ultimately damage to our relationship with
God; the absence of sin is one description of a relationship
with God in which we are able to rest and draw strength
and comfort. In this way, a scandal is a kind of assault
on our relationship with God. Because the Church is
such an intense location for our relationship with God,
our relationship with the Church often gets identified with our relationship with God. This has been one of
the enduring dangers of the Catholic way of thinking,
that is, the easy slippage towards thinking that the
Church is God's Reign on earth. It is not. However,
the Church does serve God's Reign and the Catholic Church
teaches that it is the richest servant of that Reign
available to the human community. Institutional forms
are quite secondary to the mystery of God's presence
in the whole people of God gathered in the power of
the Holy Spirit for the sake of Jesus' historic mission.
However, Catholicism claims that these institutional
forms are very important and effective. Because we are
incarnate, creatures of the real, concrete, natural
world, there are fundamentally humane ways to deepen
and nourish our work for the Reign of God.
The particular institutional forms where we exercise
Christian ministry are very powerful in the formation
of other people's faith life. They all have the same
root: Baptism. In Baptism we accept the Christian truth
claim that all our relationships of love are everlasting,
that the Creator of the Cosmos loves every person, that
God's own personal presence as Spirit is a feature of
the inner life of every person. These are the core truth
claims of Christianity. They must be at the center of
every action we take. When they are not, their absence
might be the "snare" that keeps a questioning
young person away from the Church.
The same woman who asked me to join VOTF five years
ago, Peg Gleason, has given us one of the best descriptions
of scandal that I have ever heard. She tells of raising
six children in the Viet Nam years and of marching against
Viet Nam. When she explained to her then-young children
why she marched, she said it was so they "would
never have to kill another mother's child in a war." Years
later, when she was discussing the abuse of children
by priests with her adult children, they said that when
they were younger, they had friends who were molested.
When she asked them why they did not come to her they
said that they thought that the priests were so important
to her that she might not believe what her children
had to say.
Peg says she recognized the depths of the scandal at
that moment. Why scandal? The deep respect that Peg
had developed for pastors had been turned into an obstacle
in her relationship with her children and had blocked
her ability to minister to them in the name of the Church.
The trustworthy mother with whom they could discuss
war and peace had been made unavailable to them because
peace had been made unavailable to them. They did not
trust the institutional Church. Their mother was less
credible precisely because she still placed her trust
in the Church. They could trust her to question the
government, but could not trust her to question the
Church. Because of this, their own human and legitimate
questions about the Church were called into question.
Having been formed to appropriately raise questions,
especially questions regarding justice and the dignity
of human persons, they could not give allegiance to
a Church that seemed not to allow such questioning.
And there is the heart of the scandal. The Church appeared
to value the institutional form at the expense of young
people. In so doing, the Church severed the connection
with the Reign of God; in the Reign of God, each person's
value and dignity is protected and lifted-up. Five years
later, Peg is still working for VOTF to protect children,
support priests who work for Jesus' mission and to change
the systems that protected abusers. Why does she continue?
To stop would be a scandal.
[See the VOTF
Lenten Action on Conscience on the VOTF
website.]
|
