Today Archbishop Vincent Nichols is being installed as the 11th Archbishop of Westminster and a warm congratulations and affectionate prayers go out to him on this day and for the future. May God give him the wisdom to lead and guide the Church in all the days ahead of him! Today you can watch his instillation service on BBC 2 and if you want to listen to his homily from Solemn Vespers yesterday at the Cathedral you can follow the link. You can listen to a wonderful interview here.
Thursday, 21 May 2009
Congratulations to Archbishop Vincent Nichols
Today Archbishop Vincent Nichols is being installed as the 11th Archbishop of Westminster and a warm congratulations and affectionate prayers go out to him on this day and for the future. May God give him the wisdom to lead and guide the Church in all the days ahead of him! Today you can watch his instillation service on BBC 2 and if you want to listen to his homily from Solemn Vespers yesterday at the Cathedral you can follow the link. You can listen to a wonderful interview here.
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6 comments:
Well, the RC Archbishop of Dublin doesn't share your enthusiasm. Witness his crisp repudiation of Nichols' disgraceful comments on the abuse of children by RC priests.
We lose the Archbishop of our diocese, only to have him lead the Catholic Church in England in Wales, and that is no bad thing.
May God Bless Archbishop Vincent and pour out his grace upon him.
And thank you for this post.
I'd like to take up John's point about Nichols' comments on the abuse of children by RC priests. As I understand it, the criticism centres around Nichols' statement that:
“I think of those in religious orders and some of the clergy in Dublin who have to face these facts from their past which instinctively and quite naturally they’d rather not look at. That takes courage, and also we shouldn’t forget that this account today will also overshadow all of the good that they also did.”
This seems to have provoked public anger of the basis that the priests who committed the abuse should be considered 'evil' (I think I read that was someone's comment in the Guardian), that uncompromising condemnation of the priests is the only valid response to their crimes, and that any response that shows compassion towards the abusive priests is betraying the victims. But is this true? As Christians, we believe that all people (ourselves included) are capable of evil actions, but we also believe that every person is created by God and ultimately redeemable - that no one is outside God's power. If there are priests who are genuinely facing up to the evils they have committed, isn't recognising that courage a more Christian response than outright condemnation of the person as well as the crime? Furthermore, isn't the awareness of contrition and repentance on the part of the priests more likely to be of help to the victims than the idea that the priests are absolutely demonic and evil and can never begin to appreciate the pain they have caused? My own experience of abuse is minor compared to that of many of the people who have come forward in relation to the Irish priests - but my experience is that recognising common humanity, and knowing that the person has faced up to what they have done, leads ultimately to a greater degree of liberation than simply focusing on the perpetrator's evilness and non-repentance.
Thoughts?
Anon, I think that is right. The crimes are terrible and it is right for those who did them to face up to how serious it is. What you are talking about is what JPII did when he spoke to the man who attempted to take his life. It is the courage of someone like my aunt facing her rapist in Taiwan and telling him about the love of Jesus before he was to be put to death for raping numerous women. It's called loving both victim and perpetrator.
I think we agree in spirit... the only clarification I would add is that the courage I was speaking of (and, if I understand him right, Nichols was speaking of) is the courage of the priests in facing up to what they have done, not the courage of the victims in speaking to the perpetrators (that would be courageous too, but it wasn't part of the report). That the priests are facing up to their abusiveness doesn't undo all the harm they have done - but recognising that some are facing what they have done in the past with painful honesty is surely not only a sign of their renewal as people, but, I think, must ultimately be healing for the victims themselves.
Yes, we are saying the same thing.
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