The Reform Disaster of the Church

Nobody wants to see the Causes of the Abuse Scandal. But they can be clearly described.

By Martin Mosebach

In the wake of the never-ending crisis of child abuse in the Catholic Church, the question of underlying causes is raised  again and again. Pope Francis claims to have identified as the cause a disastrous “clericalism.”  Many bishops are convinced that the “system” of the Church fosters the abuse of children and youth by priests. Ohers would make celibacy specifically responsible.
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Clearly, it’s been forgotten that the present-day Church is no way the inflexible and fossilized monster depicted in these statements. Rather, she has undergone a revolution unprecedented in the entire history of the Church. The Second Vatican Council, that ended sixty years ago, to be sure had confirmed the external form of the hierarchy – the direction of the Church by the pope and the bishops – just as it did the traditional faith of the Church. At the same time, however, it launched a development that indeed “left no stone standing.”  The face of the Church in these sixty years has been transformed beyond recognition. Moreover, these changes are not yet at an end. For a long time now this process has in truth become  unmanageable because the structures of obedience have largely collapsed in the post-conciliar Church.

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If I’m not completely mistaken, a high percentage of the abuse cases have been recorded in the years since the Council. Whoever seriously wants to seek the causes of the catastrophe that grew and grew at that time must also consider the “when”  – the years following the “new Pentecost” of Vatican II.

Such an investigation cannot be expected of the hierarchy. For by the canonization of the two conciliar Popes John XXIII and Paul VI the Council has likewise been canonized. Even Benedict XVI,  who has commented on the abuse scandals from his retirement retreat, did not dare to touch on the role that the post-conciliar developments played in them.  …  He only pointed out that this period coincided with revolts of 1968……What he didn’t mention was the condition in which the clergy found itself by reason of the post-conciliar breakdown just as the influence of that political revolt began to take effect.

In retrospect the disaster was precisely here. The hollowing out of all authority and the sexual revolution struck a priesthood from which had been removed all elements working to preserve its discipline. Literally from one day to the next the order was overthrown that up till then had molded the daily life of a priest.
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None of the recent popes resisted this erosion of the Catholic priesthood even though they proclaimed otherwise ex cathedra. I am not asserting that a priest of the “classical tradition” cannot be the perpetrator of a sexual crime – these have occurred at all times even in the strictest observance. Certainly, however,  a priest embedded in the traditional discipline had an easier time mastering his temptations. Therefore the Roman assertion that pedophile crimes are a consequence of “clericalism” is absolutely grotesque – the opposite is true. It was the post-conciliar anticlericalism within the Church, which denied the special sacramental status of the priest, that kicked away the important supports which enabled priests to remain faithful to their vows. 
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We cannot forget that the concept “reform,” so well established in the history of the Church, had,  until Vatican II, signified the restoration of discipline, a tightening of the leash, the end of sloppiness and a return to traditional order. The “reforms” of the Second Vatican Council are the first in the entire history of the Church which departed from this understanding. They no longer trusted tradition to reach the men of today and therefore relied on a general softening of doctrine and practice –  without being able, however,  by this pastoral relativism to retain people in the Church. After all, it was not a Church, ossified in her rites and petrified in doctrine, which lost  the faithful in an ever-increasing stream but a Church weakened in doctrine and formless in liturgy. It wasn’t priests broken under the yoke of rules alien to everyday life who became the perpetrators of abuse but those who for decades had been released from clear spiritual supervision.

Partial translation of Mosebach, Martin, “Das Reformdesaster der Kirche,” Neue Zürcher Zeitung (02/09/2022)