The scandal of sexual abuse by members of the Catholic clergy, the diminishing number of priests and an overemphasis on professionalism may be coloring how the leaders of religious orders think about the priesthood, said Archbishop-designate Joseph W. Tobin (pictured), a Redemptorist from the United States recently appointed secretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. He was speaking in Long Beach, Calif., at the annual assembly of the Conference of Major Superiors of Men on Aug. 7. Clerical sexual abuse has provoked repugnance throughout the church and has led some people to see religious leaders as hypocritical and arrogant, Archbishop-designate Tobin said. As a counterforce, he suggested that the priests recall the healing of the deaf man in the seventh chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The story placed Jesus in a “religious and social no-man’s land, a place where pious Jews would not be comfortable.” He said, “The place for consecrated people today is the space where people are excluded from their full dignity as sons and daughters of God.”
Move Ministries to the Margins
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
The U.S.C.C.B. said it would not renew its cooperative agreements with the federal government related to children’s services and refugee support after its longstanding partnerships with the government in those areas became “untenable.”
To Andriy Zelinskyy, S.J., “Victory is creating a society where a person feels their freedom and dignity, and where a human being remains a human being.”
Returning to “Preach” for the second time this Lent, Professor Johnson joins host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to discuss the Passion narratives in both Luke and John, heard during the principal liturgies of Holy Week.
An Oklahoma man charged Friday with first-degree murder in the fatal shooting of a Catholic priest wrote letters to a newspaper railing against the Catholic Church reforms of Vatican II and referring to a “strange new version of ‘Catholicism.’”