One Senior’s Concern — A Voice From the Pews
Philip Teece, Victoria
Volume 27 Issue 10, 11 & 12 | Posted: December 12, 2013
In my 74th year, late in a lifelong commitment to my Catholic Faith, I sit in my pew in an increasingly conflicted state of mind.
I encounter the Church’s paternalistic suppression of free discussion about priestly celibacy, gender issues, the role of women in the church; I sense continually the pervasive misogyny that is deeply embedded in the institution. I observe the widespread abuse of children and dependent persons, some of it not only in the news almost daily but, most painfully, in the experiences of individuals very close to me in my own life.
In my 74th year, late in a lifelong commitment to my Catholic Faith, I sit in my pew in an increasingly conflicted state of mind.
I encounter the Church’s paternalistic suppression of free discussion about priestly celibacy, gender issues, the role of women in the church; I sense continually the pervasive misogyny that is deeply embedded in the institution. I observe the widespread abuse of children and dependent persons, some of it not only in the news almost daily but, most painfully, in the experiences of individuals very close to me in my own life.
I react with abhorrence to the worst aspect of the latter situation: the Church’s frequent treatment of the abused by denial or by the blaming of the victims themselves. A friend has described her situation in early childhood when, after her experience of clerical abuse, she met with dismissal of her plea for help by her own parents; they had been persuaded by their priest to “avoid scandal” by silencing the child.
Many of these historic (and ongoing) patterns of seemingly endemic behaviours in The Church keep a pressing question continuously in my mind: can this institution (as distinguished from us, the congregation of the Christian faithful) really be the Church of Jesus, whose central themes were Love and Truth?
I voice my distress as ‘one’ member of the faithful but I know that I am far from alone in this moral quandry. In a quick mental census of my women friends who have been raised in the Catholic Faith, almost all have left The Church.
Nevertheless I remain in the fold. My continuing presence is not because of a strong confidence in the direction or guidance of an institutional Vatican. It is an ultimate, inalienable core belief: a literal response to Christ’s invitation during the Last Supper to “do this in memory of me.” I believe that, at His Table, He is present. Lord, to whom else shall I turn?
Philip Teece, Victoria