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rfmcdonaldAs I walk home from another enjoyable and mysteriously meaningful church service earlier today, carefully holding the coffee cake and nectarine jelly that I bought at the bake sale, I considered how lucky I was to attend a congregation in a denomination that I had no problems with: no homophobia or gender bias of especial note, no exclusiveness, certainly none of the anti-intellectualism that would prompt me to flee. I'm lucky.
Right now in Canada, the biggest scandal in organized religion involves Raymond Lahey, a priest and former bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish in northern Nova Scotia who was found, during the sort of random check that Canada Customs performs on single men returning from Thailand, to have a laptop full of child pornography. He disappeared before surrendering himself to police, resigned, and is now in an Ottawa monastery awaiting trial. The information that has come out of the case is dire and jaw-dropping, with news that the Church knew as early as 1989 that he had shown pornography to a teenage boy, more reopening its files on the rape- and abuse-filled Mount Cashel Orphanage (apparently Lahey hadn't been investigated because there were too many cases on the go and showing teenagers porn wasn't actually illegal), and a report that one of Lahey's files featured a naked boy wearing only rosary beads. Did I mention that in August, Lahey approved a multi-million dollar settlement between the Church and abuse victims?
It's a horror. Parishoners in his former diocese and abuse victims have been quoted as saying that this rocks their faith. This event likely has ramifications stretching across Canada, as Roman Catholics react to yet another abuse scandal. (Even if he didn't do anything in Canada, why would he have gone to Thailand?) The overwhelming majority of Catholic priests, of course, aren't abusers, but the higher moral standard expected of these officials makes these violations all the more appalling, to say nothing of the hierarchy's documented complicity in many of these cases. I know of people who left the Church because of abuse in the past; I'm sure more people will leave in the future.
Faith is important to very many people, the overwhelming majority of people around the world, in fact, but even though faith is supposed to be immune to worldly conditions it most certainly is affected. An individual's faith can be weakened by proof that the figures of authority are behaving in criminal way, for instance. Other reasons are as various as the treatment of women and queers, the relationship to other denominations and other religions, the openness of the hierarchy to peoples' voices, the relationship to science and rationality, the existence of a community, the importance of faith versus good works, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What made me leave Trinity United Church, with my sister and mother, was the realization that we were getting nothing out of a church that didn't bother to engage its members.
This brings me to my Sunday [FORUM] question. Many of the people reading this, on Livejournal or on Facebook, are either religious to one degree or another, or have been religious. What would it take to make you break from your faith? What did make you break from your faith? Is the break permanent?
Right now in Canada, the biggest scandal in organized religion involves Raymond Lahey, a priest and former bishop of the Diocese of Antigonish in northern Nova Scotia who was found, during the sort of random check that Canada Customs performs on single men returning from Thailand, to have a laptop full of child pornography. He disappeared before surrendering himself to police, resigned, and is now in an Ottawa monastery awaiting trial. The information that has come out of the case is dire and jaw-dropping, with news that the Church knew as early as 1989 that he had shown pornography to a teenage boy, more reopening its files on the rape- and abuse-filled Mount Cashel Orphanage (apparently Lahey hadn't been investigated because there were too many cases on the go and showing teenagers porn wasn't actually illegal), and a report that one of Lahey's files featured a naked boy wearing only rosary beads. Did I mention that in August, Lahey approved a multi-million dollar settlement between the Church and abuse victims?
It's a horror. Parishoners in his former diocese and abuse victims have been quoted as saying that this rocks their faith. This event likely has ramifications stretching across Canada, as Roman Catholics react to yet another abuse scandal. (Even if he didn't do anything in Canada, why would he have gone to Thailand?) The overwhelming majority of Catholic priests, of course, aren't abusers, but the higher moral standard expected of these officials makes these violations all the more appalling, to say nothing of the hierarchy's documented complicity in many of these cases. I know of people who left the Church because of abuse in the past; I'm sure more people will leave in the future.
Faith is important to very many people, the overwhelming majority of people around the world, in fact, but even though faith is supposed to be immune to worldly conditions it most certainly is affected. An individual's faith can be weakened by proof that the figures of authority are behaving in criminal way, for instance. Other reasons are as various as the treatment of women and queers, the relationship to other denominations and other religions, the openness of the hierarchy to peoples' voices, the relationship to science and rationality, the existence of a community, the importance of faith versus good works, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. What made me leave Trinity United Church, with my sister and mother, was the realization that we were getting nothing out of a church that didn't bother to engage its members.
This brings me to my Sunday [FORUM] question. Many of the people reading this, on Livejournal or on Facebook, are either religious to one degree or another, or have been religious. What would it take to make you break from your faith? What did make you break from your faith? Is the break permanent?
