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<\/a>I used to think how lucky I was not to have been a Catholic early in this decade, as the abuse scandal was first coming to light in Boston. Only now, it\u2019s worse, and I realize how shallow that so-called luck of mine is. Now, the daily, weekly drip, drip, drip of revelations\u2014two months ago Ireland, last month Germany, yesterday Norway\u2014is just exactly torture. And my Pope, about whom I have written so often with admiration, is right under the drain spout. What to do?<\/a>
My first inclination is to go on the defensive. As a personal witness to abuse in non-clerical situations (secular day school, prep school, ashram), I know that this is not alone a \u201cCatholic problem.\u201d I watched \u201cThe Daily Show\u201d with mounting outrage a couple of weeks back as host Jon Stewart guffawed through a seven-minute segment called HOLY SH*T about\u2014guess what. I said to myself that when Stewart runs seven minutes on abuse in the Jewish community (his culture) I\u2019ll watch the show again. It would not be politically correct to poke such \u201cfun\u201d at Jewish or Muslim communities, but the Catholic Church? The Catholic Church has a bullseye painted on her forehead.<\/p>\n
But that defensive response misses the point. And there are other ways to get lost on this issue, like leaving the Church altogether, the Protestant response. Or to leave one\u2019s body, the Buddhist<\/a> response. My dear friend Robbie shared with me a video on brain scientist Jill Bolte Taylor who is famous for describing a stroke\u2014her own\u2014from the inside out. You can check it out here. <\/p>\n http:\/\/video.ted.com\/assets\/player\/swf\/EmbedPlayer.swf<\/p>\n If you don\u2019t have time for this video, let me summarize: Taylor explains the basic differences between the left and right brain and then concludes that if only we could see the world from the timeless peace of the right brain all the time<\/i> we would never experience distress, we would never suffer. It is a Buddhist view, and one that I imagine Robbie, as peaceable a person as I know, endorses.<\/p>\n But what is a Catholic to do, and now? Part of an answer can be found at the US web site for Communion and Liberation (CL). At the head of the CL web page<\/a> you can find a link to a letter written to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica<\/i> by Fr. Juli\u00e1n Carr\u00f3n, president of the Fraternity of Communion and Liberation (pictured here). In the letter Carr\u00f3n begins by openly acknowledging the horror of the situation: <\/p>\n
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<\/a>The request to assume responsibility, the acknowledgment of the evil committed, the reprimand for the mistakes made in the handling of the affair \u2013 all of this seems to us to be totally inadequate as we face this sea of evil. Nothing seems to be enough. And so we can understand the frustrated reactions that have been coming forth at this time.<\/i><\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/_dmDaLWNETzg\/S72-jwNKj4I\/AAAAAAAABT0\/MfRC68LgFSo\/s200\/baptism.jpg\")
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