30th Sunday Year C - Homily 3

 Homily 3 - 2019

Over the years I have found this parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector an inexhaustible mine of unexpected meaning and insight. Of recent months, whenever I come across Pharisees or scribes in the Gospels, I see them, not so much as individuals, but as mirrors to look more closely at the religious culture in which I am immersed – specifically the clerical culture comprised of us priests and bishops, plus a big number of the people like yourselves still coming to church.

The challenge of the original parable was how to sensitise good people and help them to move from a misplaced sense of arrogant superiority and holiness to one of genuine repentance and deep trust in God. Today, as I see it, the parable’s challenge is to change the present clerical culture in the Church from one of unquestioned, complacent, blithely unrecognised and spontaneous defensiveness, symbolised by the Pharisee, to one of insight, humility and patient acceptance of the constant need for genuine, ever-deeper conversion, symbolised by the tax collector.

Since the Royal Commission finished its task, we have been made aware of the contribution of the clerical culture to a climate where both sexual abuse of minors by priests and even bishops happened, and where a consistent response of confidentiality and cover up allowed it to run rampant. The bishops as a body have accepted blame for the almost unimaginable damage done to victims of the abuse by their totally inadequate response. They had little other realistic alternative.

Meanwhile, I have complacently prided myself on my insights into the clerical culture and the need for genuine change. I have tended to associate myself quietly with the humble prayer of the tax collector. I am all for us priests praying, and being seen to be praying, “God be merciful to me, a sinner”. Then, just this week, as I was turning today’s Gospel passage over in my heart, I was shocked to realise that, if I am honest, I do not really feel myself a “sinner”, whatever I may say. In no way is my reaction that of the tax collector who “stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast ...”. I do not feel like that before God. Does that mean I am, indeed, innocent?

Certainly, I am not a pedophile. To the best of my memory, I was not aware of the abuse that was going on as it was going on; so I did not share in any cover up. Yet I was a member of the culture that contributed to the mindsets of both pedophiles and bishops. I was part of a network of relationships and mutual influence proper to all cultures. We priests rarely hold each other accountable for the decisions we make. We rarely call each other or our bishops to order for abuses of power, even when they distress us. Usually we keep quiet about each other’s inappropriate behavior. We seldom share details of our spiritual lives, even with our friends. The spiritual images of shepherd or father that we regularly cite are hardly appropriate models of institutional authority among mature adults. In a climate like that, pedophilia and cover up more easily fell under the radar and went unnoticed. We were not totally innocent.

Alongside and intermingled with individual sin and guilt there is also social sin and social guilt. Generally we have not been sensitised to social sin, yet in many ways, it can be more deeply destructive and more far-reaching. There is also a world of difference between felt remorse and rationally recognised and accepted guilt. Genuine guilt may not be felt, even for truly hurtful behaviour – yet, fortunately, when recognised and owned, even though not felt spontaneously, it can effectively move us to repentance.

Spending time quietly imagining ourselves into the hearts and minds of victims, somehow allowing ourselves to share their hurt and betrayal, while distressing, can be precious sources of energy for change.