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A Heart Close to Cracking: Preachers Resurrecting the Body in a Roman Catholic Crisis of Plausibility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Extract
On 6 January 2002, the Boston Globe revealed that the Archdiocese of Boston (since 1980) and its archbishop Cardinal Bernard F. Law (since 1984) had repeatedly reassigned the priest John J. Geoghan from parish to parish, in spite of numerous complaints and reports and repeated psychological treatment for sexually abusing children.1 This essay invites theological reflection on the themes of sexuality and power as they pertain to the ecclesiastical crisis that this story represents and on resurrection preaching at a time of ecclesiastical implausibility.
Sexuality, Power, and a Crisis of Plausibility
As clear as we must be that paedophilia and ephebophilia are about power (“power over”) at least as much as they are about sex, we must also be clear that the crisis of plausibility on the part of the Catholic bishops in the United States, as they presently are perceived by both civil society and the believing church, is also about power. For some twenty years, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has surrendered its internal authority to the controlling authority of the Roman Curia over a wide spectrum of issues ranging from liturgical practice, to the role of women and laity in Church governance and ministerial practice, to a Catholic understanding of sexual anthropology and theology. What twenty years ago could be characterized as a collegial relationship of priests and people with bishops might often be described today as an adversarial relationship.
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- Copyright © 2003 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1. See the Boston Globe archives at http://www. boston.com/globe/spotlight/abuse, the book by the Boston Globe Investigative Staff, Betrayal: The Crisis in the Catholic Church (New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002), and documentation from the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops at http://www.nccbuscc.org/comm/restoretrust.htm.
2. Charles Curran, “Catholic Ethics in Tension: Sexuality and Social Justice,” keynote address at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of Chicago Call to Action, 7 November 1987.
3. Dennis D. Cali, “The Posture of Presumption in John Paul II’s Veritatis Splendor,” 52, in The Journal of Communication and Religion 21: 1 (March 1998): 47-66.
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