I've been letting this issue stew in my mind for a while, ever since I wrote this post last week.  The post itself hardly amounted to anything, but the comments took on a life of their own.  Instead of trying to continue on the discussion there, I decided to stop responding to it, and give it some serious thought.  Why did I write what I did, a where does this sit within my overall view of the the church.  It took a while, until that phrase resonated very clearly for me.  "The Church".  That phrase is thrown around by Catholics so often, that it almost slips under the radar.  But what does "The Church" mean, to a Catholic, and to a non-Catholic?  And what does this have to do with the ongoing abuse scandal in the priesthood?  Of course, I've never been a member of the the Catholic Church, so take this with the appropriate grain of salt, but I've certainly known many.  For my part, my history is deeply rooted in the Congregational tradition... which should be no surprise given my strong Libertarian beliefs.  The two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

In an attempt to oversimplify the issue, I'll start with this statement.  For Protestants, "The Church" is a building, while for Catholics, "The Church" is Christianity.  This view is quite clear for any non-Catholic who has ever gone to a Catholic wedding and sat through the requisite prayer for "Christian Unity" while Catholics went for communion and the rest of us twiddled our thumbs and shook our heads.  In the view of the Catholic leadership, the Catholic Church is the one true church, while the rest of us are off on some woebegone misadventure, and eventually need to find our way home.  For them, Catholicism isn't a form of Christianity... it is Christianity... they're synonymous.  Of course, we adventurers disagree... sometimes vehemently, which is why "Christian Unity", while an interesting thought, is impossible on any structural level.  There is an old joke about how the British and Americans are a people separated by a common language.  I think the same joke could be made that Catholics and Protestants are a people separated by a common faith.

Of course you have to add the view in the media to this as well.  Whenever representatives of the Christian faith are needed to talk about something on the radio or television, it is almost guaranteed that this person will come from the Catholic Church.  Every year around Christmas, Charlie Sykes will invite someone from the Milwaukee Archdiocese (Dolan most recently) to talk about the meaning of Christmas.  Does it ever even enter his mind that there are millions of Protestants out there too?  Has he ever heard of Martin Luther?  Protestant Reformation ring a bell?  How about the fact that this country was founded by Protestants, not Catholics.  Still, to many people out there, if you don't wear a funny hat, then you must not be a Christian.  If it would make Charlie feel better next year, the Senior Minister at my church is a former monk.  Maybe that would ease the withdrawal.

And so when I hear people talk about the abuse scandals that are destroying the Catholic Church, and then say how it doesn't invalidate "The Church" or its teachings, I have a very hard time reconciling this.  It does damage the Catholic Church.  It just doesn't damage Christianity.  The lessons taught aren't "The Church's" lessons.  They are Christian lessons... "The Church" here is merely the leadership of one group of Christians.  When I read stories like this one (via Marquette Warrior), detailing the cover up and culture in the Catholic leadership that has allowed all this to happen for untold years, and to untold children, it disgusts me.  How can this not damage the Catholic Church?  And why shouldn't it?!

I can say this knowing that if anything remotely like this were to happen in my church, there would have been no cover up.  Whoever was involved would have been not only been reported to the police, but the entire Congregation would immediately gather for a meeting (as it does annually anyway to decide important church business), and the debate and discussion on action would last for hours as to what to do.  For those not satisfied with the result, they would have joined a different church.  In the Catholic Church, the leadership makes all the decisions, and the Catholic faithful are left to deal with the moral (and financial) consequences.  Changing churches doesn't exactly solve the problem either, as the leadership is all the same (see Pope).  When I have talked with Catholics about the pain they feel regarding all this, and the moral weight that they feel because of it, it pains me.  The abuse is shared even by those who weren't physically abused.  And yet they stay there, and continue to watch it happen.  To be clear, I don't place blame on the Catholic faithful.  They are not "The Church"... they are Christians just like me.

And when it comes to punishing "The Church", apparently we're not supposed to do that either.  Patrick McIlheran seems to think that the punitive damages being asked for by the victims are wrong.  After all, the abusers are a small minority of "The Church".  What is the appropriate punishment?

Personally, I think bishops who protected the abusers ought to spend their golden years in silence on their knees in a monastery somewhere, repenting, but those aren’t the usual terms of lawsuits or settlements. Big money is.

You know what I think?  I think they ought to be thrown in jail, where they can spend years in silence on their knees doing something else with their cell mates, just like those abused boys had to.  When you cover up a crime so heinous as that, and allow it to continue, you are just as guilty as the people you covered for, and deserve the same punishment.  It's called being an accessory after the fact.  "The Church" covered up those crimes.  "The Church" allowed priests to stay in a positions of power and influence so that those crimes could continue.  McIlheran is scared that all this could bankrupt the Catholic Church.  Maybe that's the point, and maybe that's not a bad thing.  Christianity will continue in thousands of churches as it always has, having learned the lesson of how centralized and secretive leadership can damage a good thing.  Good Christian works will continue as well, and millions of people will still continue to be helped by Protestant Christians throughout the world.  We will even welcome all the former Catholic faithful into our flock, as we always have.  Of course, we'll probably never see another Basilica built (as beautiful as it is), but then most Protestants never found much use for those.