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His Lordship Bishop Camillo Ballin, MCCI, replies to The Catholic Church: Model of Charity and Justice
I read with great interest what Shamael Al-Sharikh published in Kuwait Times on Tuesday, July 17, 2007, p. 2 under the title: Giving Christianity a bad name.
I regret that Ms Shamael wants to generalize a problem which has already received a large coverage in the mass media. As Bishop and Pastor of the Catholic Church, I think that the best way of dealing with the many problems we are facing in our sick and “globalized society" today should be a common effort to make a sincere "radiography" of the entire situation in which we are moving. As members of this society (human family), sharing together many values and principles, we have such a historical responsibility in front of God and for the generations to come. We must come together and be united through a constructive dialogue and mutual understanding.
I can assure that the Catholic Church always stands for charity and justice in all its efforts to "cure" the mistakes made by some of her priests. We have to consider that candidates to the priesthood are taken from the society of today. With the break of so many families, some, even with the best intentions, present themselves with emotional or even psychological baggage yet unknown to themselves much less to their Bishops. It is from this kind of society that people present themselves to become priests. Of course, the training before the priestly ordination is long and usually well followed by the Bishops. But it may happen that not everything, even in the formation of the aspirants, goes well, like in every human institution. Young men who had not to become priests, for insufficient care from the persons in charge, they became priests, with the known results. But we cannot generalize. We must not forget the many hundreds of thousand of Catholic priests in the world who live a blameless life, totally dedicated to God and to their flock with a pure heart and an innocent behavior.
I would like to clarify also that it is not true that in the Catholic Church a priest cannot get married. It is only in the Roman Catholic Church (called also “Latin Church” from its official language, Latin) that a priest is required to remain single. The Oriental Catholic Churches (which form with the Roman Catholic Church the One, Catholic and Apostolic Church) maintain their tradition to admit to priesthood married men and they are true priests like those of the Roman Catholic Church. However, celibacy is taken into a so great esteem from both the Oriental Orthodox and Catholic Churches that no one accepts to have as Bishops married priests. In every Catholic and Orthodox Church the Bishop must be unmarried. Besides that, all the Catholic and Orthodox Churches consider the priestly ordination the last “marriage”. If a married priest becomes a widower, he cannot get married again, he has to remain single because his priestly ordination was his definitive marriage to his definitive bride, the Church.
The Roman Catholic Church demands from its priests a complete configuration to Jesus Christ who was not married because He wanted to belong completely and only to God. His Holiness the Pope Benedict XVI wrote on this subject: The choice of celibacy on the part of the priest expresses in a special way the dedication which conforms him to Christ and his exclusive offering of himself for the Kingdom of God. The fact that Christ himself, the eternal priest, lived his mission even to the sacrifice of the Cross in the state of virginity constitutes the sure point of reference for understanding the meaning of the tradition of the Latin Church (Roman Catholic Church). It is not sufficient to understand priestly celibacy in purely functional terms. Celibacy is really a special way of conforming oneself to Christ’s own way of life. This choice has first and foremost a nuptial meaning; it is a profound identification with the heart of Christ the Bridegroom who gives his life for his Bride (The Sacrament of Charity, no. 24).
The target, to imitate so nearly Jesus Christ, is high, so we have not to be scandalized if some priests, who entered into priesthood with their unresolved emotional or psychological baggage and their own personal and free decision, for reasons that often even they cannot explain completely, abandon themselves to a kind of life which takes them gradually to look for compensation in sin. Familiar, social and personal causes are normally there all together.
Ms Shamael writes that “documents revealed that many of the priests were allowed to practice preaching, even after the first victims came out in public”. What has a Bishop to do with a priest who fell in this problem? To recognize the big mistake is the first step, then he has to follow both the priest and the victim: the former to be helped by a psychologist or a psychiatrist (whose suggestions he should follow), the latter to be compensated. I know personally cases in which the Bishop suspended his priest from ministry immediately as he knew the fact (and it had happened only once), other cases in which the Bishop sent immediately his request to the Holy See (The Pope) asking for a perpetual suspension of the priest even though the priest had not applied for that. We know that the Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI strongly affirmed that in that matter tolerance must be zero! Are there Bishops who neglected their duty? Well, this is not a problem of the Catholic Church as such but of very few Bishops who treated their cases with superficiality. Does this happen only in the Catholic Church or also in other institutions?
However, not one Bishop hid himself and the fact that some Catholic Churches went bankrupt in order to compensate the victims means that the Catholic Church has an immense esteem of charity and justice, it is a model of justice. How many other institutions dragged trials for years and years denying everything or omitting many things with the only purpose to avoid payment? The Catholic Church didn’t. A Diocese does not have infinite financial resources and when a Bishop is ready to pay all what his Church has to compensate the victims, this means that all the other initiatives in favor of all the other faithful are hung. To bestow a privilege to the victims even at the expenses of all the other people of the Diocese is a strong sign of justice. Yes, it is a model of charity and justice!
Ms Shamael also wrote about another sensitive issue: the relation between the Catholic Church and the care of the poor which is recommended in the Bible and has been an important matter for the Catholic Church especially in the last two centuries. She is astonished that Bishop Fernando Lugo, whose program is to help the poor, has been prohibited by the Pope from running for presidential elections in Paraguay.
Pope Benedict XVI wrote: The love of neighbor, grounded in the love of God, is first and foremost a responsibility for each individual member of the faithful, but it is also a responsibility for the entire ecclesial community at every level … love for widows and orphans, prisoners, and the sick and needy of every kind, is as essential to the Church as the ministry of the Sacraments and preaching of the Gospel. The Church cannot neglect the service of charity any more than she can neglect the Sacraments and the Word (God is love, no. 20 and no. 22). But this does not mean that the Church has to enter into politics. A Bishop is for all the people, not only for a group of them. Therefore, he has to preach the Gospel to all those who are involved in the running of the State. All the political parties claim that their purpose is to help the needy and to renovate the country. So, to take a stand in favor of one political party, or of a particular coalition, means to be against the others, which is not the ministry of a Bishop or of a priest.
The Pope refused that Bishop Fernando Lugo return definitely to laic condition, which is the extreme measure the Vatican takes for very particular cases, and he told him that the Episcopacy is a free decision accepted forever. As Bishop Lugo decided to work in the political field, he has been suspended from his ministry: he cannot act as Bishop, nor as priest, as long as he is involved in politics. So, it is not correct to write that he maintains his position as bishop. The Church wants to be faithful to God, then she has to be faithful to her spiritual mission and her love towards all the people in the history of the world.
Kuwait City, 24 July 2007
Shamael Al-Sharikh's article: "Giving Christianity A Bad Name"
published in Kuwait Times on Tuesday, July 17, 2007
+ Camillo Ballin
Bishop of the Catholic Church in Kuwait
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