{"id":189,"date":"2011-03-09T11:46:03","date_gmt":"2011-03-09T11:46:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/religionandpubliclife\/2011\/03\/how-to-redeem-scandal.html"},"modified":"2011-03-09T11:46:03","modified_gmt":"2011-03-09T11:46:03","slug":"how-to-redeem-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2011\/03\/how-to-redeem-scandal.html","title":{"rendered":"How to redeem scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over at DotCommonweal, the estimable Grant Gallicho takes up a cudgel<\/a>
\non behalf of the doctrine of scandal. Yes it’s true, he allows, that
\nthe doctrine has been abused by bishops to protect their own.<\/p>\n

But it is within the teaching itself that Catholics might find a way
\nthrough this slough. Because scandalizers are required to make
\nreparations for their offenses. That’s something the archbishop of
\nDublin understood when he prostrated himself in front of a bare altar
\nbefore washing the feet of abuse victims.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Fair enough: If you cause scandal you are obliged to make amends. But
\nhere’s the problem. In the course of day-to-day ecclesiastical business
\nthe issue arises when there’s a choice between revealing some bad thing
\n(and causing scandal) or not (and avoiding it). Now it could be judged
\nthat worse scandal would result if the shielding itself became public,
\nas has happened (and continues to happen, viz. Philadelphia<\/a>) in the Church’s sexual abuse crisis. <\/p>\n

But such future scandal is hypothetical, as compared to the certainty of
\nscandal if the revelation takes place now. The temptation to take one’s
\nchances with the former is all too great. Worse, the whole calculus is
\nfaulty. It makes the minimizing of scandal the key consideration. In
\nprotecting their own, the bishops were guilty first and foremost of
\nfailing to punish abuse and thereby enabling more abuse, not causing a
\ngreater scandal. <\/p>\n

Judaism–and I know some of Bill Donohue’s followers will appreciate
\nthis–itself has a doctrine similar to scandal. It’s called lashon hara<\/a> <\/i>(evil
\ntongue), and treats as a serious sin the publicizing of true
\ninformation that reflects badly on someone. Like scandal, it has given
\nreligious leaders a reason to engage<\/a> in ugly cover-ups of bad behavior
\nby clergy. <\/p>\n

But unlilke scandal, it comes with a critical exception. It does not
\napply if the information is needed to protect a third party or the
\ncommunity at large. If the doctrine of scandal were amended to include
\nsuch an exception, I’d be down with it.<\/p>\n

Update: <\/b>Here’s what a bishop (unnamed, to be sure) appointed by Pope Benedict told<\/a> Rocco in re: Philadelphia.<\/p>\n

Instead of being overly cautious to protect children from any possible
\nfurther harm and the church from further scandal, they let these guys
\nback into ministry. Now the scandal is amplified ten-fold because it
\nlooks like it is the same old church and the same old leadership doing
\nwhat it has always done in the past. \n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Not to put too fine a point on it. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at DotCommonweal, the estimable Grant Gallicho takes up a cudgel on behalf of the doctrine of scandal. Yes it’s true, he allows, that the doctrine has been abused by bishops to protect their own. But it is within the teaching itself that Catholics might find a way through this slough. Because scandalizers are required…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":222,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nHow to redeem scandal - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/2011\/03\/how-to-redeem-scandal.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to redeem scandal - Religion & Public Life With Mark Silk\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over at DotCommonweal, the estimable Grant Gallicho takes up a cudgel on behalf of the doctrine of scandal. 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After teaching at Harvard in the Department of History and Literature for three years, he became editor of the Boston Review. In 1987 he joined the staff of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he worked variously as a reporter, editorial writer and columnist. In 1996 he became the founding director of the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and in 1998 founding editor of Religion in the News, a magazine published by the Center that examines how the news media handle religious subject matter. In 2005, he was named director of the Trinity College Program on Public Values, comprising both the Greenberg Center and a new Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture directed by Barry Kosmin. In 2007, he became Professor of Religion in Public Life at the College. Professor Silk is the author of Spiritual Politics: Religion and America Since World War II and Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America. He is co-editor of Religion by Region, an eight-volume series on religion and public life in the United States, and co-author of The American Establishment, Making Capitalism Work, and One Nation Divisible: How Regional Religious Differences Shape American Politics. In 2007 he inaugurated Spiritual Politics, a blog on religion and American political culture.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/author\/msilk"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/222"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/religionandpubliclife\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}