SOME words to ponder in this “Year of Mercy” from an article about Spotlight, a movie about the clerical abuse scandal:

Justice in an important part of Catholic theology and ecclesiology. It is often, wrongly, defined in the popular consciousness as the opposite of mercy. In fact, in the mind of the Church they are inseparable; Thomas Aquinas defined the relationship by saying that justice without mercy is cruelty, but mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution.

The clerical sex abuse scandal was made possible because of a prevailing mentality, especially in the 1970s and 80s, that notions of crime and justice had no place in the post-Vatican II Church. The crimes of clerical abuse were labelled as “struggles with chastity” and “mental issues” and there was an entire cottage industry of therapy centres and clinics which would helpfully label the abusers as victims of their own traumas, often blaming it on the wicked institution of clerical celibacy, and then “rehabilitate” abusive priests and send them back, certified as ready for ministry. This approach, which was consciously identified as a “merciful” way of handling matters, caused a chilling illustration of what a mockery of itself mercy can become when it is uncoupled from justice.

The clerical abuse scandal arose from the liturgical desert of Modernism.

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