Editoriale: La Chiesa Cattolica

[...] Il Centro per le Ricerche Applicate all’Apostolato della Georgetown University afferma, che sono state chiuse circa 700 parrocchie in tutto il paese [USA] tra il 1995 e il 2007, e si prevedono ulteriori tagli. Il numero di preti e di suore continua a scendere. Nel Sud Jersey, si stima che entro il 2015 rimarranno solo 85 preti in esercizio che seguiranno 450.000 fedeli. Nei prossimi 20 anni, il numero dei preti diocesani attivi sarà dimezzato fino a toccare appena 11.500 unità. Ci sono circa 19.000 parrocchie, immaginate il grosso gap che si creerà.

La chiesa ha contributo all’evidenziarsi di questa crisi, insistendo su discipline antiche come il celibato (compreso il rifiuto di permettere ai preti di sposarsi) e la non ammissione delle donne nel clero. Nessuna di queste pratiche era contemplata da Gesù. Ci furono tradizioni locali che poi vennero tramutate in dottrina. Ora invece contribuiscono ad affossarla.

Gli scandali degli abusi sessuali hanno distrutto la fiducia nell’istituzione e nei suoi ministri. I leader ecclesiastici hanno contribuito a questo sfacelo attraverso la loro lentezza di reazione; nascondendo o minimizzando il problema oppure facendo muro. E’ vero, l’Arcidiocesi di Philadelphia ha rivisto i propri programmi di prevenzione ed assistenza alle vittime (per un totale di 144 vittime accertate), stanziando circa un milione di dollari da gennaio 2007 per la consulenza o altri servizi correlati.

Dall’altra parte, generalmente, si rifiuta di rivelare dove si trovano i preti criminali.

Ancora oggi c’è parecchia gente che ama la Chiesa Cattolica, e non parliamo solo di cattolici. Conserva una autorità acquisita nel tempo, un allineamento fedele e spesso pericoloso a presunti standard comportamentali. (C’è da restare parecchio perplessi, ad esempio pensando all’Inquisizione o a risposte ambigue riservate al Nazismo nella Seconda Guerra Mondiale).

I leader ecclesiastici regolarmente si intromettono nella politica pubblica (la pena di morte), in dibattiti di ordine etico (la ricerca sulle cellule staminali), e sulla moralità personale. Il più visibile tra i leader è ovviamente il papa, padre della chiesa.

In un mondo violento, nel degrado ambientale, nella mancanza di valori coerenti, è confortante che da qualche parte ci sia una famiglia, che ispirata dai più alti ideali di santità, cerchi di emulare quel tipo di vita diffondendo messaggi di pace, responsabilità, limpidezza morale e, soprattutto, fede.

Oggi, il dibattito (almeno sui giornali o sui media) tra credenti e non credenti infuria. Centinaia di milioni di persone nel mondo, e milioni ne verranno in futuro, crederanno in un Dio dell’Universo e in un Cristo che interviene nella storia umana per trasmettere un messaggio d’amore. E lo impareranno e lo vivranno attraverso questa chiesa.

Non c’è forse messaggio peggiore. La sfida per i cattolici resta: chi diffonderà questo messaggio e chi lo ascolterà?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080413_Editorial__The_Catholic_Church.html

(Traduzione di Stefania Salomone)

Testo originale

Editorial: The Catholic Church

Who will be left to speak and hear?


[Pope Benedict XVI’s trip to the United States marks a time of celebrations and challenges for the church.

The pope is scheduled to arrive in Washington on Tuesday, and spend three days in New York before returning to Rome. He will turn 81 on Wednesday.

Today, Cardinal Justin Rigali will mark the close of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia’s 200th anniversary celebration with a Mass at Villanova University.

The celebrations affirm the roots and impact of the church here, but also signal the challenges at hand.

The pope has a hard act to follow in John Paul II. The late pope was charismatic, assertive and beloved, and deeply influenced world affairs. Benedict, by contrast, has maintained a lower-profile, working instead behind the scenes to put his own stamp on church affairs.

In America, the church holds a puzzling position. It remains large and respected, but is withering and weathering attacks from both outside and within.

In many older, urban areas, parishes and schools are closing or merging. Bishop Joseph Galante just announced a big restructuring of the Camden Diocese that will probably close parishes in six South Jersey counties.

In Philadelphia, three Catholic parish schools in Port Richmond plan to merge into one. At the same time, the archdiocese is adapting to population shifts with plans to build two high schools in Bucks and Montgomery Counties.

Maybe the biggest challenge of all is this: What does it mean to be a Catholic in the United States of 2008?

The Catholic Church is the largest single faith in the country and in the world. Locally, as in many areas throughout the country, there are many Catholics, but too many of them no longer attend church regularly. And Catholic high schools and universities everywhere soft-pedal religion and hard-peddle "values" as a branding strategy.]

The Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate at Georgetown University says that nearly 700 parishes closed across the country from 1995 to 2007, with more cutbacks coming. The numbers of priests and sisters continue to decline. In South Jersey, it’s estimated that by 2015 there will be only 85 active priests to serve 450,000 Catholics. Nationwide, in the next 20 years, the number of active diocesan priests will drop in half to 11,500. There are about 19,000 parishes, so that translates to a huge gap.

The church has helped create this crisis by insisting on ancient disciplines such as priestly celibacy (including its refusal to allow priests to marry) and the bar against women in the clergy. None of these practices was expressly enjoined by Jesus. All were local traditions that ossified into doctrine. Now, they’re helping strangle it.

Sexual-abuse scandals have destroyed trust in the institution and its ministers. Church leaders have contributed to this fiasco in being slow to react; hiding or minimizing the problem; or stonewalling. True, the Philadelphia Archdiocese has overhauled its prevention and victim-assistance program (for a reported 144 victims), devoting $1 million since January 2007 on counseling and other services. On the other hand, generally it refuses to say where the disgraced and defrocked perps are now.

Yet many people love the Catholic Church, and not just Catholics. It retains an authority earned by long, loyal and often dangerous adherence to a high standard of belief and conduct. (There’s much to be ashamed of, too, including the Inquisition and an often ambiguous response to Nazism in World War II.)

Church leaders regularly weigh in on public policy (the death penalty), ethical debate (stem-cell research), and personal morality. Most visible of all is the pope, father of the church.

In a world of violence, environmental degradation, and lack of coherent values, it’s comforting that somewhere there’s a family that, inspired by the holiest of lives, seeks to emulate that life and spread its message of peace, responsibility, moral clarity - and above all, belief.

Today, the debate (at least in the journals and op-ed pages) between belief and unbelief rages afresh. Still, hundreds of millions all over the world, and millions and millions to come, will come to believe in a God in the universe and a Christ that intervenes in human history to spread understanding and love. And they will learn that and live that through this church.

You could have a worse message. The challenge for all Catholics, though, remains: Who will tell this message, and who will hear?

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080413_Editorial__The_Catholic_Church.html