The Templeton Foundation's Latest Article on Religious Scandals

Here's the latest reporting on Catholic scandal issues, a chatty, meandering missive by Rod Dreher of the Templeton Foundation. Excerpt:

The Church indeed survived, but only as a fragment of itself. Justified or not, the Protestant Reformation was an act of spiritual, and often physical, violence that brutally cleaved the body of Western Christendom. The causes of the Reformation are complex, but nobody can dispute that corruption among the Roman Catholic clergy, especially in the papal court, was the prime cause of the catastrophe.

This paragraph displays what I call "pop-ecclesiology". It's how secular journalists who know little about religion describe the events in church history. For example, when he writes "The Church indeed survived, but only as a fragment of itself" what does he mean by "The Church"? At first it seems like he means the Roman Catholic church, but later he clarifies by saying it was "Western Christendom" which was brutally cleaved. The implication is that the Catholic Church is just one of the broken pieces of the smashed cookie jar, albeit the largest piece. We Catholics would see it more like living branches chopped off of a living tree with strong roots and a trunk ailing from disease and weakness. I think that the orthodox Orthodox viewpoint is probably closer to that, but Rod appears to have taken off his religious hat at the moment he wrote that.

My Reformed Protestant relatives and friends would strongly disagree with the statement that "corruption among the Roman Catholic clergy...was the prime cause...." of the Protestant Reformation. To them, the rediscovery of what to them are the truths of sola scriptura and sola fide is the cause for what Luther and Calvin accomplished, and they see all the popes from shortly after the third century as corrupt heretics. They might agree that this corruption was an historical occasion of which the reformers took advantage, but to them the prime cause was one of doctrine. So the notion that nobody disputes this stated prime cause is leaving out the beliefs of many of the pieces which were broken yet have still survived the centuries. Obviously, Rod is closer to the Catholic point of view here, but one has to wonder whether the gaffe of writing "nobody can dispute" follows from a held belief that "corruption among the Roman Catholic clergy" is a prime cause of many or most of the ills in the world throughout history.

Later on in the article we get some references to the attempt being made to revitalize the Catholic church scandal in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. That paragraph is gossipy and vague, and strains to make something from an off-the-record quote from an anonymous priest-friend from New York City. Bill Donohue's reaction is much more informative and I urge everyone to read it. He doesn't hesitate to criticize the Diocese along with the media for inattention to the due process rights of the accused. So in addition to containing more facts and less insinuation, Donohue's piece seems to be more in line with the demands of the Gospel than the demands of gossip, so you can decide which line of thinking and reporting is more profitable.

Rod touches vaguely on scandals in the OCA, but probably not enough to satisfy our friend, Diane, I'm guessing. Or any of us, really. (This might be because he follows this thread quickly with another blast at the Catholic church featuring another semi-quote from a Franciscan vocations director and an obligatory mention of his "own departure from Roman Catholicism.") He mentions Metropolitan Jonah's criticism of former church leaders as having "raped the church", rhetoric that Obama may wish to consider for the 2012 presidential campaign. He pimps the new OCATruth.com site, a site in which a letter of his was recently published. The letter is a must-read, if for no other reason than the fact that he mentions a transvestite and the immortal words of Charlie Sheen in the same breath. This is done to dismiss alleged accusations that +Jonah ("Yo, Plus, whazzup?") had commissioned the aforementioned Catholic-bashing propaganda piece on Orthodoxy. Oooooooh, smell the intrigue. [Correction: The piece being discussed is a piece by Julia Duin which can be read here. Rod states that he was interviewed for the story which ran several days after his OpEd.]

So now we've seen several blasts within a month at the Catholic Church from a guy who claims that his writing is strictly monitored by his employer. Is this lashing out the product of a rigorous Orthodox lent on the disposition of someone used to gourmet food and wine? Or is Rod bashing the Catholic Church to attain respect from his fellow secular journalists? I'm just wondering.