Fiat justitia ruat caelum

Since the Pennsylvania report dropped, I've had something running on repeat in my mind, "Fiat justitia ruat caelum."  Let justice be done, though the Heavens fall.  Perhaps most famously used by the judge who ended up declaring chattel slavery illegal in England, this seems to sum things up right now. 

A darkness covered up across seven decades has been exposed to the light, and those who claim to be bastions of faith and defenders of the light have stepped forward to justify it, "it was a different time, there were different norms then."  "To question the Church is to be hasty in putting your soul at risk."  "Why should we care, it happened decades ago?"  "This is only being brought forward now to defame the Church, Donald Trump, and the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court." "What about the public schools?"  "What about?"  Soviet style whataboutism is the order of the few weeks it seems sadly.

Likewise, Bishops have been swift to blame homosexuality and EWTN presenters pontificate about a "homosexual culture" in relation to the Novus Ordo Mass.  They've called us, as a church, to repent and pray and the hashtag #SackclothAndAshes has been all the rage.  Pope Francis has issued what sounds suspiciously like the Republican Party's "very disturbing" rejoinder that now gets mocked, and has called for our fasting and thoughts and prayers.  One video a person sent me to, saying it saved his faith, and the first few minutes of it was a priest saying that he couldn't condemn those who committed these vile acts, because it would be virtue signaling!

It would be one thing if this were a one off event, but it's not, it was a systemic coverup with a playbook on how to do so for over seven decades.  It's also far from alone.  The Church has paid out between $2 billion and $4 billion since the 1990s over sexual abuse scandals being finally recognized, and the coverups of them.  Thousands, more likely tens of thousands, of children have been harmed, many of them raped.  And it breaks my heart.

I've read the report.  Not summaries, but the report.  Rapes, making child pornography on church property, entire rings of pedophile priests acting in concert and sharing intelligence and marking victims, violations with crucifixes, abortion, forced fraudulent marriages, shifting around of offenders...and redactions due to ongoing litigation.  The Bishop of when I was in graduate school, had his name redacted.  The Bishop in the diocese next door to there was listed numerous times.  One priest, before my birth, was shuffled from the diocese to my home church, decades before I was born, in another state.  And recently, I re-read an old article about how New York's Catholic Bishops spent over a million dollars to fight expanding the time child sexual abuse victims could report the crime and seek compensation!  Led by none other than Cardinal Timothy Dolan at that; who was promoted after his financial acumen in trying to hide tens of millions from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in a cemetery fund so he wouldn't have to use it to pay sexual abuse victims.

In the Gospel of Saint Matthew (16:18), Christ says, "and I tell you that are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church, and the gates of Hell will not overcome it."  This is the verse that as Catholics we believe, shows Saint Peter to be the first Pope.  I've seen people invoke this promise time and again since the report was made public. 

Fair enough...except the Church is not the hierarchy.  Strip the Bishops and priests who have committed these actions or who have covered them up, of their priesthood.  Cast them out of the Catholic Church and turn them over to secular authorities, at least those whose crimes can still be prosecuted due to statutes of limitations not having run out.  Take actual action.  The Epistle of Saint James (2:26) states, "For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also."  Thoughts and prayers are not enough, fasting is not enough, the Church must take action.

The gates of Hell may not overwhelm it, but so many will walk away from the faith if action isn't taken.  Worse than than that though; more children will suffer.  The culture of the cover up pervades the Church now, and it will continue onward if action is not taken.  A failure to act now is to be complicit in every child who is harmed, every crime which is yet to come.  And if that brings the Church to her knees, then fiat justitia ruat caelum.  The Church needs to trust in Christ's promise and the only way to do so and do the right thing is to clean house.