I was unaware of the existence of Global Catholic prior to reading a post by Peter Johnstone in the Australian Catholics Facebook group. The site claims to offer “insightful commentaries and diligent analyses of global events through a Catholic lens, from a distinguished team of writers.” Articles on the site appear to span news from the Vatican and informed commentary with a daily email newsletter.

The article flagged in the Facebook post was Unfinished business of the Catholic Church by David Timbs, an Australian scripture scholar. It begins by quoting Pope Pius X in Vehementer Nos (1906) declaring that the “Church is essentially an unequal society…the Pastors and the flock… the one duty of the multitude is to allow themselves to be led, and, like a docile flock, to follow the Pastors.” I had not seen that previously; now that I have, the oft-quoted maxim, “pray, pay, and obey”, strikes me as one expression of the sentiment that has persisted. Unfortunately, that sentiment appears to have become deeply embedded in the psyche of many lay Catholics. Even now, perhaps through a combination of that conditioning and comfortable laziness, most Catholics seem content to sit back and let the clergy dictate.

Timbs argues that the clericalism promoted by Pope Pius X “has been a key contributor to the catastrophe of clerical child sexual abuse (CCSA) and the subsequent cover-ups.” He goes on to quote Norwegian Bishop, Erik Varden, saying in a Lenten retreat for Pope Leo that the, “worst crisis of the Church has been brought on, not by secular opposition, but by ecclesiastical corruption.”

In his conclusion, Timbs suggests that it is time for the Australian Bishops to follow the lead of the French and Peruvian bishops by begging forgiveness from victims and families. Only by accepting the failure of clericalism as a distortion of what the Church should be and accepting the need for all to play an active role will we find a way forward through synodality.