Catholic priest's trial pains the flock
By Colin Tan

(Chris: I post this ST commentary for interest's sake. Will comment another time)

IT DOESN'T matter who is right or wrong when parents fight in front of their kids - the children suffer.

The same principle applies to the patriarchs of the Roman Catholic Church and their flock.

When parents quarrel publicly, children become anxious, feel helpless and may even feel the pressure to choose sides, say child psychologists.

In the end, the children's faith in the family is shaken and this can cause them serious emotional damage in the long term.

When an archbishop and a parish priest - both 'fathers' to their congregations - are forced to disagree publicly in court, the rest of the spiritual family is also 'damaged'.

I don't claim to be a staunch Catholic, but the ongoing case of the Church and Joachim Kang has hit me on a personal level as much as any other Catholic out there.

Catholic colleagues at work are abuzz about the case which seems to have opened a massive can of worms.

Why?

Because on an external level, it provides fodder for the scandal-hungry media.

It also gives anyone hostile to the religion enough ammunition to take pot-shots at the faith and its hapless followers, who have not called this misfortune on themselves.

Internally, it erodes the respect priests have, taints their moral authority and diminishes their potency when they preach from the pulpit.

The next time a priest steps onto the pulpit and delivers a stinging homily - what are the chances of someone sniggering in the back row?

Also, it shakes our belief that priests are somehow more pure and saintly than the rest of us mortals.

When talking to colleagues at work, the inevitability of the occasional jibe or joke about the Church says something about how our regard for it has changed so quickly.

Some may argue the public airing has to take place, because a crime has allegedly been committed. Personally, it doesn't matter to me who is right or wrong because, like the child, it would have been better if I was spared this 'loss of innocence'.

I am not advocating a cover-up the way the Church in the United States swept its child-molesting priests under the proverbial carpet. But perhaps there was a path unexplored to deal with errant priests internally, censuring them behind closed doors and even expelling them from the priesthood altogether if the situation was serious enough.

Ultimately, the case is forcing the congregation to choose sides - polarising the family.

A friend told me yesterday that her parents faced off over the dinner table over whether the whistle-blowers were right or wrong in taking the matter to the authorities instead of having it settled privately within the Church. Here was a thirty-something career woman, feeling doubly distressed because her parents fought in front of her over a court battle involving what might be called her spiritual parents.

I wonder how much more untold damage this case has caused, and will cause, at the macro level.

But all is not lost, I hope. When parents reconcile after an argument, it proves to the children that love is the basis of the relationship and that the dispute was just a pothole in the road.

Hopefully, this will also happen within the Roman Catholic Church between those involved in the current fracas, and result in the saga building up rather than tearing down the faith.


The writer is with The Straits Times' Money Desk.