Since I first heard about it several days ago, I have been waiting for the recent update from the Vatican regarding the canonical directives for handling cases of sexual abuse by clergy. Today, July 15, a document outlining the new “substantive norms” for dealing with “delicta graviora” (very serious offenses) has been released. Among the changes relevant to clerical sexual crimes are the extension of the ‘statute of limitations’ on investigating and punishing such offenses from ten to twenty years, the inclusion of viewing or possessing child pornography as a form of child sexual exploitation, and a reference to the sexual abuse of the mentally disabled. The official line from the Vatican is that the document will streamline the administration of disciplinary measures against such crimes in the future. It remains to be seen if these words on a page have any real effect in the way the Vatican responds to concrete situations. I pray they do.

Yet my occasion for writing is not really to talk about what the document says about sexual abuse. The Vatican has also taken the opportunity to use this update of canon law to strengthen its disciplinary abilities in other areas as well. This is what really got my goat. Alongside child porn and predatory sexual violation, the document, seemingly in the same breath, goes on to list the similarly heinous acts of… wait for it… being an ordained woman or participating in the ordination of a woman. If you’re like me, your first reaction to that is “What the… ??!!” The document has received perhaps even more attention for this curious inclusion than it has for what it says or doesn’t say about its presumed primary target – i.e sexual abuse. Much of the criticism has come, understandably, from Roman Catholic women seeking ordination, from women who have been ordained in churches and ecclesial communities outside of full communion with Rome, or from other members of the Church (myself included) who have devoted themselves to the support this cause.

I am not a woman. What’s more, I have never received a vocation to ordained Christian ministry. As such, I cannot fully understand what it feels like to read a text which comes across as suggesting that your act of following and obeying what you have discerned to be a call from God is understood by some who hold office in Christ’s Church to be something equivalent to child molestation. For these women, hurt and anger are certainly understandable feelings to have.

Those who know me will know I have something of a habit of apologizing for Rome. It is not always easy to do. But usually, once I’ve cooled off a little, I just can’t help myself in trying to clean up the mess. Therefore, despite my deep sympathy and without wanting to diminish the justifiable emotional outrage which this feature of the document has caused for many of my sisters in Christ, I do believe that it is important to clarify something about the text under discussion, and to offer some additional words of pastoral instruction which originate from the very same source. Perhaps doing so may calm the storm just a little (but hopefully not too much).

The first thing to recognize is what the document actually says. One thing that has not been sufficiently noted by critics (I missed it myself the first time) is that the document does in fact distinguish between different kinds of “delicta graviora.” This is important. There appear to be basically two types: those concerning the appropriate celebration of the sacraments, and those concerning moral conduct. I certainly agree it is terrible form to discuss both things side by side in the same document without stating the difference clearly. Even more seriously, it gives the impression of minimizing the singular evil that is sexual abuse. However, I think being aware of this categorical distinction makes it clear that the Vatican certainly isn’t of the opinion that the rape of a child or the ordination of a woman are of the same degree of seriousness. Gross immorality is of a dramatically different category of gravity than an “improper” celebration of a sacrament. It is no secret that Rome currently teaches that a woman cannot hold the office of priest. As such, celebrating the sacrament of ordination in the life of a woman, in the official opinion of that Christian communion, is illicit. A bishop may view this to be a serious transgression of Church canon, but it is a far cry from the sexual violation of the most vulnerable members of Christ’s body by a minister who sacramentally stands in persona Christi. The Vatican has failed to state this distinction as clearly as it should have, but I think it is clear that it does understand it.

Something else that needs to be highlighted at a time like this is what the Catholic Church (and what many other Christian Churches and ecclesial communities each in their own ways) teaches about the responsibility of voicing disapproval of Church teaching, and of the place of conscience in the Christian life and decision making. A couple of brief quotations will say it better than I ever could: “Criticism of papal declarations will be possible and necessary to the degree that they do not correspond with Scripture and the Creed, that is, with the belief of the Church. Where there is neither unanimity in the Church nor clear testimony of the sources, then no binding decision is possible; if one is formally made, then its preconditions are lacking, and therefore the question of its legitimacy must be raised.” Likewise the following: “Over the pope as the expression of the binding claim of ecclesiastical authority there still stands one’s own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, if necessary even against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. Conscience confronts [the individual] with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official church.” These words are those of no less a Roman authority than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. While they do not promise an easy path for those whose journey of faithfulness to Christ takes them down this road, perhaps they can offer the called Catholic laywoman or the female Anglican priest a measure of consolation. Such is my hope.

When reading official Church documents and announcements it is very easy to find fault. It is even easier to get angry. Sometimes these are exactly the reactions that are called for. Christian women who are offended by this document have the right to be offended. But I think a careful reading – along with a little supplementation – can help to mitigate the damage. At the very least, I think it can help focus the criticism in the right direction. May God give us the courage and the humility to speak the truth in love, even (especially?) when with speaking to the Vatican.

This is a version of a famous icon of the reconciliation of St. Peter and St. Paul (Acts 15). It is one of my favorites. I have it up in my office and it often inspires my academic and personal work in the area of ecumenism. But notice how in this version Peter has been damaged. Anyone who has followed the news the last couple weeks will be well aware that Peter has been damaged of late, owing to the cascade of new reports about clerical sexual abuse and possible cover ups. Does the embrace of Paul continue?

One of the effects of Good Friday is that it forces us to look at the full consequences of our sin. The Son of God is assaulted by the worst we could throw at him. We nail our Lord Jesus to the Cross to slowly suffocate in agony. We cut open the side of the spotless Lamb. The readings and the liturgy prevent us from turning away from this ugly scene, if only for a moment. They bid us, “look at the man!”

The recent uncovering of more child abuse at the hands of clergy in Ireland, Germany and America has once again forced the Roman Catholic Church to be confronted by the sins of its members – its laity, priests, and bishops. Like the narratives of Scripture which tomorrow we will not only hear but include our own voices in, the media reports and the interviews of victims make it impossible to ignore the horror of what has happened at the hands of those who just days before were seen out in the streets praising Christ as liberator and King.

Obviously we would prefer not to look at the Church’s sin. We would prefer to defend ourselves or offer justifications and rationalizations about how it wasn’t as bad as it sounds or that it isn’t just a problem that happens in churches. We would like to focus on things we did right and turn the scrutiny around against others. All of this just perpetuates the sin. Perhaps some might go so far as to offer apologies, with the appropriate strong language and even sincerity. Yet somehow even the apologies come with strategies of avoidance.

For presently non-Roman Catholic Christians, of which I am one, there is sometimes a desire at a time like this to try to distance ourselves from the Church of Rome. It is easy to say things like: “Don’t look at me, this is a Catholic problem.” “We Anglicans, we Baptists, we Presbyterians don’t have anything to do with these pedophile priests.” It is even tempting to take a few shots at the Romans while they’re down, using the scandal for ideological purposes to kick against mandatory celibacy or the male only priesthood.

It has been said that Christian denominationalism is a luxury held over from established Western Christendom. Christians have the time to fight amongst themselves only when they find themselves in a situation where their lives are not at risk for following Christ. Just as there are no atheists in foxholes, there are no Lutherans or Pentecostals or Roman Catholics in the face of costly persecution. Without wanting to diminish the seriousness of the issues involved in Christian divisions, this surely has some truth.

I believe the same principle holds true when Christians are the persecutors. This latest round of abuse may have taken place within the Roman Communion, but to everyone else watching the news it is just another example of the failure of the Church to live up to its lofty claims; just more hypocrisy in a long line of Christian hypocrisy. The credibility of the Gospel I profess is called into question. My co-worker knows I’m a Christian, so he calls on me to answer for it. The denominational distinctions we so often trouble ourselves with are irrelevant in the face of this kind of scandal.

The Christian ecumenical movement seeks the restoration of the visible unity of the Church of Christ on earth. Over the past 100 years there have been some remarkable discoveries of real though imperfect communion between divided Christians, despite centuries of separation and distrust. Different churches and ecclesial communities may have different ways of understanding or explaining the reality of ecclesia extra ecclesia (the Church outside the church), but the ecumenical fact remains. The acknowledgment of even a small measure of communion in Christ binds us together across institutional walls. Somehow we all participate in the Church of God by virtue of common baptism, even if we would sometimes like it to be otherwise.

As a non-Roman Catholic who has been visibly divided from the Church of Rome but understands himself yet bound to all who bear the name of Christ, I must acknowledge that I remain bound to Br. Brendan Smyth, Fr. Lawrence Murphy, Cardinal Sean Brady, and Pope Benedict XVI. I cannot pretend their failings have nothing to do with me. The sins of a Roman Catholic priest or a Roman Catholic bishop are not Roman Catholic sins but sins of those who represent and speak for the same Body of Christ in which I am by baptism also included. Thus I too am wounded and implicated by them; I too must offer an answer to those who rightfully decry the Church’s faults. Though a painful one, this too is a price of ecumenical commitment.

I therefore want to encourage other non-Roman Catholics who share the same commitment not to turn away from the sins of our brothers and sisters in Christ; not to pass the guilt off on them to save our own face. These are sins of the Church, of which we too profess to be members. That means that we too must involve ourselves in the ecclesial penitence that God in his mercy calls us to. That means we must join in pressing those in positions of Church leadership to take unprecedented steps of repentance themselves. That means demanding and being a part of a serious renovation of the mechanisms and mindsets that have allowed this kind of thing to go on undetected or unacknowledged for far too long. It’s not just a Roman Catholic issue. It’s not just Peter who is damaged. We are in this mess together, and we must be broken by it together.

This is St. Martin of Tours. Martin was born in present day Hungary and lived between the years 316-397. His parents named him after Mars, the Roman God of War, and this is telling of his upbringing and early life. His Father was a prominent General in the Roman military. As such, Martin was required to enter the military himself at the age of 15, serving as a member of the heavy cavalry. While Martin was still a soldier at Amiens he experienced the vision that became the most-repeated story about his life. He was at the gates of the city of Amiens with his soldiers when he met a scantily dressed beggar. He impulsively cut his own military cloak in half and shared it with the beggar. That night he dreamed of Jesus wearing the half-cloak Martin had given away. He heard Jesus say to the angels: “Here is Martin, the Roman soldier who is not baptized; he has clad me.” This event would transform his life.

Baptized at 18, Martin served in the Roman military for another two years until, just before a battle with the Gauls at Worms in 336, he determined that his faith prohibited him from fighting, saying, “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.” He was charged with cowardice and jailed, but in response to the charge, he volunteered to go unarmed to the front of the troops. His superiors planned to take him up on the offer, but before they could, the invaders sued for peace, the battle never occurred, and Martin was released from military service.

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada. It is a day for remembering Canadian war dead. It is a day that, for some years now, has been a source of tremendous intellectual and personal conflict and confusion for me as a follower of Jesus Christ, and as someone who lives in a nation state which sends men and women into harms way to perform military missions ostensibly in my name. I know what Canada asks of me as a Canadian on Nov. 11. But what is asked of me from the place that holds my primary loyalty, the Church? What am I, as a Christian, supposed to think about violence, war and the military on a day like today?

In so far as the military promotes violence and war, I cannot support it as a Christian. Yet nothing is ever that simple. There are always many angles and qualifications and provisos to be made. It is difficult to form hard and fast rules about anything, let along things like this. Clearly the military does many good things that do not involve violence. They provide aid and do relief work in areas that desperately need it, they protect people who are vulnerable, and often their very presence helps deter violence that might otherwise take place. Most people serving in the military are, I am sure, authentically good people. They want to help others, to promote human dignity, and to protect human life as much as possible. In as much as they are seeking peace and doing good in a nonviolent way there are, without a doubt, things to appreciate and be thankful for.

However, the simple reality which cannot be escaped from is that most often the good the military achieves comes at the end of a gun barrel. Christians must question any kind of peace that comes through coercion or force. Christ did not pursue this kind of peace; far from it. His followers must seek to pattern their lives after him, even when the outcome of that decision proves socially unpopular or even costly. So while perhaps we can sometimes applaud good motives and even good outcomes that sometimes occur through military service and even in war, we must always be deeply concerned about the means used to achieve them.

Is this particular war just? Is any war truly just? Is military force a last resort, or simply the easiest solution? Do we assume war to be inevitable? Do we glorify war? Are freedom and human dignity really secured when done so by military force? Can violence ever really be ended by perpetuating violence? These are not questions I have ready answers for. Even less would I presume to think I can tell others what their answers should be. However, I do not believe that to ask them is to disrespect or denigrate people who have died in battle doing what they believed was necessary. I believe struggling for answers to questions like these is part of the remembrance asked of us, if not as Canadians, certainly as Christians. I believe failure to do so does nobody any honour.

Among the many sources we have to consult as we look for our answers, one is the life of St. Martin of Tours. This year, his Feast Day falls on the day that Canada calls me to a certain kind of remembrance. As a Christian, my remembrance is shaped first and foremost by my participation in the Communion of Saints. Thus, today, it includes remembering him as well. “I am a soldier of Christ. I cannot fight.” Blessed Martin, pray for us.

Whether it is on a census form, a social networking site, an internet dating profile, or simply in casual conversation, many people– as many as one in five in North America according to some statistics – now classify their religious beliefs with the ambiguous tag “spiritual, but not religious.” A number of books have been written in recent years attempting to describe both the sociological and philosophical significance of this phenomenon. There is even a website (www.sbnr.org) devoted to the subject. At the risk of oversimplifying the distinctions, the spiritual person is generally assumed to be more inclined to seek spiritual enlightenment privately and according to their own individual quest, whereas the religious person is thought to be more likely to believe in the established doctrines and publicly practice the sacred rituals of a particular tradition.

Many people have very good reasons for distrusting established religion; be it the historical use of violence against dissent, the stubborn resistance to change, the inflexible legalism, the blatant hypocrisy, or an experience of some form of abuse. There are also some solid theological grounds for this kind of attitude. The Christian theologian Karl Barth asserted that all religion – including Christianity – was fundamentally opposed to true faith. Certainly Jesus himself could be called as a witness against the thoughtless adherence to humanly constructed religious laws and empty rituals, and indeed some Christian communities are calling for an end to religion of sorts. People like Deepak Chopra or Eckhart Tolle have become household names by appealing to the spiritual but not religious worldview.

Interest in spirituality is something to be celebrated by Christians, not feared or opposed. There are, however, some basic assumptions common to many of these popular spiritualities that I believe must be questioned. Many of them depend upon some form of the claim that true spiritual life ultimately means distancing ourselves materiality and our bodily lives. Chopra, for example, advocates the elevation of consciousness through meditation in order to reach a higher or more universal (i.e. less bodily localized) realm of existence. Likewise Tolle seeks to promote an awakening of the person to the true nature of reality by detachment from the unreal phenomenal world around us.

The Judeo-Christian tradition is deeply at odds with this. Built into the fabric of the biblical worldview is the conviction that material reality is not something to be frowned upon or transcended or escaped from. Materiality and physicality are good; human bodily life is very good. It is immediately and abundantly clear that the Torah makes no distinction between material concerns and spiritual concerns. People are called to be in relationship with God not on the basis of a private inner dialogue, but rather through the grounded stuff of human, material, creaturely life. And of course this notion is extended beyond the human community. All of creation is to be brought into conformity with God, not just people. So for the writers of the Hebrew Scriptures, everything from our work and eating and worship and sex and even what to do with our waste is all linked together in such a way that our relationship with God actually fits within the landscape we inhabit.

And of course there is no dichotomy between the materiality of God’s covenant with Israel and the spirituality of the New Covenant, as the fact of the Incarnation of God in Christ and the out pouring of the Spirit upon all flesh at Pentecost attest. The sacramental life of the Church also shows us that spirituality must never be disconnected from our bodies and our actions and our day to day living. Tangible things like being washed by water, the laying on of hands, anointing with oil, conjugal love, or the eating and drinking of bread and wine play an essential part in Christian spirituality. The Church is also the place where we are reminded that God desires relationship with us not in isolation, but together. Our individual journey with God is always meant to be deeply connected with everyone else’s. To be spiritual as a private individual with no connection to others or to the world around us is to miss something about what it means to be human.

A thick theology of a historically particular Incarnation assures us that God is actually interested in the particulars that come along with our bodily lives and does not ask us to set them aside in order to find God. A robust ecclesiology reminds us that spiritual life is never something exclusively about the interior person, about the spirit, or the soul, or about something you believe in or give mental assent to but always requires the whole person, including our relationships and our resources and all the messy details of our day to day living. Sacramentality opens our minds to the potential for all material things to be mediators of God’s presence and gracious activity, even the most seemingly mundane things. These down to earth ideas are not religious antiques that we should be eager to discard in favour of more universal principles and less grounded practices. In fact, they seem to provide the basis for a response to some of the most pressing issues of the world in which we actually live – how we treat our bodies, how we treat others, the meaning of sex, what we eat, the way we steward our planet, why we work, how we generate wealth, etc. Detached or individualistic spiritualities do not have the same kinds of rich resources to draw on.

It is undoubtedly true that Christians need to learn from the accurate critiques of religion offered by popular spirituality. But the Christian tradition also has something essential to contribute the spiritual conversations going on all around us – what I think may in fact be a more holistically human spirituality. There is a time to be humbled by our many failures and shortcomings; but there is also a time to boast in Christ. The world cannot afford to have us be silent.

 Two symbolic gestures stand out for the future of ecumenical relations. As a gift on  the occasion of his enthronement liturgy Kirill received a silver communion chalice  from Pope Benedict XVI as an expression of the desire for a new commitment to the cause of visible unity of East and West before the Eucharistic altar. Perhaps even more meaningfully as a hopeful sign for pan-Orthodox unity he was conferred the pastoral staff given to the 14th century bishop Peter of Moscow by Ecumenical Patriarch Athanasios.

In an age of increasing marginalization for the Church, the beginning of a new ministry for a leader of such importance cannot be ignored by any Christian, Orthodox, Roman, Protestant or otherwise. As such, we must add our prayers to those of the some 160 million Russian Orthodox throughout the world. “May he have many years!”, and may he shepherd his own flock, and even those sheep of other flocks, in the manner of the Good Shepherd, our Lord Jesus Christ.