In Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking-Glass he invented the “Un-birthday” as a fanciful way to address the Victorian era in which he lived, but today there is a lot of talk about “de-baptisms” or “un-baptizing” people who find the current scandals of leadership in the Catholic Church to be offensive to their social, cultural and political sense of morality and ethics. While I unequivocally sympathize with those who feel betrayed by the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church, I also see great potential for reconciliation in the ongoing civil proceedings against those who are responsible. There is simply no excuse for the type of systematic cover-up that has been going on for many years in dioceses across the globe. I do, however, want to take a few lines to share some thoughts on this type of lost faith, and the institutions that surround us and also nurture our existence.
If a school teacher abuses you, is education itself to be blamed? This is the kind of logic that pervades many arguments against Catholicism or religion in general, because of the heinous transgressions of a broken hierarchy. I do not judge the entire Catholic Church for the crimes of some of its leadership. I do, however, expect those leaders to take responsibility for the abuses, and to realize through thoughtful introspection, its ways of dealing with child sexual abuse have been, and continue to be, unworthy of the great responsibility that it holds in our communities. I hold the same standard to both the Johannite communion, and to the larger North American College of Gnostic Bishops, both of which have very strict and clear policies in this regard.
If freethinking Protestants of the 16th century had recoiled against the extravagances and abuses of the Roman Church by stating that religion itself was to blame, I’m afraid that there wouldn’t be any Protestants at all. This is the role of individual action in history. People like John Calvin, Martin Luther, John Wesley, Giordano Bruno and others, protested against a broken edifice – not against the idea of religion itself.
So today, when some fellow in France files a legal suit to somehow remove his baptism, I wonder what, if anything he has read or appreciates about this ancient, communitarian rite. Sexual, psychological, and economic exploitation of minors is clearly wrong, and should be punished according to the law, but let’s look at what has been happening in terms of child abuse.
According to CBS News, “Hofstra University researcher Charol Shakeshaft looked into the problem, and the first thing that came to her mind when Education Week reported on the study were the daily headlines about the Catholic Church. ‘[T]hink the Catholic Church has a problem?’ she said. ‘The physical sexual abuse of students in schools is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests.’” See the whole article here.
So, I ask again, do we give up on free public education because of the illicit activities of some educators? Do we renounce learning and books in the name of rescuing children from the clutches of nefarious teachers, administrators, and the politicians who cover up for them?
To follow this line of thinking – to seek to impossibly un-do our social relations as they are concretized in Holy Baptism, is to legitimize the abusers, the closed-minded, and hard-hearted. When we deny the original sense of community that baptism signifies, we sell-out to the very actions that we oppose. It is up to all of us – whether we are religious or not, to uphold the validity of our ancient communal experiences, and to have courage enough to build community, not to yield millennia of rites and treasures to any one set of administrators, bishops, or schoolmasters.
The outward sign of the Sacrament of Baptism is the ritual bathing or sprinkling of water. Through baptism we are initiated by water into the community of believers, an outward sign of the inward reality of our divine spark.
Baptism is pre-Christian, being a symbol of initiation and learning dating back perhaps to the cults of Oannes in Sumeria and even to the Vedic cultures of the Indus Valley. It is a tradition that has served to let us grasp on to our own spirituality and consciousness as a member of our community. The concept of St. John the Baptist and his predecessors represents an epic battle against ignorance. They were givers of wisdom, and the knowledge of our ancestors, a human link to a spiritual heritage. But the matter and the reality of baptism itself (res sacramenti), affirms not only the work of exploring and learning for one’s own enlightenment, but as a member of that community, a pledge to learn to foster human development.
In my estimation, it is, indeed time for a new beginning, a time for individuals who seek spiritual growth and community to come together like never before.
***
Note:
Some portions of this essay have been taken from Signum efficax gratiæ: The Sacraments as effective signs of grace, a paper presented by Rev. Donald Donato to the Rector and Fellows of St. Raphael the Archangel Theological Seminary in July 2008.
