The other day, the first reading for mass of the day was the giving of the "Ten" Commandments from Exodus. I was reminded of a day-dreaming moment in class in grade 9 (who knows what subject?) when I wondered why God decided upon THOSE ten commandments. Testosterone driven, I considered how much more fun and how much less guilt I would have if certain commandments simply weren't there. In my understanding, the Ten Commandments were arbitrarily decided upon by an all powerful God. And then there was the Church: the priest and catechism teachers who put an even stricter interpretation on an already restrictive set of "Thou shalt not's".
It was not until adult years that I came to appreciate the beauty and desirability of the Ten Commandments in terms of love, happiness and the Two Great Commandments phrased by Jesus. But the more I have grown in that appreciation, the more I have been confounded and frustrated by certain people in the Catholic Church (clerics and laity) who appear preoccupied with the minutiae of "churchy" stuff that sometimes appears to run counter to Christ's Law of Love. I think of issues such as the "correct" way of celebrating the sacraments, Latin or vernacular language, the role of women in the Church, the place of LGBTQ+ Christians, Pro-Life versus pro-life issues. Then there are the scandals that have been met with defensiveness instead of humble acknowledgement and repentance: the scandal of child sexual abuse over a century or more by priests and other Church representatives and, more recently, the freshly resurrected scandal of the Catholic Church's role with Indian Residential Schools.
From boyhood through to adulthood I was taught to defer to the priests in everything concerning doctrine, faith and spiritual practice because the priests knew best , having spent 7 years or more studying theology. Prior to Vatican II lay people were discouraged from reading the Bible because "only the priest knew" the correct way to interpret the Sacred Scriptures. These are the hallmarks of clericalism - defined as "an expectation, leading to abuses of power, that ordained ministers are better than and should be over everyone else among the People of God."
In the past, bishops saw avoiding scandal as taking priority over protecting victims of abuse by priests. This was blatant clericalism and ultimately resulted in even greater scandal. Clericalism still happens today, in my opinion, when Catholics, lay or clergy, become defensive over the role of the Church in the Residential School scandal, when we hasten to point out that other denominations also ran residential schools, that it was a government program, that not all the graves are those of children, that most of the children likely died of disease such as tuberculosis, that "the pope has already apologised." Clericalism is defensive and ultimately arrogant and self-serving. Its defeat has to include humble acknowledgement, repentance and restitution.
Fortunately the Holy Spirit is God's self-giving gift to the whole Church - not just the clergy. Fortunately, also, we have a pope who is calling everyone, clergy and laity, to take a stand against clericalism.
