What is Corruption?

Extract

Father Herbert McCabe was penalised, or disciplined, for having written that the Church is corrupt, and the censor who passed the statement for publication has been removed from office. I have very little doubt that it was the use of this word, ‘corrupt’, which brought down such indignation on their heads; and, indeed, I can readily understand how his statement, tom from its context, provoked feelings of anger and shock. Taken out of context, the statement appeared to bring against the Church the gravest possible charge, and to do so on a flimsy basis of four complaints about particular actions, only one of which (Cardinal Spellman’s militaristic speech) was obviously substantial. Of course, most people who have followed the affair know by now how misleading this appearance was. First, the general drift of the editorial was a rebuttal of Father Davis’s accusations against the Church, in explanation of his own withdrawal from it, so that the statement so widely quoted had the force of a concession to Father Davis of what Father McCabe found true in his charges, although he nevertheless found the general assessment incorrect. Secondly, the role of Father McCabe’s examples was not (as it appeared out of context) as proof of the corruption of the Church: rather, the proof was that we took such things as expected behaviour on the part of bishops and the like, instead of as shocking aberrations. It was, no doubt, foolish of Father McCabe to write a sentence so liable to be quoted out of context, and so misleading when thus quoted; but far less foolish than the behaviour of the authorities who dealt with the rcsulting situation by first silencing thc one man who could havc explained cxactly what he meant, and thus correctcd thc misinterpretation.