Professor Tina
Professor Beattie has written this 'appeal' in response to a request from the Tablet which asked for prominent Catholics to record what they would say to the Pope, if they had a private audience with him., Beattie carefully explains the real point of her 'appeal ':
"The real problem is not the sins of individual priests, but the structures of sin which have infected the institutions and governance of the Church. We do not want you to impose ever more punitive restrictions and condemnations on abusive priests, unless you are also willing to acknowledge and repent of the sins that go to the highest levels of the Roman Catholic hierarchy, and to take accompanying action by way of a thorough-going overhaul of the Church's institutions and structures to initiate a new era of transparency, democratic participation, accountability and inclusivity - including the full inclusion of women in the sacramental, doctrinal and institutional life of the Church."
In other words, Beattie and her fellow travellers see the Church as structurally sinful,because there are no women priests, bishops or popes; compared with which 'structural sin', the evil abuse of children by predators in the priesthood is somewhere much further down the 'We Are Church' scale of iniquity.
How can Beattie bear to remain in a Church which she regards as 'structurally sinful'? Wouldn't she be more at home in the 'structurally virtuous' Anglican Communion?
Sadly Professor Beattie, the sort of prominent Catholic whose views the Tablet would canvass, ((incidentally, I see that both Prof. Beattie and Catherine Pepinster, Editor of the Tablet, are Directors of the Tablet Trust), has probably contributed more to anti-Catholic media biases, than to the sincere, open hearted welcome that ordinary Catholics want to give The Holy Father.
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