Praying for Torquemada to be forgiven — but no apologies

THIS SHROVE. I IIII Ow Pope has called us to
cxamine our consciences, to acknowledge not only our own past sins, but those of fellow members of the Church, who brought scandal upon Christendom.
He asks the Church "to kneel before God and implore forgiveness for the past and present sins of her sons and daughters." (Incarnationis Mysterium : the Bull of Indiction of the Great Jubilee, 11.) It is God's forgiveness we are seeking, not that of the secular press! We are not to grovel collectively before the politically correct and apologise for getting in the way of their bayonets.
Where there are sins to be forgiven, it is to God that we look for forgiveness. As individuals we can and indeed must forgive those who have individually hurt us — I can forgive that Muslim who stole my watch in Algeria in 1973, but I cannot forgive those who massacred the monks there in 1997. Only God can — and we pray that he will. If one of those terrorists became a Catholic and came to confession to me, I would give him absolution, and assure him his sins were forgiven.
If we have no faith in God, there can be no hope for forgiveness, but there is a God, and he is eager to forgive. All we have to do is ask. That us why we, the Church, pray for our sinful members. We have always done this, asking forgiveness for the past sins of others as well as our own. "It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins." (II Mace.
12:46) We have always prayed for those who are still committing sin, that they may he converted, repent and be saved. "Love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you." (Matth. 6:44) 'I'his does not mean pretending that they are not sinners; I remember the late Archbishop Cowderoy in an interview saying that he prayed for Hitler every night, even when his cathedral burnt down. That must have raised some eyebrows, but he meant only that he was following Our Lord's command to pray for his enemy. The most evil and malicious sinners deserve our prayers, even while we are vehement in denouncing the sin.
Everyone expects the Spanish Inquisition to be the focus of the Pope's call to repentance, or perhaps Galileo, the Crusades, or the suppression of the Tempters. Certainly we cannot pretend that the tragic episodes of Church history didn't happen, or that Catholics were not guilty of abominable crimes. Our teaching about the use of force, or the legitimacy of the death penalty has certainly developed, though not really in contradiction to past teach ing. The Holy Father now denounces capital punishment: in the past the Church merely tolerated it. Never at any time did the Church officially require the faithful to believe that capital punishment was a good thing (unlike the 37th Article of Religion of the Church of England!)
Ai.LI.. THAT HAPPENED Was that the Church, from the poorest serf right down to the Pope, simply accepted capital punishment as normal, just like slavery and other things which we no longer tolerate.
It is good that Christian Doctrine develops, and good that we can now see more clearly what the Holy Spirit is saying to the Church.
But are these historical events of long ago really what the Pope asks us to consider? Yes, we should pray for the repose of the soul of Godfrey de Bouillon, Philip le Bel and Cardinal de Torquemada. But I suspect the Holy Father has other things in mind. We should not forget that he began his pontificate with unprecedented words of apology for the brutal way in which the liturgical
changes of the 1960s were imposed on God's people. "I would like to ask forgiveness for everything which, for whatever reason, through whatever human weakness, impatience, or negligence, and also through the at times partial, one-sided and erroneous application of the directives of the Second Vatican Council, may have caused scandal and disturbance..." (On the Mystery and Worship of the Eucharist, 24 February 1980) He followed that up with specific directives for reform, in Inaestimabile Donum which have been almost totally ignored.
Perhaps we should all be asking the Pope's forgiveness for that!
But does that not imply that what he really wants us to do is to look at recent sins, our own and those of fellowmembers of Christ's Body, sins which are still causing distress? Why fret about the 12th century, when the 20th gives us enough to repent?
We need to pray for the scandal done to consciences by the actions of priests and nuns in the last generation, not to mention the sins of laypeople. And that may mean being specific, maybe even local. We should pray for the repose of the soul of.
, that devout Catholic who made his wife's life such a misery.
should pray that God will forgive me for whatever I have said or done that has caused scandal to the faithful.
And when I have done so, when I have received absolution, then I can be certain of that forgiveness: there is no need to rake over past sins and stir up long-dead guilt, because forgiveness means that our sins really are taken away, that we can face the future with confidence.
The phrase "purification of memory" (Bull of Indiction, 11) can only mean clear conscience and confident joy in the Lord's forgiveness, which comes after a confession well made.
Fr Jerome Bertram is a priest of the Oxford Oratory