(Weekly Column)
The sexual abuse crisis in the Catholic Church is similar, in some respects, to last year’ financial meltdown. In both cases, powerful, arrogant abusers were shielded from the consequences of their predatory behavior, while the victims were offered pain, platitudes and empty promises.
Like the gargantuan firms in lower Manhattan, the Vatican believes it is too big to fail and demands a bailout from the faithful. However, the overpaid bankers and the clergy banking on infinite forgiveness from their flock are in grave denial. Major religions come and go — whether it is worshipping the unbridled corporate casino or a church that does not protect its most vulnerable members.
Alarmingly, new rules and systematic restructuring to prevent future catastrophes from occurring have still not come to fruition. It is breathtaking to watch these behemoths act so contemptuous of the law and reckless in their responsibility to those that they were created to help.
The United States is wealthy enough, for the time being, to withstand the fiscal fiasco. However, the same tax code and lax regulations are still in place that encourage irrational marketplace speculation. Unless substantive changes are made, history is almost certain to repeat itself. And, if it does, the public will be in no mood to play Santa Claus to these very naughty children.
Likewise, the Catholic Church and its surrogates believe that spin and slander can distract the masses from impious priests defiling children. I suspect the Church may be correct and barely weather the scandal — at least temporarily. They will blame gays, play the victim card and pretend that significant changes have been made to stop future child abuse.
It doesn’t take a genius, however, to figure out that the grotesque scandals will continue. As soon as the current crisis subsides, a new crop of equally shocking sins will emerge. The tragic fact remains that the rules for priesthood encourage sexually dysfunctional and emotionally stunted human beings to apply at disproportionate rates.
There are certainly many wonderful priests who feel called to serve the church. These individuals should be commended for their heroic work, such as feeding the hungry, helping the poor and providing guidance for young people. But one can’t deny that the institution is uniquely set up as a magnet for unhealthy men who view the priesthood as an escape hatch. The collar provides an effective way for sexual reprobates to command respect from society.
What better cover than celibacy for a child molester or tormented homosexual than joining the Catholic clergy? It ensures the adulation of friends and relatives who no longer ask pesky questions about sexuality or relationships. By ending the celibacy stricture, the church would no longer serve as an oasis from those hiding from their inner-demons. Quite simply, the question, “who are you dating” would once again be asked, thus ending a sanctuary for sick minds.
Exacerbating matters is the “good ole boys” club that is the priesthood. This insular world would immediately end if the Vatican allowed female priests and heterosexual priests to marry. It would also behoove Rome to allow openly gay priests, who would end the incentive of using the vocation as a desperate, last ditch measure to suppress homosexuality. Until these concrete steps are taken, no one should expect different results.
Still, the pit bulls and the bullheaded living in their bubble continue to defend the Vatican’ bumbling response. For example, a New York Times ad by the Catholic League criticized that newspaper claiming, “The Times continues to editorialize about the “pedophilia crisis”, when all along it has been a homosexual crisis.”
But most people aren’t buying this smear campaign because the fondling and fiddling is occurring in church confessional booths — not predominantly gay neighborhoods, community centers or churches.
What amazes me the most is the incompetent efforts by the Vatican to mitigate the fallout. They have an exorcist blaming the devil, a priest comparing the church’ predicament to the historic plight of Jews and another holy man confusing “gossip” with playing “grab ass” with minors.
Another excuse is that these cases are old news from another era. But just this week we learned of a priest in India who is still working after allegedly sexually assaulting a 14-year old girl a few years ago in Minnesota.
A friend of mine e-mailed this week saying his traditionalist father was heartbroken after a neighborhood Catholic school had shut down. He said parents were afraid to send their children for matriculation because they feared priestly ejaculation. What kind of future does such a church hold?
The Vatican pretends to be serious about ending the crisis. But, how can this be if there are 400,000 priests and only 10 people working on the avalanche of abuse cases?
Whether it’ groping by priests or greed on Wall Street — institutions that don’t change in the face of crisis and public indignation will eventually become irrelevant. If history has shown one truism, it is that nothing is too big to fail.
If the Roman Empire could fail, anything can.
In my parish, St. John the Evangelist in Goshen, NY, the first major pedophile scandal materialized in the early nineties. The priest in question, “Father Ed” had been molesting boys in their early teens. To say that the parishioners were traumatized by this would be an understatement. They were devastated. Then something wondrous happened….
Father Ed was eventually replaced by Father Trevor Nichols. Father Trevor had been an Anglican in merrie old England when he converted to Catholicism. On becoming a Catholic was transferred to Saint John’s – WITH HIS WIFE AND TWO DAUGHTERS! A married priest! WITH TWO KIDS!
You want to hear the punch line? Our little parish did not implode. The sun did not fall from the sky. Huge cracks did not appear in the earth’s surface. In fact, it was nice having them. They were – and are to this day – deeply beloved by the people of St. John’s.
Allowing priests to marry would transform the Catholic Church. Having a married priest and his lovely family in our midst certainly transformed the people of St. John’s.
http://www.tomdegan.blogspot.com
Tom Degan
Tom: I don’t think celibacy is the problem. The problem is deeply disturbed people getting through the Church’s bogus “confirmation of vocation” process to be priests in their efforts to escape their sexual problems, or perhaps to gain access to children, though I am not actually THAT cynical.
And yes, unfortunately, the church will survive. She’s a wily old tart, and has survived far wrose than this.
A religious historian wrote a book recently showing that about every 500 years, Christianity goes through some type of major crisis and transformation. The last one was the Reformation which was about 500 years ago. Yep–the next one is due *now*!
But, I doubt if much will change under the current pope; mentally he’s still living in 1930s Germany.
You may have heard that old joke, that if there were a nuclear war, the two things that would be sure to survive would be cockroaches and Cher. I think we can add the roman catholic church to that list too.
While I agree that celibacy per se isn’t the problem, I can’t help speculating that it may be a causative factor in some or even many cases. According to Groth and Birnbaum, sexual offenders against children can be either fixated or regressed.
The fixated offenders are those whose sexual attractions are exclusively towards children, of either sex or both. According to Gregory M. Herek’ website:
“Regressed offenders have developed an adult sexual orientation but under certain conditions (such as extreme stress) they return to an earlier, less mature psychological state and engage in sexual contact with children.”
See: http://psychology.ucdavis.edu/rainbow/HTML/facts_molestation.html
I wonder how many priests (heterosexual, homosexual or bi-sexual) who find themselves trapped in a commitment to celibacy find the loneliness and stress too much for them and become regressed offenders.
I remember reading, quite some years ago now, Joseph McCabe’ “Twelve Years in a Monastery” (1903). McCabe (formerly the Very Rev. Father Anthony, OSF) had been a Franciscan friar but had renounced the Roman Catholic faith and had become an unbeliever. In his day it was quite usual for boys in their EARLY teens to be singled out as future priests and to be sent to junior seminaries. In fact, I think that this was still a common practice when I was a kid. Although it’ so many years since I read the book, I do still remember McCabe’ comment that a boy in his teens, even late teens, who committed himself to a lifetime of celibacy had given an undertaking of which he couldn’t possibly understand the implications. “He has signed a blank cheque, on which nature may one day write a fearful sum,” was what McCabe wrote.
Interestingly, it was only recently that I read — although I can’t now remember where — that McCabe had himself been sexually molested as a boy, although he never revealed this fact to anyone else until he was well on in years. Was his remark about the blank cheque hinting at more that he felt that he could explicitly say in 1903?
“I wonder how many priests (heterosexual, homosexual or bi-sexual) who find themselves trapped in a commitment to celibacy find the loneliness and stress too much for them and become regressed offenders.”
William- you might have the cart before the horse. My suspicion is that disturbed individuals enter the priesthood BECAUSE of the celibacy requirement. See, if i join the priesthood, then i will be celibate, and not act on my sexual urges. The Church will protet me.
Why don’t they have a law that requires pedophiles who are Catholic priests to register as a sex offender?
Ben I think it may be that disturbed individuals enter the priesthood because of the celibacy requirement AND that after years of celibacy they find it much more onerous than they imagined and become regressed offenders.
Quite frankly, I think that it’ highly improbable that there’ a single motivation which applies to all clergy who sexually molest children and/or minors. I don’t doubt that some are fixated offenders and others are regressed offenders, but what the ratio of the one category is to the other I can’t claim to know.
Once again, I highly recommend Richard Sipe’ website:
http://www.richardsipe.com/
Sipe is a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor who was trained specifically to deal with the mental health problems of Roman Catholic priests and is himself a former Benedictine monk and priest. He has done an enormous amount of research on the sexuality of clergy.
Apparently, those in the Catholic Hierarchy Can’t Read English
Sexual orientation is an adult attraction to other adults, About.com adoption expert Carrie Craft explains. Pedophilia is an adult sexual attraction to children.
According to Craft, “Studies show that a large portion of child abuse occurs at the hand of a heterosexual man.” The Child Welfare Information Gateway (previously National Adoption Information Clearinghouse) also states: “A child’s risk of being molested by his or her relatives’ heterosexual partner is over one hundred times greater than by someone who might be identifiable as being homosexual.”
The American Psychological Association agrees, breaking the link between gay men and molestation: “Another myth about homosexuality is the mistaken belief that gay men have more of a tendency than heterosexual men to sexually molest children. There is no evidence to suggest that homosexuals molest children,” the agency reports.
SOURCE:
Overview of Lesbian and Gay Parenting, Adoption and Foster Care – April 6, 1999 Fact Sheet – ACLU
Good commentary …