The world says: "You have needs
-- satisfy them. You have as much right as the rich and the mighty. Don't
hesitate to satisfy your needs; indeed, expand your needs and demand
more." This is the worldly doctrine of today. And they believe that this
is freedom. The result for the rich is isolation and suicide, for the poor,
envy and murder.” Dostoyevsky, Brothers Karamazov
"The man who lies to himself
and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the
truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for
others.” Brothers Karamazov
“Remember particularly that
you cannot be a judge of anyone. For no one can judge a criminal until he
recognizes that he is just such a criminal as the man standing before him, and
that he perhaps is more than all men to blame for that crime. When he
understands that, he will be able to be a judge. Though that sounds absurd, it
is true. If I had been righteous myself, perhaps there would have been no
criminal standing before me.” The Brothers Karamozov
“How baffling you are, oh Church,
and yet how I love you! How you have made me suffer, and yet how much I owe
you! I would like to see you destroyed, and yet I need your presence. You have
given me so much scandal and yet you have made me understand what sanctity is.
I have seen nothing in the world more devoted to obscurity, more compromised,
more false, and yet I have touched nothing more pure, more generous, more
beautiful.” Carlo Carretto
Earlier in 2014, the Catholic Church
once again took it on the chin, with a United Nations report denouncing the
Vatican’s failure to follow international standards of conduct in handling
allegations of abuse of children by the church’s officers. The Vatican retorted
that the actions being taken to address abuse complaints and develop better
processes were ignored by the UN report. Subsequent judicial rulings could
expose even more liability. It’s difficult, devilishly difficult one might even
say, to separate the truth from the diabolical in the more than decade-long
drama of the Catholic Church under the spotlight for this scandal[1]. Regardless,
Catholicism as an institution has lost credibility and moral authority in the
fall-out. While Pope Francis seems to grasp the problem of credibility and has
moved impressively to restore it, even he seemed slow to make the needed asymmetric response, rather than minimal
necessary response.
Background
Although abuse complaints date to the
1950’s and media investigations began in the 1980’s, the Church sex abuse scandal
took center stage in 2002, when the American media began coverage of criminal
prosecution of five priests in Boston accused of past sexual abuse of minors.
Subsequently the story has remained periodically in the media—in part due to
failure by the Church to decisively resolve it—and in the meantime billions of
dollars of the people’s money has been swept up in legal settlements to victims
of abuse and several dioceses bankrupted. The lawyers have done well,
exemplifying that the entire affair is a mess, with something like $1.2 billion
going to attorneys, while $1.8 billion went to victims[2].
In the United States, and also to
perhaps a somewhat lesser extent in the Vatican, an aggressive zero tolerance
policy response has been offered by the Catholic Church in an effort to address
the systemic problem; worldwide over 600 priests have been removed from
ministry as a result of the zero-tolerance policy. Clearly, this has not been
enough. The timing of the UN report in early 2014 was therefore
troubling—either it was out of step with what is happening in the church, or
the excitement about Pope Francis and his fresh approach had drowned out the
continuing failure of the hierarchy to implement its own rules and principals. Parsimony
suggests some of both. Rather than adjudicate that particular question, I use
the occasion to share reflections from my perspectives as a Catholic, as a
clinical psychologist, and as an academic.
Before I get to personal reactions and
reflections, the obvious: are all these allegations true? Is the Church being
unfairly targeted with excessive charges? Throughout the past one hundred
years, from the days of Freud’s infamous “reversal” of belief in the sexual
abuse reports of his female patients, professional guilds and society at large
have vacillated between credulity and skepticism about the seriousness of
widespread sexual abuse in our society. In the 1990’s psychological research
demonstrated the ease with which false memories were created by suggestion and
legal findings suggested a number of false claims of abuse. However, most of
those findings were of “recovered memories,” a more controversial domain. While
the presumption of innocence remains a necessary precaution prior to
investigation, and appropriate consideration of standards of evidence is
important, most of the allegations against Catholic priests have been
substantiated. [3]
Personal reactions
My personal reactions over these years have
been complex, like those of many Catholics and, perhaps, non-Catholics who stop
to reflect. At times I have been swept up in rage, fury, pain, anguish, sorrow,
and grief. There was and is much to be angry, and anguished, about. Leading the
list is injury to the young, by men who apparently yielded to selfish and
destructive impulses and who, often, will never fully appreciate what they have
done. Additionally, although the legal and media focus has been on abuse of
children, priests have also been guilty of exploiting adults under their care.
In all this, they have hurt not only their victims, but also the credibility
and effectiveness of their brother priests of high integrity. At a human level,
it is difficult to think of forgiving a violation of trust this grave,
personal, long-lasting, and far-reaching. Compounding those crimes has been the
failure of bishops and other church leaders to do the right thing in response,
as they too often protected the priest-perpetrators instead of their victims.
As a result, in addition to the
individual harm to victims, these priests and bishops have, by action or
inaction, harmed the goodwill of the society toward the Catholic community and
weakened the ability of that community to reach out and be recognized as force
for good in a word that urgently needs this force for good. They have broken a
trust deeper than most others, and their yielding to evil is grave indeed. Only
5% of priests have been accused, and the highest estimates suggest perhaps 10%
may have offended (bishopsaccountability.org). This is enough to conclude that
the problem is all too real, but also that most honest priests deserve better.
Inadequacy of church
response
What is the measure of the
organizational response? New rules and procedures have been promulgated. They
need to be followed and enforced, and that isn’t always happening. But would
that be enough? Where is repentance, where is reconciliation? What kind of
subculture may be unwittingly yet passively complicit in this pattern of
problems? We have already been treated to tabloid-worthy stories of denial,
cover-ups, problems with under-developed sexuality in men who entered the
seminary too early, the failure of bishops and cardinals to understand the
problem or to take it seriously.
It plainly is not enough to offer that
the church leaders were just slow to grasp the new understanding in the healing
professions about sexual abuse and pedophilia in the 1980s. Nor is it
enough, as many church leaders have done, to point out that the incidence of
pedophilia, as well as of breaking of trust with older victims, is no greater
among priests than among other professionals, or to point out that the media
has been more interested in Catholic abuse than in, say, abuse by attorneys or
public school teachers as a systemic problem. It may be important to point
those things out for context, and perhaps to blunt the selectively anti-Catholic
tone of some of the resulting attacks on the Church. But at the same time, such
defenses, while they may have their place, all fail to get us to the root of the
problem. How do we understand the roots of a subculture that would appear to
have conspired to find a way to allow this behavior to persist and then fail to
respond asymmetrically when it emerges?
In particular, a serious effort at
repentance may be called for. How does an entire community heal from such a
rupture? How do Catholic leaders begin to think beyond the “public relations”
problem and the “problem of better procedures” and get to the larger need for
healing of an entire community—not only within the Catholic community, but in
its relations with the wider society? One thinks of the theology of restorative justice, or of the truth and
reconciliation commission in post-apartheid South Africa. Something of this
order seems called for, and has apparently been scarcely imagined.
Core Problem: Weak spirituality
That would speak to corrective action,
perhaps. But why has it not been imagined? Is it possible that we have as a
religious community misunderstood God’s terrible Mercy as though it were some
bland permissiveness? “It’s okay”?! We’re all sinners, we all must be forgiven?
We confront just one fundamental problem: It’s not okay. Such is not what God’s Mercy means! God’s mercy means
that, though you be damned, you may one day breathe in the light of day again.
It means that though your road go through hell, you may come out the other side
in a world you do not yet know. It means that though you deserve to die now,
you will be allowed to live yet awhile longer. It means that despite
everything, you may do some good, through no credit of your own. It does not mean everything you can be made okay
or its terrible consequences in history undone. No, those consequences will
indeed roll down the ages, and exact a price; indeed, Catholic thought has been
bracing in its recognition that sin exacts a heavy price. Our Lord Himself may
step in to pay that price, but it is to be paid.
Therefore, God’s mercy does not mean
one can overlook, at the personal or the social level, the need for restoration
and restitution, for revolution of one’s consciousness and societal and church
structures, for change in one’s deepest character. Rather the opposite: once
confronted, God’s Mercy urgently demands such revolution of heart, if there is
to be any hope of integrity. Perhaps it would have a salutary effect to
remember the ancient and much-maligned distinction between venial and mortal
sin. These are mortal sins. Souls are in peril and are lost. Deep repentance
and real price-paying are required if restoration or even restitution is to
occur.
Practical step one: Seminary
training and psychological understanding of sexuality
It almost seems an aside to raise the
issue of how seminaries handle training and formation in matters of sexuality,
but has there been sufficient insight here? Surely, training in sexuality in
seminaries has improved. In the past generation, seminaries have quietly
modernized their efforts on this front, and are far more thorough in preparing
priests to handle the challenges of committed service and celibacy in the
modern world than they were a generation ago[4]. Yet,
it seems that this progress has been uneven at best.
Two kinds of sexuality problem have to
be understood in formation and training. They require different approaches. The
first is pedophilia, the sexual
attraction to pre-pubescent children. Not all child abusers are pedophiles, and
this distinction needs examination via psychological evaluation. Pedophilia is
a mental disorder that once identified disqualifies for life a man from working
with young people unsupervised. That should be the policy not only for church
officers but for all youth workers. I do not speak here of determinism, or
of an absence of culpability, but rather of temptation and addiction and the
prudent response to those tendencies. In similar fashion to how an alcoholic
faces a terrible temptation if exposed to too many opportunities to drink, so a
pedophile faces terrible temptation if placed in constant opportunity to engage
sexually with children. As a strong man can resist drink, a strong man can
resist sexual temptation; but prudence dictates abstaining from those tempting
situations. This psychological principle has to be understood. The pedophile
may not be able to change his attractions (therapies currently cannot do so,
although they can reduce the likelihood of re-offending), but he has a moral
responsibility to avoid not only acting on those attractions, but situations of
temptation in which he might find his strength falters. Bishops, pastors, and seminary teachers have
to understand this as well. The Bishops have done right to have zero tolerance
for pedophiles in the priesthood, and seminaries do right to screen carefully
for this problem.
The second problem, also pernicious, is
the tendency of some men to seek out mid or late adolescents or even young
adults men and women over whom they hold sway, for sexual activity. As an
impulse, this second temptation or this feeling is probably very common among many
men, at least as a transient feeling, for the simple psychological fact that
for many if not most people, power and sexual interest are related[5]. This
sort of temptation extends, cloudily, into the gray waters of pursuing sexual
relations with anyone over whom we have power. Men, and eras, differ in how
such impulses are handled. Though we judge harshly the men who failed, some who
have judged most loudly have been the next to fall!
Practical step two:
sharing responsibility and challenging the cultural zeitgeist
The cultural context is a challenge for
all men, but certainly for seminarians and priests; they need support to
counteract the cultural context, including support at the level that challenges
the self-gratification mythos of our society. Simply resisting temptation, as
tough yet essential as it may be for some, is not done only in isolation. “Ours
is not a Gospel of despair.” We all, including our seminarians and priests,
need support around us to channel our desires into means that are fulfilling
for both us and those around us, rather than merely self-gratifying[6].
This means addressing the cultural and social milieu, without using it as an
excuse.
Most of the incidents of both
pedophilia and of other kinds of sexual transgression now being examined
occurred in the 1970's and 1980's[7].
Part of that may be traced to that being an era when consciousness of the
seriousness of child abuse was coming into focus in our clinical and
professional arenas. Certainly there was abuse before that, much of it forever
lost and hidden. But that may also have been a period when the structures and
supports that may have protected priests from succumbing to or even
experiencing temptations were in fact crumbling. That is, priests were,
perhaps, in some ways like all men in positions of power and prestige in the
1970's and 1980's in the United States. A zeitgeist
swept the nation, which said, “If it feels good, maybe just do it;[8]” “You do your thing and I’ll do my thing;[9]”
“Express how you feel, see what happens.” And, of course, “Sexuality is good,
it comes from God.” Many professional men were swept up in this sort of
nonsense—by nonsense, I mean, the de-contextualized embrace of such simplistic
thinking, without the appropriate balance of an understanding of
responsibility, sacrifice, self-denial, and ethics (or again, an analysis of
power relations). So at that time, there was an excess of university professors
going to bed with students, of doctors starting affairs with patients, of
lawyers sleeping with clients, of bosses with their secretaries, and of priests
with their young as well vulnerable adult charges. Of course, sexual activity
with a minor child or adolescent is a crime because it has an unacceptable
probability of psychological harm to the child. Yet exploitation of a
vulnerable adult over whom one has authority, while more difficult to prosecute
and perhaps having some different risk calculus and moral status, is also
unethical because it runs the risk of woeful harm. It is precisely the
individual in a position of power who is least able to evaluate accurately the
risk or harm involved, and thus the ethical imperative to avoid these sexual
relations.
Dostoevsky might show us that the
misguided time, when professionals in our society were taught to satisfy our
own needs first, began much earlier, and one could argue that it continues in
spades in the greed of our financiers and in the shallowness of our Hollywood
movies. Priests, however, do carry the expectation of moral leadership. We may
as a society snicker at the leering of a professor or a teacher toward a
pubescent student, but we feel a unique outrage when a person in a role of
moral authority, such as a priest, violates trust with, not only a leer, but a
physical advance. Most priests would be the first to admit, as Samuel Johnson
long ago observed, “Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of
morality; they discourse like angels but they live like men.”[10]
The calling to moral leadership does not endow priests with superhuman powers
to resist the temptations that trouble all men. Yet they will rightly pay a
higher price when they violate their trust—that is part of the risk and duty
they embrace.
They, like others
with power and authority, therefore need support, not just in the form of
encouragement, but support that is theological, philosophical, and perhaps even
mythological. Without formally
unpacking that assertion, I offer some heuristic examples. Returning to one of
my themes, a fundamental Lie in the “express yourself” ethic is that it lacks a
cogent analysis of power. When power is unequal, “self-expression” becomes
exploitation rationalized as caring. Such
rationalization is transparent in the words of some of the perpetrators now
coming to light in these church cases. Avoiding this kind of self-deception
requires tempering self-expression with an appreciation of the potential for
abuse of power, along with cultivated compassion, empathy, and understanding. The
point is that such a power analysis was probably lacking from most seminary
(and other professional) training in that era. Is this fully rectified?
Seminaries would not be unique of they
only lately have caught on to this need for a power analysis as part of the
ethics of sexuality in professional training. Only in the past decade have the
helping professions (social work, psychiatry, psychology) begun to formally
incorporate such a power analysis into their codes of ethics. Astonishingly, the
American Psychological Association has only in the past decade forbidden all
sexual relations between therapists and their clients in the code of ethics. Even
now we psychologists unwisely allow such relations to begin two years after
termination of therapy, as if the power relationship has a half-life of some
sort. So the church is not the only cadre of professionals slow on the uptake
in matters of sexual expression and power.
The larger goal of
formation, to help the priest (or other helping professional) recognize wherein
lies the greater part of virtue, may need maximum understanding and attention.
Desire and passion not only can be sublimated; they can lead in sublimated form
to greater fulfillment than if they are directly expressed. Can this be
believed by a lonely young man? Perhaps more celebration is warranted of the
greater joy available in fulfilling a promise and supporting the magical
unfolding of development in those under one’s care, to combat the constant
celebration in our media-saturated society of the joy of callow desire’s direct
gratification. Are these messages emphasized, cultivated, in seminary training
now, and convincingly demonstrated?
That mind-set, of
“going with the feeling” (and the implicit belief that if sexual impulse is a
morality-free zone then so is sexual behavior) has not gone away from
professional men or men with power in our society, as a scan of the headlines
demonstrates. In recent decades many seminarians were taught to recognize and
express their feelings, that sexual feelings were normal. This effort to help
them integrate their sexuality is all to the good in itself, but fails
critically in isolation. The first failure is in neglecting to distinguish
feelings from responsible behavior; the second is related, failing to balance recognition
of desire and its expression with either an analysis of power relations or a
profound recognition of responsibilities and role expectations.
As a clinical psychologist, I know that
such a simplistic theory of self-development, “express and live what you feel”
is often a recipe for mischief and maladaptation. This shallow ethic is the
final dispersal into society, in distorted form, of the reaction over 100 years
ago among intellectuals against a presumed Victorian repression of sexuality[11],
with Freud[12]
being the most visible in opening up discussion of sexuality. Health is not
found in repressing or denying our strong impulses per se—but equally so, there is no health per se in expression of them to others. Rather, health depends on
integration with context, integration with the rest of self and one’s
commitments, and integration of sexuality into other aspects of maturity.
Perhaps the
psychotherapy profession has been partly to blame here as well, both in society
and in its infiltration of spiritual formation of priests. Too often,
psychotherapists have applied the rule of “expressing and living what you feel”
and “caring for your own needs first” without discretion to nearly all
patients, as though the self was sacred and the psyche some sort of boil to be
lanced. In fact a push in this direction is appropriate only for some. For many
others, there is also the call to take greater responsibility, to exercise
greater self-discipline, and to gain self-knowledge in order to gain
self-control, rather than gratification of impulse and “need.” That basic
clinical wisdom, well grounded in personality theory and now supported by an
extensive evidence base of treatment outcomes, nonetheless has been much
overlooked. The result is a therapeutic shallowness which itself emerges as a
symptom of something more troubling. I am speaking of the absence, among many
leaders of our society and institutions, of deeper ethic than “gratification as
health.”
The result of this
shallowness is that self-gratification as an ethic has gained too great a
status. It should be obvious to Christians that this is not the Gospel message.
The Gospel message is one of joy—but one that takes seriously life’s terrible
challenges and injustices. In contrast to the Gospel, powerful media messages,
with which we all contend, emphasize gratification of desires as the path to
happiness—but have no answer at all to life’s tragic and empty side. Yet,
perhaps the media provide an opportunity for catharsis rather than a model for
behavior; or perhaps the media only tell us what we want to hear. Perhaps we
create and get the media we deserve. In any case, they face too little
challenge in some of our churches!
Indeed, like people the world over, many
Americans still know much—sometimes far more than God might wish—about
sacrifice, discipline, and self-denial. Yet the attainment of power of any kind
brings to bear a great temptation to indulge one’s wishes, and priests, like
all professionals, attain some power. A culture which, in its mythology,
celebrates gratification of desire strengthens that temptation rather than
tempers it or channels it. It requires greater counter-mythologies to support
the right formation of conscience among not only priests, but all persons of
faith, if church communities are truly to be a leaven of good and of health in
our society.
Going beyond the
cultural problem to creating a new catholic culture
With
all that acknowledged, it is a cop-out for bishops, priests, professors, or therapists to
blame “the culture.” That is a sufficiently vague and ethereal concept that all
could take comfort were it the main villain. No, none can be let off the hook
so easily. We—professionals, healers, as well as churchgoers and clergy—have
been too lazy in facing the ethic of gratification, asleep at the switch in
thinking about what ethic, what philosophy, what spirituality, is called for in
this age. At least in part, it is an age that calls for a spirituality of
discipline and self-denial. Those were bad words for a long time, for it was
not long ago that our grandparents suffered from the last stages of an era in
which self-denial and discipline they were taken to excess, to suppression of
the human spirit, to crushing of human joy and celebration, with the Catholic
church too often in the lead. That, not sexual thoughts, might have been a better
target for shame in that era.
But now times are
different. Catholic philosophy well-articulates that the fulfillment of
humanness lies in joy, freedom, and self-expression integrated with
self-knowledge, compassion, responsibility, discipline, and wise self-denial
and sacrifice. This age has swung the other way, and forgotten the sacrifice
side. It would be to the good were spiritual formation, as well as ethical
training of all professions, imbued a little more with these virtues and a
little less with the easy pop psychology of self-indulgence or a poorly
differentiated spirituality of following desires as a clue to God’s voice.
Concluding comment: Remaining
Catholic
So my thoughts turn a different
direction, as I think about how I can participate in the repentance needed at
the level of the entire community. First, some judiciousness of speech may be
called for. When we speak, we never know whether our listener is a past victim,
or even a past perpetrator. This might temper confident assertions from outside
those experiences. Second and more stark: not one of us can know for certain
whether we may, in the future, through conditions we cannot foresee, become
either a victim or perpetrator of sexual exploitation, abuse, or even assault.
Perhaps each one of us, at least us men, might pause, then, lest he stumble
next into temptation in the midst of our self-righteousness. Who can be sure
that he would not yield even more catastrophically under sufficient temptation?
Did not the Lord advise us to pray, “Put me not to the test” and “Deliver me
from temptation?”
It has been said that bad men do what
good men dream. Any good therapist, or spiritual contemplative, upon
introspection, can identify in himself the same impulses and desires that bring
to ruin some men who take advantage of adult, adolescent, or child victims
under their care. But some contain or appropriately channel their desires,
though not always without some interior anguish and soul searching. I certainly
can see in myself, with introspection, over the years, serious temptations from
which I was nonetheless delivered. “Put me not to the test” is a very real
prayer.
So, after we have expressed our
outrage, and insisted that church leaders do more, and pushed for reforms in
the seminary, and moved to support victims of abuse, let us look to ourselves,
to our own exploitative desires, at our own yearning for gratification, at our
own lack of deeper ethic, and remember that we all are one, and so pray that we
be not the next to fall, and that fewer fall tomorrow than today.
And let us think about why we are in
the Church.
I am often asked, in the face of all
this, why do I, like Carretto, remain Catholic? Here I have been talking about
the ugly side of the church, whose leaders are rarely saints. Carretto said it
all, in some ways. But I’ll elaborate, because it seems to me that efforts to
“evangelize” afresh as in the latest catholic efforts, don’t do justice to what
is great about Catholicism.
I’ll name these things briefly: the
documents of Vatican II, the mystical and intellectual tradition including the
Eucharist; and the modern saints and martyrs.
First, look at the documents of Vatican
II. The church has struggled to live up these ideals, but has done better than
it gets credit for. They documents are impressive to say the least. The
Catholic Church leads all religions in its affirmation of other religions, and
its search for ecumenism; in its embrace of science; in the centrality of its
emphasis on justice for the poor. It is even, slowly, learning to oppose
war—imagine that! Yes, it has got the thing right in terms of vision, and now
needs help to realize its own transformation. In these articulations, its
vision and its ethic exceeds anything secular society has to offer.
Second,
has
anyone today truly appreciated the depth of Catholic spiritual tradition? It is
as deep as any, perhaps the deepest in the West, and certainly unsurpassed. It
is woven of both a way of experience and way of life, and of a way of thought.
Saint Benedict, a great founder of our spiritual traditions in the Mideast and
in the West, and himself drawing in depths that preceded him, explained how to
live as simply as anyone. Saint Paul can be plumbed endlessly for the depth and
profundity of his mystical vision. Saint Irenaus, an ancient Bishop of the
early Church, gave us the greatest vision: that God became human so that we may
become God—the entire theology is embodied in that simple and profound formula.
That formula embraces the highest possible vision of human potentiality, joy,
creativity, and fulfillment, and holds out Christ as the road to that end. Saint
Augustine laid out not only mystical beauty but the foundations of our thought,
of the breathtaking possibilities of interior transformation as well as
societal transformation that have energized society for centuries. In medieval
times, Saint Francis, arguably the greatest man of the West, demonstrated a way
of life and unity with God that remains pure and beautiful today. Two centuries
later, on the eve of the Enlightenment, Saint John of the Cross did the same,
showing us how God works in the soul marvelous change through prayer and faith,
showing that it’s profoundly real. No contemporary story of inner
transformation can equal Saint John’s vision. Saint Ignatius taught a further
way to interior strength and discernment. One can plumb these riches for a
lifetime.
And they are only the
beginning. Thomas Aquinas, while limited in his insights on sexuality and on
women, still remains the towering thinker of the past 1000 years, and his
understanding of human life guides one of the most solid, well thought out
systems of thought in existence, helping us understand the unity of truth and
laying the foundation for Catholicism’s embrace of science, perhaps even
helping to set the philosophical stage that encouraged the rise of science,
which is unique among world religions (and poorly appreciated as the Galileo
affair leads many to conclude the opposite), and which through modern thinkers
like Mauritain, gives Catholic philosophy of the person, of conscience, and of
human dignity a profound anchor that is timeless and enduring and ever a
challenge to the shallower side of our contemporary culture.
More recently, in the
past century we have a continuation of this grand tradition and vision of human
life on earth. For example, Teilhard de Chardin was among those who, despite
his being outside the mainstream, has laid the foundation for our understanding
of the unity of human life with all of Creation’s unfolding. His explanation of
the Eucharist as a re-enactment not only of our own transformation but of the
transformation of all of the Universe as it is indwelt by God remains the most
spectacular I have heard. It brings to mind that the Eucharistic sacrament
itself, as a sign and symbol and enactment of communal solidarity, with one another
and with the Savior and with all humanity, has an interior transformative power
known to many in the pews.
I will dare to add Simone Weil, arguably
among the bravest and most penetrating thinkers of the 20th century,
who I claim for Catholicism because that was her love and sensibility and who
took solidarity so seriously she shamed the Church for its cowardice. Dorothy Day, whose life of dedication to the
works of mercy testifies to the fundamental “rightness” as well as
countercultural radicalism of Catholic life well-lived. Thomas Merton, who
typifies the Catholic spirit of embracing all truth, of unity among mystical
traditions, and of the struggle for peace, continues to inspire thousands of
people of all faiths today.
Third,
contemporary
Catholic spirituality is dynamic. It is uniquely dedicated to justice for the
poor and marginalized, and I am led to suspect that we Catholics continue to lead
the world in martyrs dying because they join with and stand up for the most
oppressed and forgotten people all over the world. Christian martyrs,[13]
many of them Catholic, are again and again killed, in colonial Africa,
communist China, modern Brazil, modern El Salvador. Their numbers are added to
others in modern times killed in Spain, in Nazi Germany, in Israeli-occupied
Palestine, and the United States. Just in my lifetime I have been moved by the
sacrifices of many of these. Names like Rutilio Grande, Ignatius Ellacuria,
Dorothy Kazel, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Stang[14]...They
died just as Christ did, killed by authorities who do not want a message of
love and dignity, a message of the Good News of God’s indwelling love,
spreading among their huddled masses, and who hate those who, because they see
Christ in them, try to protect their victims.
So
the best of the Catholic tradition offers a most excellent path for me. While the hierarchy
bungles and fails, confuses, and wanders in the weeds, the people continue to
do good, the spiritual masters continue to emerge, and the struggle to live a
holy life continues afresh. It’s this church I want to be part of, not the one
of clueless bishops, defensive money grabbers
and power brokers. For the sake of those who live it as it was meant to
be lived, I stay near, and pray for the salvation and renewal of all that is
broken in this terribly broken institution as it struggles to recover its own
beautiful message and tradition.
[1] For
one discussion of the 2014 UN report, see http://ncronline.org/blogs/faith-and-justice/un-committee-report-vatican-abuse-missed-opportunity).
[2]
For documentation of sex abuse claims,
settlements, and outcomes see http://www.bishopaccountability.org/. As of July, 2013, it asserted that over $3 billion
in settlements have been paid out by the U.S. Catholic Church to some 5600
claimants, including allegations involving between 5000 and 10,000 priests
(there are over 100,000 priests in the U.S. alone). Attorney fees were 40% of
the payments, meaning that attorneys have grossed ~$1.2 billion and
victims granted ~$1.8 billion in the U.S.
Many Catholic dioceses have sought bankruptcy protection and the church has
sought to respond responsibly in many ways. According to Wikipedia (accessed July
2013): “According to Catholic News Service by 2008, the
U.S. church had trained 5.8 million children to recognize and report abuse. It
had run criminal checks on 1.53 million volunteers and employees, 162,700
educators, 51,000 clerics and 4,955 candidates for ordination. It had trained
1.8 million clergy, employees and volunteers in creating a safe environment for
children. In June 2002, the United States Conference of Catholic
Bishops (USCCB) unanimously promulgated a Charter for the
Protection of Children and Young People …[including a] zero tolerance policy
for sexual abuse. The USCCB instituted reforms to prevent future abuse by
requiring background checks for Church employees. They now require dioceses
faced with an allegation to alert the authorities, conduct an investigation and
remove the accused from duty.” However, confusion remains profound. For
example, one Catholic archdiocese web page encourages past victims to come
forward for support and counseling, but advocates (personal communication,
source protected) allege that by accepting support, victims may weaken their legal
position if they later seek financial compensation. Many victims remain unsure
who or what to trust.
[3]
For a summary of scientific
psychological findings, see E. Loftis and K.Ketcham, (1994), The myth of repressed memory: False memories
and allegations of sexual abuse, New York, St. Martins Press). That legal investigations have substantiated some
80% of the allegations against priests is documented by www.bishipaccountability.org (citing a 2004 report commissioned by the U.S.
Conference of Catholic Bishops.)
[4]
The problem is not homosexuality. Yes, the most
publicized abuse was homosexual pedophilia, and yes, the seminaries’ past reputation
for homosexual activity, has turned men away from the priesthood, as vocations
continue to decline. The problem even so is not sexual orientation, but misguided
sexual expression. Psychologically, a gay man should be as fine a priest as a
straight man—indeed, many fine priests prove this.
[5] See Michel Foucault, Histoire
de la sexualité (History of Sexuality), 1976/1984, for definitive analysis of the many-layered relations between
sexuality and power.
[6] I bypass a literature, going
back at least to S. Freud, arguing whether sexuality should be sublimated or
expressed; I simply assert that as a practical matter, some sexual urges
require suppression, sublimation, or both.
[7]
According to http://www.bishopaccountability.org/, accessed 10/25/2014, which
cites The Nature and Scope of the
Problem of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Priests and Deacons, by Karen Terry et al., prepared
by the John Jay
College of Criminal Justice (Washington DC: USCCB, 2004) and the Supplementary Data Analysis published by the same authors in
2006.
[8]
I do not pretend to be a sociologist but books have been
written debating this; for one essay see this book review
http://www.nytimes.com/1996/07/28/books/if-it-feels-good-don-t-do-it.html?src=pm
[9]
Attributed to Frederick Perl, but I need to verify this: “I do my thing, and
you do your thing. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and
you are not in this world to live up to mine. You are you, and I am I, and if
by chance we find each other, it’s beautiful.”
[11]
Foucault, cited earlier,
challenges the assumption that sexuality was repressed during that era. Yet, it
can be admitted that church teachings about sexuality were narrow and left
little room for a healthy, integrated understanding of sexuality. Catholics of
that era were taught that many of their sexual feelings were sinful. See
discussion by Margaret A. Farley, Just
Love, A Framework for Christian Sexual Ethics, 2006.
[12] Freud,
Sigmund: Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Basic Books 1962,
first published in 1905 and revised several times thereafter. His frank essays changed
discussion of sexuality in the West, but are caricatured as supporting
permissive and free expression of sexuality. The reality is more nuanced.
[13]
A martyr can be defined as anyone killed for professing
their faith. By this definition there may be a million Catholic martyrs in the
20th century (see Robert Royal, Catholic Martyrs of the
Twentieth Century, Crossroad Publishers, 2000), many of them killed in Nazi
Germany, communist Russia, Communist China, Spain’s civil war and imperial
Japan. But Catholics are not alone here. People have been killed for their
religious beliefs in large numbers in the 20th century, including
Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Christians. Here, I am focusing on a
specific subset of martyrs who were killed specifically because they went
peacefully among the poor, denounced and opposed those who were oppressing
them, and preached to the poor that God was with them, bringing the poor hope.
While probably unfairly to spiritual heroes of other traditions, I see these
ordinary men and women as a uniquely Christian kind of martyr, one that
specifically follows Christ in close detail.
[14] I want to claim Rachel Corrie,
who was killed by an Israeli Army bulldozer while trying to interpose herself
in front of the home of Palestinian friends whose house was being demolished.
To eyewitnesses it was obvious murder, but the driver insisted he did not see
her and he was released by an Israeli military court. She was joined with peace
activists in Palestine, many of whom have been Catholics, but I do not know
whether she was Catholic. My Catholic-worker style friends with the Michigan
Peace Team, led by Peter Dougherty and others, continue to lead groups of
Catholic workers and others to the occupied territories in Palestine where they
attempt to be nonviolent barriers between violence prone groups.
