American bishops shocked the world in mid-June by adopting new rules on child-abusing priests: they won’t be allowed face-to-face contact with parishioners, but won’t have to be expelled from the priesthood, either. It’s hard to follow the meandering scandal, but one thing that never seems to change is the hypocrisy of the Catholic Church. Here, , a writer and campaigner with OutRage!, looks at the Church’s four cardinal sins.
Hypocrisy, dishonesty, denial and subterfuge – these are the reasons the Catholic Church is in such a mess when it comes to the issue of increasing allegations of child molestation directed at priests. Whose hypocrisy? Whose dishonesty? Whose denial? Whose subterfuge? Their own, of course.
Hypocrisy first. The Catholic Church has had a great deal to say about the sexual relations and sexuality of others. It has spoken out against premarital sex, divorce, contraception and even masturbation. It has attacked gays and lesbians. It has interfered in the sex and relationship lives of millions of people; yet, it has turned a blind eye to the increasingly louder accusations of sexual misconduct in its own ranks.
The Church dogmatically requires that gay and lesbian Catholics remain celibate, yet its own clergy – who have taken a vow of celibacy – seem unable to do so themselves. Human beings are naturally sexual. The only result of an attempt to deny this nature is mental illness. This is one of the reasons that many priests ultimately find unhealthy, abusive and twisted outlets for their sexual drives.
Recent reports in the American press have centred on revelations that Cardinal Edward Egan allowed several priests to resume working in communities even though they had been repeatedly accused of sexual misconduct.
Dishonesty next. The cases were never referred to law enforcement agencies. The priests were instead referred for psychiatric treatment. However, several leading psychiatrists have testified in the media that Cardinal Egan withheld information about the accused priests from them – including information about earlier complaints of sexual abuse. Further, it seems that medical evaluations were deliberately, according to a Dr Harold Schwartz, chief of psychiatry at the hospital the priests were referred to, “misconstrued in order to return the priests to ministry”.
Another psychologist, Dr Leslie Lothstein, agrees with Schwartz. He says that Church officials “frequently ignored doctors’ recommendations” and allowed abusive priests to go back to work.
What of denial? Perhaps the root of this runs much deeper. The Catholic Church’s insistence that priests remain celibate seems to be one of the chief reasons why those who are terrified by their sexual thoughts are attracted to the Church in the first place. As a New York Times journalist, Maureen Dowd, points out: “In a weird way, celibacy italicises sex and installs an obsession with sex at the very heart of the identity of the priesthood.” Dowd highlights the fact that the one thing the Church can do to save itself – shedding its dysfunctional, all-male, all-celibate culture – is “the one place it’s unwilling to go”. The denial runs to the very heart of the Catholic identity.
So to subterfuge. How does the Catholic Church deal with the problem? Cardinal Egan’s solution until now seems to have been creative paperwork. The Pope himself, humiliatingly forced to address the issue, decided to do so in riddles – and in Latin. “The Holy Father” referred to child-molesting priests as “our brothers” who have succumbed to “mysterium iniquitatis”. In English that means “the mysteries of evil”. In plain language, we can only guess!
So who is to blame according to the Church? Why, we are! It is “today’s culture of pansexualism and libertinism”, apparently. Because these priests are “of this culture”, the Vatican would have us believe that this abuse occurs. We are all sinners, they remind us, and must all do penance. What they don’t explain is why such a high proportion of the sexual abuse of children is found in the Catholic priesthood, and why these allegations – for decades, if not centuries – have never been adequately dealt with.
What happens when the Catholic Church finally decides it needs – publicly – to take action? It decides that the best way to set up a smokescreen is to burn the queers at the stake. Relying on tired old social prejudices that link homosexuality to paedophilia, it has now announced new measures to screen out gays and HIV-positive candidates. Its answer to solving the problem caused primarily by the celibate closet is to build a bigger closet.
Bottom line? It is not gays, lesbians, liberals or secular society who allow this abuse. It is not the people who have a healthy and open view of their sexuality who cause the problem. It is an unnatural, male-dominated cult of celibacy and secrecy – called the Catholic priesthood – that makes monsters.
In the weeks that followed the breaking of the story, the Pope has again attacked gay people. In a recent letter designed to encourage Catholics to attend private confession, he warned that “habitual sinners” should not expect to be forgiven. Theological experts believe that this references gays, lesbians and divorced people who remarry in particular. It refers to people who have a lifestyle of sin, rather than those who occasionally transgress. In effect this means that (in Catholic terms) child-molesting priests have a greater chance of forgiveness than do gay people living in relationships or people who remarry after divorce.
Step forward American “investigative reporter” Michael S. Rose, who in a new book claims to reveal “how seminary ‘gay subculture’ and its ‘heterophobia’ drive away healthy heterosexual men”. More proof yet that gays and lesbians remain the convenient whipping boy for straight society and the Church’s ills and shortcomings: breakdown of marriage and family life – blame the homos; terrorist attacks on America – blame the homos; Christian priests abuse kids – blame the homos ... It’s all getting a bit much.
While the public wrestles with the evasive language, the libel and the propaganda, the Catholic Church – internally – has sprung into action to address the problem by asking God to help clergy “live out our baptismal call to holiness”. Since God doesn’t exist, it is hard for the rest of us to have any faith that this is a satisfactory solution.